1 l The Spiritual Debut Episode

Gabriella was launched on this mission by the Universe upon waking up from her nap (coma). This podcast is dedicated to fulfilling that mission, showing her up for her assignment. What is said 'mission? Who is this bish? What's she talking about and why even is she talking? Why is she even talking? Well, you gotta listen to her talk in this introductory debut episode to find out what Gabriella and 'Gabriella Rebranded' is all about. 

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Transcript

I feel like I owe the Universe a solid and I think the Universe had to wake me up so seriously to tell me “you are one of my messengers.” 

Almost dying taught me how to live. Being struck by a car left me in a three and a half week coma with 15 broken bones and 16 surgeries to complete, including brain surgery. However, I woke up from that coma in an even greater place than I ever saw for myself. How? The Universe will guide you out of the darkness and into the light if you allow it. Often, spirituality comes off as too high brown. I'm not about that. Welcome to the podcast that talks and teaches about it through the lens of humor. Together, we'll harness positive energy and use it to work with the Universe, all while giggling the entire time. Welcome to Gabriella Rebranded. When most lose some 

On October 17th, 2021, I was hit by a car. I had 13 surgeries, including brain surgery. I was in a three and a half coma. I had an over 99 % chance of dying. But I didn't die. In case you didn't already guess it, this is my voice that you are listening to and I am still here. And in fact, when I woke up from my three and a half week nap, I woke up in the best place in my life that I've ever been in. But it took a while, it took 20 months of having to finally hear the Universe for me to get to this place. And I would have never heard the Universe if it wasn't for my accident. And for that, I'm really grateful for what happened to me, which you wouldn't expect. 

You wouldn't think that a completely totaling experience, pun intended, would get you to a good place, but it did. I mean, you don't expect to be hit by a car, so why would you not expect to get to a great place because of something so terrible that happened to you? And the reason why I'm talking to you today is because from the moment  when I woke up, well, actually my first concrete thought that I remember is hoping to God that I wasn't texting while walking or jaywalking or doing something stupid that caused me to be a half this accident. That was my first thought when I woke up. I wasn't. I was crossing the street legally. But my second thought when I woke up is that this wouldn't all be for nothing, that this terrible thing had happened to me, the only way out is through. I had to get through it, but this wouldn't all be for nothing. And I was going to bleed positivity into every aspect of this experience that I could. 

And so many things happened to go right. There were so many Universe synchronicities that made me okay and made me still able to be here and still able to talk to you, that I feel like I owe the Universe a solid. And I think the Universe had to wake me up so seriously to tell me “you are

one of my messengers. And it is your job to take your experience and get others to finally hear the Universe.” Because there are so many things that we should all know, but you can only know if you're a trauma survivor and live through something as drastic as what I've been forced to live through. And I'm very excited to fulfill my mission of being of service to the universe and share everything that I learned with all of you. 

And I already share that with my friends and my family, but sharing it to the public that elevates what the Universe I believe wants me to do so much because the Universe wants us to be of service. And if our actions are of service, they'll all be supported by the universe. Basically, if you're not self -serving, what you want to do will be supported by the Universe. So, I was called out by the Universe. I was called out and it asked me to be of service and that is exactly what I am doing. 

The biggest reason that I feel like I have learned so much from this experience that other people aren't blessed to know and it is my job to share is because no one who has a brain injury, especially a TBI (traumatic brain injury) as severe as mine, feels like they have the same brain when they wake up. I don't feel like the exact same person that I was when I woke up. There are differences and it's some differences in the way we talk, in the way we act, but those differences are pretty minute and the main difference is just an innate feeling that I am not the same person. I thought it was biologically impossible to live as two different people but the field of neurology made that possible. So here I am living as Gabriella 2 .0 as I call her and Gabriella 1 .0 was fucking great.

She was fucking fun. She was a good time but she was also doing a lot wrong and Gabriella 2 .0 is trying to continue all the things she was doing right but correct a lot of the things that she was doing wrong. And I wasn't a bad person. Gabriella 1 .0 wasn't a bad person. I went to USC, I was a college graduate aspiring actor, originally raised in New York but living in Los Angeles and that's where my accident was and I had a lot of friends and I was, you know, a fine person, a fine person, but I wasn't very healthy. I alternated between not exercising at all and over exercising to an unhealthy extent. I drank too much too frequently. I alternated between starving myself and binge eating for years. I thought I was fat since I was eight, but I thought it was all on my head. Other people were seeing it since I was 10 and two boys in the fifth grade told me I was fat. I will never forget that. And then when I was 12, 13, I started taking action on it myself. And that action was alternating between starving and binging, alternating between over exercising and under exercising.

And on top of that, I was just a very negative person. I thought we were all here and that was that. I thought there was a lot of bad stuff in the world and that people did whatever they wanted and that was life. I thought there was no man in the sky that cared if you were a good person or not. I thought, you know, we were just meat sacks on a floating rock, which we are, but I thought that was it. And I didn't think there was anything more to it. I was raised Roman Catholic, but I decided like at 14 that I didn't really fuck with that and I don't fuck with the organized religion. And I kind of thought it was all for nothing. I thought the point of life was just to get through it. That's what I truly thought that the point of life was just to get through it. And I was okay not knowing why we were here. Or I thought I was okay, but I actually was it because I was pretty negative on the inside. So I wasn't actually okay not knowing why we were here, but I told myself that I was okay. But I wasn't. 

And nothing I was trying to do was specific to making my mark on the world. Nothing I was trying to do was specific to Gabriella. I was a white girl who wanted to be an actor. I was a dime a dozen and not a single thing that I was doing was unique in any way shape or form. I wasn't representing any marginalized community. I grew up privileged. I wasn't trying to change anything. I wanted to be an actor because Gabriella wanted to be an actor and it is important that we all do things that make us happy and it is important that you live for yourself. That's obviously very important, but I also think it is necessary to have a purpose and I didn't have a purpose at all. 

I didn't and I didn't think I was ever going to have one. I don't even think I was aware that I didn't have a purpose. I thought most of us did it and I thought that was that was fine or I didn't think most of us didn't. I just thought I didn't have one and I thought I was okay and I was normal. 

Then my accident happened. And now one of the first three words that people say when they meet me and they're like, you know, describing me to somebody else like, ‘oh yeah, Gabriella

curly hair, that one,’ they'll say positive, cheery, some variation of that. And before I got hurt, no one would ever have said that when they were describing me, but what my accident did for me is it kind of forced me to realign and re -center everything that was about myself because I had to learn to be a new person, 

which is crazy because I spent 23 and a half years getting to know this one person and then I woke up as a completely different person. And that is terrifying in a lot of ways, but I had to realign and recenter and figure out who I am now because I'm not the same person that I spent 23 and a half years getting to know. And that is terrifying. And for a while, it really, really, really scared me. 

And for 20 months, I just tried to get back to exactly who I used to be. I was trying every way to get back to exactly who that person was. I was trying to pursue the same things, I was trying to keep the same friendships or maintain the same friendships, but the reality was was that I'd completely changed. And my frantic energy in trying to have the exact same life and the exact same career and the exact same life trajectory, it made my brain, which was already struggling as I had, you know, julienned it a little bit. It made my brain even more frantic and I was just embodied in this frantic energy that caused me to have panic attacks a lot, that drove people away. Still occasionally have those but it's a lot rarer and none of my career things I was just trying to get back into acting, trying to get back into acting and nothing that I was doing was really working 

And then I sort of had this kind of universe epiphany at the LoveYourBrain retreat, which I'll talk more about in another episode. But at the love your brain retreat in March in Colorado in 2023, I have this sort of Universe epiphany of like, ‘okay, the universe is there.’ I realized that the Universe was there, I got a sign. It is supporting me. I was supported from the very beginning. I'm finally starting to listen. 

And what I was realizing was how I said when I woke up that this wouldn't all be for nothing. If I tried to be the exact same person, pursue the exact same career, want the exact same things, have the exact same goals, then it would have in fact been for nothing. It would have just been this annoying delay in everything that I was trying to do. And the way I was adjusting of just trying to get back to my life, but not adjusting anything about myself to flow with this new person that I've become was making it all be for nothing because by trying to get back and do the exact same thing, and it would have been for nothing. It just would have been a delay. It just would

have been like an annoying delay. That's all it would have been. 

And like, listen, I was sitting on my parents' couch with my eyes stitched closed for the third time with my dogs really sad for a very long time. Why would I want that all to have been for nothing? So I was ‘All right, something's got to change, I have to change, I'm not listening’ because I was never listening because I did have a lot of talents and skills that were very specific to Gabriella, but I didn't intend on ever using any of them. 

And one of those things is storytelling, which is kind of podcasting. It basically is podcasting, is storytelling, and with the goal of being an actor, of course, acting the storytelling, but it was reading someone else's words until I got to a place of enough success that I could write my own words. But until I got to that place, it was reading someone else's words and I've heard too much to continue reading someone else's words. And I think that's what the Universe was saying to me.

‘You have been through too much and heard too much and learned too much to keep trying to say someone else's words.’ So I was like, ‘all right, time to try to figure out what exactly it is I'm supposed to do.’ And I'm a Sagittarius rising. I'm an Aries sun, but a Sagittarius rising. And recently it was told to me that your rising sign resembles what it is you're supposed to step into to live as her highest self and the Sagittarius is the teacher. And for me, I think I'm stepping into my highest self by teaching about spirituality, teaching about trauma, not never in a professor academic setting. That's never going to be my vibe. But like in this sort of more colloquial setting, I feel like I am stepping in to my higher self of being a teacher of sorts so thank

you for allowing me the space to do that. 

And I've said now I've said that I started on this journey from the get go and I was supported by the Universe from the start and in the next episode I will do a whole sort of trauma porn episode

where I run down everything that happened to me, including it won't just be trauma porn, it will include everything and my move back to LA and whatnot and getting my things going to my Universe epiphany and like finding my space in the world. It won't just be a trauma porn episode, but I'll get more into everything that went through for me next episode. But just to give you a little snippet so you know, I'm not bullshitting you that I was launched on this journey by the uUniverse, there are a couple things that just happened to go right that there was something up there supporting me. There's something up there supporting me. 

And I used to say before I got hurt that there was something up there running the show. I just didn't know what it was. And to an extent, I still kind of feel that way. But now I definitely know more. And I personally feel that it is an energy and God, Universe, energy, whatever you want to call it, same thing. But I personally believe it's an energy that is uniting all of us. And energy is exponential. If you focus on the positive, you get more positive back. And if you focus on the negative, you get more negative back. But I think it's an energy. And it was an energy that is holding all of us and it was holding me when I got hurt. 

And here are a couple of fun facts that showed me that like from the beginning that, oh my god, there is something there. So from the time I got hit by the car till the time I was in the ER was a grand total of seven minutes. Like my accident to the time I was in the ER was a grand total of seven minutes, which I partially tore an artery. I would have bled out in just a few minutes.

So the fact that help was able to get to me that quickly, that is definitely a reason I am alive. That help was able to get to me that quickly. I partially tore an artery in my neck. I was bleeding out. Your girl was bleeding. I've seen the shirt that I was wearing. The police gave it to me soaked in blood, but it totaled seven minutes, which means help was at me and giving me blood transfusions or whatever they do in the ambulance, probably within a four or five. And that

definitely saved my life. And of that same artery, I told you, I only tore it partially. Had I torn it all the way through, I would have bled out in like two minutes, insane. I broke two vertebrae in my neck. One of those vertebrae was just cracked, it wasn't displaced. Had it been displaced, I would have stopped breathing and died. 

And had I broken it two millimeters more, I would be a quadriplegic, which obviously quadriplegics do incredible things all the time. Jesse Blower has been one of my greatest inspirations in going through life. He was a pro surfer who had a terrible accident that left him quadriplegic, and now he has a charity foundation called Life Roles On, which check out if it's incredible what they do for people with disabilities and paraplegics. It's absolutely incredible. But having to balance a brain injury and also being a quadriplegic, a brain injury is hard enough as is. I don't know, and I am so thankful that I have the use of my limbs and I'm so thankful

every time I go running and every time I work out, I am so thankful that I have my body and I'm so thankful that I'm still in touch with my body. And the fact that two millimeters separates me from not being in touch with my body is just, oh my God, something was holding me, something was supporting me to like two millimeters, not even centimeters, millimeters and how I just touched on working out that I guess brings me to my next point of who I am after my accident.

That is better in a lot of ways. I am someone who fitness is a major priority in my life and fitness is great for the brain. I'm going to have a whole episode on that, but healthy living is now a priority in my life. I eat healthy. I eat healthy consistently. It took my experience to get me to stop having disorderly eating and start loving my body and like loving it and have my emphasis on being strong, not on being skinny, which is what it used to be. Now fitness is something that's incredibly important to me, which requires eating more, which is insane. Um, And I love my body, I love my muscles and before my focus was on being skinny and it was on an aesthetic appearance and it led to this terrible way of living mentally and just not liking myself and not liking who I was which I wasn't happy with the external so I wasn't happy with the internal and vice versa and it just all sort of portrayed 

another thing that I would say I'm different since my accident is I know why I'm here. I have a purpose. I am here to spread the Universe's message and connect with people and students and all those living with disabilities to better their lives and to better all our lives and connect and really listen and see why we're here and bleed as much positivity into the world that I can, I am a better daughter. I am closer to my family than I was before. And I'm not as bitchy, which my Mom is probably going to watch this and say, that's not true, but I promise I'm not as bitchy with my friends. I do a lot more wholesome activities. I still go out once in a while, but I do a lot more wholesome activities.

Like one of my best friends and I have really become friends because of our beliefs and spirituality. And we really like the same spiritual teacher, Gabby Bernstein. A lot of my friends are from my gym, so we have a joint focus on fitness, and that is something that is very important to us. As I go through my weeks, I am more inclined to hanging out with small groups and having conversations, deep conversations. I intend on having one once a week. That's sort of my assignment for myself. And my focus isn't on being a typical 20 something in a metropolitan city, which is what it was on before I got hurt. 

And like, that's fine. Live your 20s. We should have them, live your 20s. But I know why I'm here and why I'm here and Is it necessarily to do that. For me personally, I have a really bad hearing sensitivity and I get overstimulated very easily. So being in loud places and loud bars like isn't very, it's not very fun for me because I can't really hear all that often what other people are saying and then I can't respond because it takes me a while to process in my brain. Now Now that I have a brain injury, I have a slower processing speed, what people are saying to me so that life consistently just doesn't really fit with the person I am now. And I think that is okay. 

And before when I was trying to fit into the same life that really, really, really upset me and it really bothered me because I really wanted to still be a part of the exact same life I was living and the exact same social life I had. And I was a little bit of a party girl. But now it is something that I feel has sort of intervened in a way because it's forced me to focus on these other things and these other pieces of life that I'm really happy to focus on. And I feel like it is my job.

I know it is my job to focus on these other aspects of life so that I can convey the message. 

And that is sort of my goal for this podcast is to talk more about what I've learned from the universe but not just to be me ego tripping. I mean I'm a student too. I am right there alongside you. I am not trying to say I'm a spiritual teacher at all yet yet. The job of the Sagittarius rising is to be a teacher and I'm hoping to spread the messages of what I've learned but I would never give myself the title of like I know everything there is to know. No, I'm very much still a student and I'm learning right there with you and every day I'm trying to be better. Every day we're learning and growing and every day I still have moments where I get upset and I still have moments where I'm not thinking 100 % positive all the time. I obviously still have those moments. 

Oh my god, October is the anniversary of my accident and every year, it's only been a couple years now, but three. I was just turned three this past October, but October is that it's been the anniversary, my accident, the first, second, and third have been terrible months for me emotionally and I'm not at all thinking the right space and I remember at year two I was like a manic the entire month and this past year, year three, I tried to sort of hold up and not really see people to avoid the mania but then whenever I did come out, I was really dramatic and things were not good. So October is still a month that's really hard for me. I'm hoping that this year, year four, I will have a good October. 

But all that being said, I'm not here to preach at you at all. I'm here to learn with you. I'm here to share all that I've learned. I'm here to talk to some really fucking cool people and see what they have to say because they know things that I don't know and together we can share so much of what we've learned about different forms of trauma and spirituality and different ways that the universe can support you in all aspects of your life. 

What I think that I, Gabriella, can specifically give, we have all, every human, had experiences in life where we feel like we've lost something major and we don't don't know how we're gonna come back from it. We've lost either friends. We've lost the job we've wanted. We've lost a promotion at work. We've lost the relationship. We've all had something that we've lost where we're like, I don't know how I'm gonna come back from this. 

And I lost everything. I lost my job. I lost my brain, which is the biggest thing, obviously. I lost my health, I lost a lot of friends, I was living in a different place before I got her and I came back to LA living in a completely new place. So I lost the place where I was living, I lost my acting community, I wasn't let back into my acting class. I lost absolutely everything. So I know what that feels like, I know what it feels like to lose everything and I'm really excited and happy that I get have the opportunity to share with everyone how to sort of come back from an experience that makes you feel like you've lost everything or lost something so crucial to your sense of self because I 100 % know what that feels like and I know it too well what that feels like and it took me a while it took me a while to get here. 

But I'm here and something that I learned at my brain injury retreat, which was kind of my part of my intervention from the universe, was it was in March 2023 in Colorado, LoveYourBrain. And I was at this point 17 months out from my injury and no one could believe it. No one could believe that I was less than two years out because of how that I was even willing to go on the retreat because a lot of people were telling me about how they did not think they were ready to be that social or they didn't feel like they had this self -confidence or they didn't feel like they had all these things that even enabled them to have the bandwidth to attend the retreat until there were

a few more years out. And when I went there, I was the youngest one by far. Most people were minimum four years out from their injury. There are people I met who are 20 years out. There are people I met who are 10 years out. I was the baby. And the fact that I had gotten there and had the bandwidth, usually you can only attend it for two years out. That's a requirement. They made an exception for me because in my interview, I presented as eager enough because I

am eager enough to go on the retreat. 

And that was definitely part of my Universe intervention where I was like, I feel like everything in my life is terrible. I feel like I have no friends. I feel very lonely. I don't have my job. My company,

very graciously, I have to include them. Castability, Jay Boyer, very graciously had me come back, but I was working like three hours a week. The most part -time position because I had like, I don't know, less than 60 % of a brain, like the most part -time position where I used to be the Head of Operations and I was like working this like beautiful like job with a fancy title at 23 and I was so happy. Now, I was like I answered emails like like that was it. 

So when I went in my retreat I was like’ I am miserable, I have nothing.’ I didn't even have my hair, my hair was falling out, I had extensions. I was like, I'm miserable. I have nothing. I've lost so many friends. The friends who did stay by me, you will always be in my heart and holding you so close because I know you witnessed some pretty brutal panic attacks. So thank you for standing by me. But I felt, I was like, I am so lonely. I can't do what the average 24 year old does. Like I was almost 25. I can't do what the average 24 year old does. I can't go out. I can't be in bars. I can't party. I don't have my job. I am lonely. I don't get invited to things. I don't know what I'm doing. I can't get back into acting. I don't have anything. 

And then I went on this retreat and they were all like, ‘no, you're in a great place. You're, you're doing everything. You're healing exactly as you're supposed to heal. You're doing everything right.’ What? And that was sort of what helped me wake up because I was like, I'm doing everything right. I'm doing, in fact, I'm doing really well. I am doing really well. I'm not just doing okay. I'm doing really well. Okay. So why? And this is me trying to figure that out. So thank you for coming alongwith me on this journey. 

And two things that I will end with is One thing that I said I'm going to do is I'm going to have my spiritual moment of the week in every episode and I am going to recommend a book a movie music I have terrible music taste, but whatever unless you like One Direction as well RIP Liam But I'm going to recommend something that I think you guys should check out and it will probably hopefully have a universe sort of message but it may just be something I like. I don't know who cares. Usually it will be at the beginning of the episode, but for this one it's gonna be at the end because I'm just telling you guys about it lol. 

So my spiritual moment of the week is that I am here in this lovely podcast studio and working with this lovely sound editor and video editor Nick and truly a crazy experience, how I got there and a kind of crazy experience, how I got here and truthfully a universe. Everything that brought me here to this space is I was going to record my podcast by myself. I got all my sound equipment and I was just going to do it in my house, which is fine. It's a great way to get started. But if you have the opportunity to use the studio, like use it. And that's what happened to me. My friend Denver, who helped me set up all the sound equipment to record on my own. And it's truly, he is actually what got me to start recording this podcast because he was like, “why are you waiting?” And I was like, “I don't know.” And I was like, ‘I don't know.’ And I kept making up reasons I was waiting. And Denver was like, “why are you waiting? Like do it.” And I was like, “okay,” so I finally did it. But after I recorded my first episode, this is me redoing the first episode, um, I went to a networking event that he was hosting at my gym, HEIMAT. And at this networking event, I was looking for a sound editor. That was the goal. And I met this woman, Rebecca Hanley, and I told her, “yeah, I'm starting a podcast.” And before like I even finished my sentence, she was like, “Oh, I have a studio space you can use." And I was like, "What?" And she was like, "Yeah, my client, Diego Torres -Palma,” Rebecca works in PR. “He has a really successful podcast, Startup to Storefront.” If you guys want to check it out, it's about startups. Obviously, Startup to Storefront to Startup. Obviously, that's what it's about." She brought me in for a meeting with him. He is the most lovely person in the world. He gave me so much advice about which route to take was starting my social media and my podcast and also planning things for the future, just totally incredible. And Rebecca introduced me to him and he also gave me the joy of hiring Nick as my sound editor and visual editor. So my spiritual moment of the week is that I am here because what are the chances that going to an event to hopefully find a sound editor leads to this. And it's great that I get to start my podcast in such a professional setting. It feels like a real thing. It feels like a real budget podcast, which is so great. So that's my spiritual moment of the week. 

And my recommendation for you for the week is to check out the Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. I will talk about that more during the entire duration of this podcast, but that is what truly started my spiritual journey. Before I got her, I was ‘white girl spiritual,’ as I call it, which means that I occasionally bought crystals and I said affirmations once in a while. I wasn't actually spiritual. I wasn't actually employing any teachings. I wasn't looking at my place in the world. I wasn't looking at how I was affecting things and I wasn't changing anything about myself. I was just living the way I was living and I thought if I bought my crystals and I occasionally remembered to say my affirmations that good things would just come to me. After I

got hurt, I went to a Reiki healer around the first anniversary of my accident, Tina Conroy, she's from my hometown in Manhasset, New York. And she told me to read The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. And I read that around the first anniversary of my accident. So October 2022. And that was really the start of it all. And that was me starting to be spiritual and starting to want to be spiritual and trying to do it the right way. But I was doing it entirely wrong.  And the LoveYourBrain or treat is what made me start doing it right. And we'll talk about that more later, but that's what I recommend you check out. The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. I recommend it to everyone I know. I've recommended it to so many friends when they're going through different things, whether it's an illness or just stressed about work or family trouble or whatever. I recommend them this book because it is truly powerful and it is truly the guidance of getting in touch with the universe. And if you are religious, I have friends who are very religious and they still really enjoy the book because I mean God, Universe it's all

the same thing, but yeah that is it those are that's my recommendation for you my spiritual moment of the week.

And I decided that how I'm gonna end this podcast like what my little sign off is gonna be is I always used to say my sort of catchphrase that a lot of people said because somebody else I have to give Andi Wong credit, she gave it to me when I was an intern at CAA and she, I have to give her credit cause I know she will come for me if I don't. But I used to say ‘win some, lose most.’ That's what I always used to say. It's hilarious. It was my Instagram bio for a while, but since having my little universe intervention and living in more positivity because energy is exponential and if you focus on positive, you'll get more positive back, and if you focus on negative, you'll get more negative back. And I was focusing on more negative for a while. For

20, 18, 17 months, I was focusing on more negative, and I was getting more negative

back. But then I started focusing on more positive, and now I get more positive back. So the phrase was ‘win some, lose most,’ but I reworked it to be whin most, lose some.’ So that is how I'm signing off:

Win most, lose some