What steps do you use to move forward out of stress to success or from victimhood to victory? That is today's exciting topic with an expert and author Edwige Gilbert, who was born in France and grew up there under her grandmother's guidance. Before joining her parents in New York. She struggled with shyness and low self-esteem, which led her into a lifelong study of seeking joy, self-confidence, and balance of mind, body and spirit. What she learned during this lifelong journey makes for an exciting interview and two interesting books. The “Fresh Start Promise” and “Victim to Victorious”. I am thrilled to share our discussion with all of you today, as we call it in with Dar and Edwige. Call in stress, moving to success and mind transformation …. Before we dive into our topic of moving from stress to success, please tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got into this work.
- So my name is Edwige Gilbert, I am French, I was born and raised until the age of 20 in the south, so friends on the French Riviera, in a place everyone knows has the Cannes Film Festival. And I was raised by an overbearing grandmother. And the reason for that is my parents were having a very tough time in America, as they left to make a new life for themselves. And so they put me in the care of my grandmother. And she saw me and it was completely understandable as a fragile child needed protection. So anytime I would venture to do something new, she would stop me and say you can't, and eventually would do it for me. So you can picture me growing up without an ounce of self-confidence and very shy, very, very uncertain of my existence on this planet. Therefore, I escaped in my 20s and wanted to be reunited with my parents who lived in New York City. So imagine from this little town named Ken, maybe 300,000, inhabitants to the Big Apple, I freaked out. And in order to seek refuge and turn my strengths into strengths, I discovered bagels and brownies. And I don't recommend you go on this diet. Because over a six months period, I gained 30 pounds, and being a French woman, a French woman was supposed to be thin. There was a book that was written on this topic. “French Women Don't Get Fat.” I had to find a way to regain not just my body but myself and the voice of grandmother was still in my head. Every time I would try something I could hear or say you can't. So I went on a quest to find my way. And I study, I study I study. Keep studying today over 30 years of studying and acquiring certification and your linguistic programming NLP as they call it, changing the way you think the way you talk affects your nervous system, your behavior and emotions. Then I studied yoga, I studied meditation, studied cognitive therapy, I became a counselor in substance abuse. I also became a personal trainer, nutritionist. I mean, I really wanted to be able to cover my mind, body and spirit, how can we find a way to be healthy, to be joyful from the inside out, not just the way I was doing, from just my look, as a French woman. So voila, in a nutshell, and this got me to want to write a book to share my experience with other people that if I can change my life, by the way, I lost the 30 pounds and never gain it back. And to this day, never worry about my weight because my mind has been programmed to stay in the place that I chose and enjoy to be and this is an example of being able to transform anything you want using the power of you! So I would love to stop here or maybe by telling them also that I published two books. One is called “28 Days to Make a Fresh Start.” And I made a smaller version of that same concept, most recently, in a book called “Victim to Victorious” that is dedicated to the survivors of human trafficking, sex trafficking, child labor, child marriage, and spiritual abuse. Thank you, Darla.
Wow, thanks so much for sharing your story in your escape to the Big Apple
- Not like I thought it would be
Yes, I bet not. And I love how you immersed yourself in just such a large multitude of different healing modalities and ways to heal, and having more of a well-balanced life and making your own transformation. So I know that you consider yourself a transformational guide or a transformation guide. So what exactly does that mean to you?
- Okay, well, first of all, it sets me apart from being a coach. Everybody today is a life coach, wellness coach, some kind of coach, and the coach to me has this energy of being on a baseball field, soccer field, and he goes, do take, go run. And this is not what I want to do to people, I want to inspire them. And I think being a guide is showing them the way to transform their life, the way they wanted to make their life a dream for their life, some the life of the way, in something like that, because we're entitled to have a dream, and now just bear life and grind it through it and make a fist. Having flow and joy. And I think to this day, people forget that they go on a mission to achieve and, and they get results, but on the way of achieving they may be very stressed and lose their internal compass. So that's what I want to do. help that process.
I love that. And you mentioned that you're an author of two books, the “Fresh Start Promise” and then the “Victim to Victorious'' and I want our listeners to know that I am actually reading her “Victim to Victorious” book. And what a beautiful fresh start and 28 days program… it definitely is. So would you talk from your point of view as the author about writing these books and, and what they have for our listeners?
- So as I was telling the listeners and knew that it took me a long time on this journey to collect my data, and every time I would try something new, I wouldn't know just keep it and I would test it on me. And if it worked, I would keep it and if it didn't, I would discard it. So what I consider this book to be is a collection of tested proof and tests on myself and 1000s of people, especially in drug rehab, 28 days, that's where my idea came from of the 28 days process of transformation. But I believe that this book is the essence of all the other books out there. The things that if there is one book you want to read and I wish I had one when I started my journey would be this one because it summarizes. It's the grass of all the different soups that are ongoing out there. That show and it works and it's practical and you don't have to be a spiritual being to go on 1010 hours a day of meditation or, or retreat into silence to change. It's very practical. I mean, 10 minutes a day, and you're good to go. That's what I believe you to do. It's a big change who will experience 10 minutes? Wallah?
Yes, I can attest that it's a simple, easy to follow process and steps the way you've written it, and how wonderful to have a tested technique, and it's been tested on you. But now at this point, it has been tested on many others.
- Yes, they do. And its very simple Darla, it's a two-step process, clear and create. So we go from clearing the stress that we are experiencing, to developing awareness of what we're dealing with that is stopping us from being the best we can be. And these are techniques that I offer in my program. And then the Create, the exciting part is to imagine yourself the way you want to be. And that's what I did was very shy, as I told you. And I started imagining myself, how I would be far more confident. And I started looking around, maybe my first job was at the UN as a tour guide in my 20s. And I would always look at this one tall guy, observing what you would say, how he would stand, how he would sound. And I started to copy him. And journeys called “act as if you were”, I copied first. And then I integrated the pieces, and I became my own person. So that was my journey. But then I saw instead of copying a human What about if I imagine because we're creating our brain images, right? All our images, imagination, and images are so powerful. That's why movies are also powerful and create the feeling of the story on the screen. Same thing we can do. And as you know, my practice is called the screening room. So you put on your mind for a movie for yourself.
Yes, your own movie. I love that. And just to reiterate two steps clear and create moving us from stress to success.
- Yeah, all strengths or whatever you choose, you know, it's up to you. Remember, you are a unique individual with your own personal needs. You can custom design your own recipe and to work for you. And if it doesn't feel right, it's not because somebody said to do it, like you got to do it. Just make sure it feels integrated within.
Yes, your own recipe. When we talk about your own unique story. Could you share with us some case studies from your 28-day Fresh Start Program?
We'd love to hear.
- The first one is I became a counselor in a substance abuse facility in New York City 20 a day. And they call it the counselor, call it “ the revolving door”. That means some patients we know would come back over and over and over and repeat 20 days and they would relapse and return on average. And I had one patient who had lost everything he had lost his marriage. You have lost custody of his kids. And you had nothing practically and from that place of desperation we built up a story, a movie, how you wanted his new life to be once he understood how to manage his stress and the techniques that he could use from breathing technique. To what in my program is called extra holding fingers making sounds, which really can solve the effect of any stress in minutes. And I use it all the time myself. So you had all the techniques plus , we together created a story for his life in the screening room. And the story was, his most compelling image was, it would be victorious. When he could take his two kids, two boys and his wife to the park to Central Park in New York City. And he could see the place next to this, this pond where people are kayaking and paddle boarding, where I used to grow as a kid, and he had the table cloth on the grass, and he was running up to his kids and, and playing and smiling. He could hear the sounds he could hear the people around; it could feel the joy. And I kept in touch with this man for a very long time. And he was telling me he made it happen. He made it happen the way we had it programmed. And, and to this day, I still hear from him once in a while. And he's doing great. Now he's got grandchildren and is in recovery for many, many, many years. So that's one. The second story was referred to by a therapist. To help this young woman who lived in Manhattan as you know, most buildings are very high, high floors have high floors. And she had a phobia of elevators. So imagine what it did to her life in the city. She couldn't go in an elevator Oh, no. And when she came to my office, which happened to be on the 20th floor, I had to get her downstairs and hold her hand inside the elevator. But the miracle was when she left! Because I had her imagine what it would be like to be a warrior, like in the storybooks or the movies, Xena, the warrior princess, and she was holding a sword of fearlessness. And I had her imagine what you would wear and nothing can stop her. She's unstoppable and magnificent. And instead of thinking she was a worrier, how she came and told me I worry about everything. I told her about changing one letter and making the W of the war into a Roar… And she laughed. And she created this incredible shift in our brain. And that was really a spontaneous recovery. And she was healed. That was a miracle. And I will never forget it. She was the warrior. And she kept it going. So I cannot tell you that I had more like that. But that was 24 hours, not even one hour. But most of the time, it's 28 days to listen to what we decide you want. And it happens effortlessly. That's the beauty of this. Because you reprogram your mind with the screening room. Sometimes people listen to a recording that I make for them. And the three, and they listen to it before they go to sleep. And it just transforms the subconscious mind. So that's how I wanted to tell you how it works and my success stories. Two of them.
Wow, those were both great success stories. And I could just feel the energy and, and pride and fun of being their transformational guide in both of those cases. So thank you for sharing that.
- Oh, thank you for reminding me of this moment. Thank you.
Here's kind of a fun question. What do you consider to be your personal superpower? And why?
- Superpower? Wow, okay, thank you for that. Oh, that's a challenging and exciting question. I'm very enthusiastic. And I wasn't like that I was very negative. And I learned to always become aware of the first step when they make step three and create. Before you clear, you have to be aware of how you feel about the moment. All right, we're not saying oh, I shouldn't feel that way I feel this way. But realizing that a feeling is not who you are, you have a feeling of sadness, but you are a joyful, spiritual being. So the moment I realized that I have the power to transform anything I want, just by having the courage to be honest, and look at what's going on. And realize my mind is correct in assessing the situation, and the power of reflection. And you can always go to the other side, even in the worst moments that I have experienced of losing a very close one, I could always step to the other side, when I had enough to cry, you can go to the other side, and you can laugh. And that's what I think my gift is, but we can all have the gift by our awareness and our intention. Do we want to feel victimized? Does that serve you to feel victimized or not? And if I ask that question, of course, it doesn't serve me. I mean, maybe some people can find something good about it. But for me, just the word victimized is not empowering me and I want to have power to create the life of my dream. And without power. I have nothing. So that's what I want to share with you. Yeah, the question.
I know you're so passionate about helping others become the best version of themselves. Yes. That's beautiful. So could you please tell our listeners how they can take the next step with you? And where they can find like, I know you have complimentary downloads?
- Yes, yes, I do. I do. Yes, you can find the first. The first step would be to get my book. It's available on Amazon. And there are two versions, the Kindle and the book. And my next. My next project is to make it into an audio with my French accent. And it's going to be fun. Get the book, give me a call if you like and also I would love to hear from you and maybe guide you to see where you are and where you could be instead. And downloading is a very important download. It's an uncontacted leash, the three C's, which is the step one of my process, the clear. Three C's is simple meditation, mindfulness meditation. And it stands for calm for the mind, centered for the body and connected for the spirit. And its audio so you can hear it and listen to it. And there is also a little sample of my Dextra which is to clear emotions, negative emotions. So that's that and what your life directions are that comm is my website, which is being transformed right now, but you still can access the one that's there. The old one, and, okay,
Awesome! So all of this information will be on the show notes page of this podcast. So we'll make it really clear so that our listeners can follow along and I just am interested with her three C's that calm centered and connected, and I'm sure our listeners will be to,
- Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. And you know, what’s great about this is that I keep using it. And it's been such a long time now that I still use it. And to know you have techniques available, is taking away the anxiety of the unknown. And today in the world we live in with so much going on the pandemic and, and politics and gasoline prices, right? There is room for anxiety. But you also know that you can clear it so just that reassurance can make you embrace any challenging situation. That's how I see it.
Yes, if you have the tools and you can get them accumulated through the books that she has and through practice, right, so thank you so much for spending this time with us today. I just so appreciated this interview. And I know that we'll be connecting more in the future.
- Yes, thank you for your love, or your kindness and what you do in the world and for inviting me today to be with you. It's an honor!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai