CRAVE entrepreness Gabrielle Bernstein is an author and motivational speaker in New York City. Gabrielle took time to visit with CRAVE about her new book Spirit Junkie!

CRAVE: Did you have any inkling that you’d ever be a motivational speaker?

Gabrielle: It’s funny. I was always very theatrical. I went to theater school in a conservatory program. So it was very comfortable being on a stage and presenting ideas. I was uncomfortable acting, because I didn’t like being something that I wasn’t, but I knew that there was this need to present. Even when I was adolescent, I was a natural leader and it was very, very thrilling for me to rally people around an inspired idea. When I was in my 20s, I was running a public relations business. I would still have this intuition that I was going to be a motivational speaker, a coach and an author. I had this psychic hit that that was the case. I would be at after hours partying, doing God knows what drugs and drinking and be just a mess, telling strangers I was going to be a motivational speaker. It was this voice inside of me that was like, ‘You’re going to do this,’ but I didn’t know how.

CRAVE: In your new book Spirit Junkie you talk about how you hit a bottom and had to shut down your Sex in the City lifestyle. Why was that lifestyle no longer fulfilling to you?

Gabrielle: By the time I was 23 or 24, that world was no longer glossy anymore. I was really, really disenchanted with the nightlife scene in New York. I had spent years looking for happiness “out there” – in a pair of shoes, a boyfriend, getting past the velvet rope at some fancy nightclub. I learned the hard way that none of that worked. By the time I turned 25 I hit a huge bottom and had to surrender to the fact that true happiness had to come from within. This was when I shut down my outward search, turned inward and surrendered to a life as a full-on Spirit Junkie.

CRAVE: Your first book was called Add More ~ing to your Life has served many people seeking happiness. Can you tell us more about what ~ing actually is?

Gabrielle: ~ing stands for inner guidance. It is the voice of our intuition and our inspiration. The loving voice that guides us to forgive, release resentment and choose loving thoughts and actions. We all have ~ing – we just forget to call on it. My book Add More ~ing To Your Life is designed to help readers bulldoze negative thoughts and reconnect with their inner guidance system.

CRAVE: What is different about Spirit Junkie as compared to Add More ~ing To Your Life?

Gabrielle: I often say that Add More ~ing To Your Life is like an appetizer. It makes you hungry to be even more spiritually fed. Spirit Junkie is the big meal that will totally fill you up! (fyi: I have chills as I respond to this question…) I love this book so much! Spirit Junkie is a memoir style guidebook. This book is based on my story of how spirit has been intervening in my life from adolescence the present. I share how I spiritually recovered from drug addiction, love addiction, food addiction, work addiction … you name it. Through my own personal recovery story I teach the reader how to do the same. This book offers a spiritual solution for all problems. My hope for this book is that it will be the conduit through which I share the beautiful lessons I’ve learned as a student and a teacher of spirituality.

CRAVE: Tell us the most important lesson you’ve learned throughout your spiritual journey?

Gabrielle: The most important lesson I’ve learned throughout my spiritual journey is that true happiness comes from a connection to spirit. This connection is unique for everyone. It’s our job to be willing and surrender so that we can cultivate a spiritual relationship of our own understanding. When you have spirit in your life you feel complete, whole and inspired. You know the Universe has your back.

CRAVE: We often hear you tweet and post that you’re “the happiest person you know.” This is a bold statement. How do you maintain this happiness?

Gabrielle: As you’ll read in Spirit Junkie, I wasn’t always a self-proclaimed happy person. I was quite the opposite. But because of my steadfast journey inward I’ve connected to true inner peace. I maintain this peace and happiness through a daily spiritual practice. I often say that there isn’t a spiritual part of my life – it’s just MY SPIRITUAL LIFE. My happiness maintanance comes in the form of daily prayer and meditation – a moment-to-moment practice of forgiveness and a daily inventory of my actions. I have also chosen a life of sobriety, which truly keeps me straight and connected to spirit. I no longer need drugs or alcohol to make me feel good. I just feel it…

CRAVE: Your work focuses on expanding the spiritual lexicon for the next generation. How do you do that?

Gabrielle: As a teacher of A Course in Miracles I’ve been guided to teach metaphysics in a way that my student can jive with it. When the teacher is ready the students will bang down your door, this was the case for me. My students came in the form of people much like myself – a new generation of seekers looking for true happiness – knowing there had to be a better way. Therefore I must speak to them in a language that they’ll dig. And most importantly a language that is authentic to me. This new spiritual lexicon uses words like ~ing to refer to inner guidance or Holy Spirit — and Spirit Junkie to refer to oneself as a spiritual person. Making this work hip and relevant is a huge part of the gig…

CRAVE: How do we find out more about you and your work?

Gabrielle: For my weekly vlogs and free meditations you can click here and I’m in the CRAVE NYC Guide. Get Gabrielle’s book here!