World Leading Therapist: 3 Simple Steps To Remove Your Negative Thoughts: Marisa Peer | E154

1. 0:00 – 1:33

   Intro

   1. MPMarisa Peer0:00

      I'd been a therapist for 35 years. And I worked with millionaires and movie stars, and I realized they have the same problem: "I just don't feel enough." Britain's number one hypnotherapist. The founder of Rapid Transformation Therapy, bestselling author- ... Marisa Peer. People who are depressed have a very interesting belief. One is, "There's no cure, you know. It's genetic. And even if there was, it wouldn't work for me." Can you change that belief very quickly? Yeah. But you have to take a look at, where did this happen?

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:29

      How does one go about identifying which of these stories are the root cause?

   3. MPMarisa Peer0:34

      Well, I think the first thing is-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:37

      You must have also faced some pretty heartbreaking cases. Tell me about one that comes to mind when I say that.

   5. MPMarisa Peer0:44

      I think my saddest case was a boy of 14 whose father was hitting him with a belt. Nobody needs that. Oh, just excuse me for one minute.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:53

      No worries.

   7. MPMarisa Peer0:57

      It's no one's job to make you feel good. It's your job. And if you give someone the job of making you feel good, then guess what? You give them the job of making you feel bad. If you can give yourself the certainty you're looking for, instead of looking for it somewhere else, the shift isn't subtle, it's profound.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:16

      So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO, USA Edition. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

2. 1:33 – 8:18

   Your early years

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:34

      Marisa, first and foremost, thank you for being here. As you will know, I'm a big fan of your work. I included m- much of, sort of something really pertinent t- that you'd said in my book as well, and I think that's how we kind of came c- became connected. Um, you spend so long helping other people and understanding them. I wanted to start today by understanding you a little bit.

   2. MPMarisa Peer1:54

      Okay.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett1:54

      I want to go right back. I know that... So I did a little bit of childhood psychology as well.

   4. MPMarisa Peer1:57

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett1:57

      And that's- this is why your work i- is particularly resonant with me. But take me back to your childhood. I r- I read this, this quote you'd said, which I thought might be a good stage setter, which was, "When I was growing up, I struggled with the belief that I wasn't enough."

   6. MPMarisa Peer2:11

      Mm.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett2:11

      "This belief followed me through my teens and right into my 20s." So-

   8. MPMarisa Peer2:15

      Yeah, it certainly did.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett2:17

      So who was that child?

   10. MPMarisa Peer2:18

       Well, you know, I had an interesting childhood. Later, someone in therapy said, "My God, your childhood sounded absolutely crazy." But it wasn't crazy, but it was interesting. I had a very beautiful mother who was deeply, deeply unfulfilled. Beauty meant n- gave her nothing. She, she wasn't some- a woman who could stay at home and be a mother. I had a father who was deeply, deeply intellectual. He was a head teacher, and he loved his career. And it was interesting watching this strange... My m- my father loved his career. He helped kids every day. He gave mi- gave him something. My mother was totally unfulfilled, always ill, a little bit hysterical. And I watched that, and I remember thinking, "You know what? You have to have a great job. You've got to get a job that's compelling and engrossing because it protects you from the pain." It wasn't, "If there's pain." It was, "There's going to be pain." My parents' relationship was a car crash. But if you've got an amazing career, then you'll be okay. So I always wanted something engrossing and fulfilling. But my father was very interested in other people's children, because they were easier to work with than his own. So, it was certainly an interesting life. But I don't regret any of it, because it gave me the ambition to also think, "Wow, you can help people." My father used to always say, "Helping people is what life is all about," because it was for him. He wasn't very good at helping my poor mother, but that's okay. So it was ... And it w- but there were lots of elements of my life that were strange. So for instance, I felt different. I was the head teacher's daughter, and I went to his school. And I realized later, that is the bane of people's lives, to be different, because we're all hardwired from birth to find connection and avoid rejection. When you feel different, then that can be really, really strange. But it made me understand human psychology very early on, what it's like to be different, what it's like to not fit in, what it's like when it looks perfect on the outside, but it's not really like that on the inside. So it stood me in very good stead. I think my childhood was the perfect background to be a therapist.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett4:24

       And where did you, in hindsight, pick up the belief that you weren't enough?

   12. MPMarisa Peer4:30

       Yeah. You know, I remember being in my father's school, and he actually was my history teacher. He wrote in my history book, I think I was 11, I remember it to this day, he said, "Oh, this is amazing work. I had no idea you were intelligent." And I think he wrote that to please me, but I was not pleased. I remember thinking, "Wow, my father doesn't even know who I am." And so the not-enoughness came from living with a father who was invested in other people's children, living with a mother who was always in hospital, living with a brother who was very clever and went to pri- Both my sister and brother went to private school, and I didn't 'cause I wasn't the smart one. And my sister was the cute little, beautiful little baby. My brother was the first-born smart boy. And I just felt like this thing, this kind of freak, if you like, in the middle. But now I'm glad about that, because it gave me that, that understanding. But I did have one thing. I had a grandmother who really believed in me, thought I was a genius. And I remember thinking then, "That's actually all you need, one person." When I became a therapist, I'd worked with a lot of ... I always called them the lost boys, like 15-year-old kids who were so angry and they, they said, "No one believes in us." I said, "But that's not true. I believe in you, and you can believe in you. That's already two people." And I've always believed if you have one person to believe in you, your life can be amazing. So I always had my grandmother. She lived 300 miles away, but she really believed in me.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett5:56

       And at that age, what did you want to do with your life? Did y- did you have a hypothesis or a, a vision?

   14. MPMarisa Peer6:01

       So, I wanted to be an artist. I was very good at art. My- my daughter's now an amazing artist, but I wanted to be an artist. My family's like, "No, no, no, you can't be an artist. You can't go to art school. That's just for druggies and dropouts."

   15. SBSteven Bartlett6:13

       (laughs)

   16. MPMarisa Peer6:13

       I used to love illustrating, and I was always writing stories. Which is quite funny now, because I wrote stories and my mother kept them all. They were always about dysfunctional families and unhappy families. And that was so interesting that I wrote that, and now, of course, I write, I wrote... And that book's all about stories of unhappy people. So I always thought I'd be an artist, and my father said, "You should be a teacher like me. That would be amazing for you." So I went to teacher training college saying, "Oh, I'd love to be a teacher." But then I realized that I didn't want to be a teacher after all, so I left that and went off to work for Jane Fonda here in LA, which was much more fun. And I loved that. I went fully into the diet, weight loss, fitness industry. But even then, I realized how abusive that industry is, how cruel it is to people, how it tells them that your worth is entirely charged on the number on the scales or the number on the tape measure. And I saw working for Jane that- that it- it... You know, anorexia and bulimia are mental illnesses. Body dysmorphia is a mental illness. And they were trying to cure it with aerobics and living on protein shakes and diet soups. And so then I came across this wonderful guy called Gil Boyden, who was a hypnotist, and I trained with him and thought, "Well, this is amazing. I've got all these people I'm teaching aerobics..." In the 80s, it was a huge thing every day. And my class is wall-to-wall with anorexics, bulimics, body dysmorphics, exercise compulsives, orthorexics, which are people who only eat clean, organic food. And I thought, "Well, I don't even have to advertise for clients." And I didn't. And so then I had this amazing life teaching for Jane during the day, seeing clients in the evening. But then I got so busy, I had to actually stop working for her because I just couldn't cope with the, um, amount of clients that were coming through my door, because I'd found something that really fixed eating disorders. And that was such an amazing thing.

3. 8:18 – 10:58

   Your teachers & techniques

   1. MPMarisa Peer8:18

      And-

   2. SBSteven Bartlett8:18

      So you meet Gil Boyden when you... Gil Boyden, isn't it? When you go-

   3. MPMarisa Peer8:20

      Yeah, Gil Boyden.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett8:21

      When you got to LA.

   5. MPMarisa Peer8:23

      LA, yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett8:23

      And y- you talk about this individual being a really pivotal person in your life.

   7. MPMarisa Peer8:27

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett8:27

      He was a hypnotherapist?

   9. MPMarisa Peer8:28

      Yeah, he was.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett8:29

       And- and what was it about him and what he taught you that stayed with you?

   11. MPMarisa Peer8:32

       You know, Gil was one of the people I love the most. He broke all the rules. He swore like a trooper, he'd bang his fist on the table, but he was deeply, deeply religious, believed that God worked through him. He was just such a fascinating character because he was a street fighter from Philadelphia who worked with Sylvester Stallone and hypnotized him to write Rocky, and realized he was onto something and then developed this amazing school teaching hypnotherapists. And he so believed in it that he would guarantee that if he trained you and somebody sued you, he would turn up in court and defend you and pay all the costs, which stands to ph- ph- phenomenal belief. So I trained with him, and then I became a hypnotherapist, and I loved it. And then over time, he did ask me once if I wanted to, as he got older and retired, run his business. By then, I'd found my own method, my own technique. I always think that when you train to be a therapist, any kind of therapist, no matter how amazing your teacher is, and I now teach amazing therapists, but you have another teacher. Every client you see will teach you something profound and amazing. So then my own clients became my teachers and taught me so much. And they'd come back, "You know that one thing you did? That changed my life." "That one thing you said, oh my God, that was a game changer." So I started to collate the one thing, which is different, of course, for every client. They never all said the same thing. And then collating the one thing that gave them a stunning turnaround. I then created my own method, which I called Rapid Transformational Therapy. People say, "But that's not right. The words ʻtherapy' and ʻrapid' don't go together. Why? Well, it has to be long and painful." Who said that? If I turned up... I did turn up at ER once and broke my arm, and they didn't say, "Well, we've got to build a relationship of trust to heal you." I didn't go to my dentist saying, "You know, I've- I've got an infection here." They went, "Well, we need the trust, you see." And I always thought people in pain, emotional pain is no different to physical pain. If I've got a headache or a broken arm, I've got irritable bowel or blushing or I can't find love or I stutter. That's really painful. And I thought that therapy should be like going to the emergency room, that we should offer immediate help.

4. 10:58 – 21:36

   Stories are what cause us problems

   1. MPMarisa Peer10:58

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:58

      So mu- much of the, um, the underlying thesis about, you know, in your new book, and I guess behind your Rapid Transformational Therapy, is this idea that there's stories that are within us that are-

   3. MPMarisa Peer11:10

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett11:11

      ... from our childhood or whatever, and they are sometimes and often very stubborn stories.

   5. MPMarisa Peer11:15

      Mm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett11:15

      So I imagine, as you've said, the reason why people think it's hard for it to be rapid or quick is because those stories are so deeply ingrained-

   7. MPMarisa Peer11:22

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett11:22

      ... and stubborn and etched into us.

   9. MPMarisa Peer11:24

      And we make someone else's story our story. My mom always wanted a boy. I was the fourth girl. My dad wanted me to go into the family law firm, but I- I wasn't smart. And so I see two things a lot, someone else's story. My mom said, "Don't even trust your own shadow," but that's not your story. That's someone else's story. So the first problem is that we make somebody else's story. My teacher said I'd never amount to anything. It... That's not your story. My teacher said that to me, but that wasn't my story. But the second thing that's even more painful are the lies we tell ourselves.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett12:06

       Mm.

   11. MPMarisa Peer12:06

       And-The biggest lie is the, "I'm not enough. I'm not lovable. I don't matter." And what happens with small children is they come into the world and they, they don't actually have a lot of needs. They need to feel safe, loved, significant. They need to feel they matter. But when you're a small child, if your parents cannot meet those needs because they're alcoholics, they're mentally ill, they're doing three jobs, they're a single parent, they're stressed, or whatever it is, the child never stops loving them and they immediately stop loving themselves. "If only I was better, my mum wouldn't be crying. If only I was good, my dad wouldn't shout. If only I was something, my dad would see me at the weekends." And once they buy into that, "Oh, it's my fault," that becomes a lifelong sentence. But it's very easy to unpick that by saying to ourself, like, "Look, you know, you're looking at this through the filter of a five-year-old." One of my clients told me that she was walking with her mother in Ireland and her father's friend came up and he said, "It's a disgrace that you haven't given your husband a son. He'll never be a man, you know, because he doesn't have a son." What a strange thing for him to say, but this little girl heard that and thought, "Oh, I should have been a boy. My- I've caused both my parents this tremendous grief." And then she became very masculine. She worked as a fire officer. In fact, she was head of a fire crew. And she wouldn't wear makeup, she wouldn't let her husband put up a shelf, she had very short hair, and- and that was okay, except she said, "I feel very conflicted because I just can't be the person I want to be, and I feel I've got to do everything perfectly. And my husband and I have so many arguments, like, 'I want to drive the car. I- I'll pa- I'll carry everything.'" And just going back to remember that scene was a real aha moment, "Oh, I heard something at five, 'Your husband will never be a man because he hasn't got a son,'" that last charge should have been a son, but you see, she interpreted it with the mind of a five-year-old. At 35, take a look again, and maybe understand that you were meant to be a girl. Your father was thrilled to be a girl, and even if you wanted a boy, somebody wanted you to be a girl. So we see things with a filter of a child who's been on the planet for four years, what do they know? "I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. I, I was a disappointment." So looking at it again as an adult, you get the chance to say, "Oh, I see. I believed something then that felt true, but it wasn't true."

   12. SBSteven Bartlett14:46

       Can that change in beliefs be rapid, though? So say-

   13. MPMarisa Peer14:49

       Oh, yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett14:50

       ... in that, in that case that can be a-

   15. MPMarisa Peer14:51

       Really rapid.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett14:52

       Yeah?

   17. MPMarisa Peer14:53

       Yeah. I don't know if you read the case about Ryan the alcoholic-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett14:56

       Yes.

   19. MPMarisa Peer14:56

       ... whose father rejected him because he was gay, and he always felt so sad. He attracted men that were abusive to him. And when he, when I had him have an imaginary conversation with his dad who said, "I feel inadequate, and when I had a gay son, I just felt more inadequate. It's not you, it's me," he began to realize that he wasn't a broken person at all, but he'd had broken parenting. And I think I said that to him, "Ryan, you're not broken, but your parenting was broken. You're not flawed, but you had flawed parenting. But there's a huge difference. You are not flawed, but your parents," who were young, and his mother got pregnant, they weren't suited, "You had a flawed upbringing, but there's a huge difference." And then he was able to make his peace with that, and stopped drinking completely. He's never had a drink since. So if you think therapy is long, it can be like that (snaps fingers) . If you can look at a scene and reframe it and go, "Oh, I thought that, but that wasn't even true," then it becomes a game changer, and it can take 21 days for

   20. NANarrator16:03

       ... (laughs)

   21. MPMarisa Peer16:03

       ... it can take 21 seconds. If you can look at something and think, "Oh, I see. I thought that, but actually, that was an incorrect thought, and I can go back and correct an incorrect thought."

   22. SBSteven Bartlett16:15

       If at the, um, the crux of our- our lives and our behavior exist these, like, fundamental self-stories we've told ourselves-

   23. MPMarisa Peer16:21

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett16:21

       ... about ourselves, about who we are and about-

   25. MPMarisa Peer16:23

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett16:23

       ... where we are, significance in the world, et cetera, how does one go about e- even identifying, unless they have wonderful therapists-

   27. MPMarisa Peer16:31

       Mm-hmm.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett16:32

       ... how do they go about identifying which of these stories are the, um, r- root cause of the symptoms they're seeing in their lives, whether it's addiction, depression, anxiety, whatever it might be?

   29. MPMarisa Peer16:42

       Well, I think the first thing is- is, you know, just start to observe your thoughts. Do you have those what I call limiting thoughts? "I'm not enough. Who's gonna want me? I'm not lovable. No one cares about me." And think about the thoughts and then ask yourself a question, "Where did this thought come from?" No baby is born going, "Don't look at me. I'm naked, I've got no teeth, I've got milk sores, I've got these triple knees here, and I'm not enough."

   30. SBSteven Bartlett17:06

       Yeah.
5. 21:36 – 25:09

   People living in ignorant bliss

   1. MPMarisa Peer21:36

   2. SBSteven Bartlett21:37

      And it starts with that awareness that you described, right?

   3. MPMarisa Peer21:39

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett21:39

      And which is, I, I think is such a difficult thing for some people, for many reasons.

   5. MPMarisa Peer21:42

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett21:42

      I think some people live in this kind of self-defense state where they-

   7. MPMarisa Peer21:46

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett21:47

      ... they didn't, they, the awareness is too uncomfortable for them to even contemplate.

   9. MPMarisa Peer21:52

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett21:52

       You know, I'm sure you've seen this in your practice, where either people don't want to come-

   11. MPMarisa Peer21:55

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett21:55

       ... but when they're there, they don't want to go to certain places-

   13. MPMarisa Peer21:58

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett21:58

       ... in terms of they don't want to reveal certain things.

   15. MPMarisa Peer22:00

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett22:01

       They'd rather just ignore opening that-

   17. MPMarisa Peer22:04

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett22:04

       ... that box and live in, you know, a state of, I don't know, bliss.

   19. MPMarisa Peer22:10

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett22:10

       Naive bliss.

   21. MPMarisa Peer22:11

       Ignorance is bliss.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett22:12

       Yeah.

   23. MPMarisa Peer22:12

       I mean, there's, there's a story in there of a girl called Terry who lost two babies, died one at birth, one at a few weeks, and her two existing one had a congenital heart defect. And the first thing she said was, "Don't take me back. I don't want to revisit that pain." And I said, "Okay, I won't. I promise I won't." So while my job is to take people back, I call it being a good detective. Someone's turned up and said, "Well, I, I don't know why I keep sabotaging. I have no idea. I procras- I guess I'm just messed up because I sabotage every relationship. Every job I get, I procrastinate and I always get fired. And I don't know why. So I've shut myself away and I don't even want to look at that." But you can still go back and find it out, because in fact, Terry had a very functional heart, all it knew how to do was keep repairing itself. And she had a massive breakthrough just in a half an hour conversation because she understood that being numb, it's like you can't not feel, but she was living in a world of not feeling and it was exhausting. So I always think what I do wears three different hats. The first hat is what I call being a good detective. You're an investigator. You never say, "What's wrong?" You say, "What happened? Why do you feel like that? Why do you want to change? What would it look like to change?" I often say to people straightaway, "Tell me about your family." I've got three sisters. They'll say, "Oh, they're all great." It's just me. Or they might go, "Oh, they're all messed up." And then you know straightaway that something's gone very wrong with this parenting or something's just gone wrong with this child.So when you put your investigator hat on, and, you know, a detective will lay out images and look at them and go, "Look at that scene, that scene, that scene, that scene, that scene," and they work out what happened by looking at information, and a good RTT therapist is the same. We gather information. You have lots of a-ha moments, lots of ear prick up moments, lots of things that come up that you think, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna go here, I'm going to go there." And after you've done the investigating and found out, usually in minutes, why that person is the way they are, you then switch to almost being like a dentist, extracting all that toxic stuff, removing it, and finally, you become like a coder. It's like someone who's upgrading someone's software and you code in and wire in and fire in totally different beliefs. But the skill is doing it all at the same time. Many people go to therapy and just talk about, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? I don't know. Maybe I can find out." And others go and maybe just do suggestion therapy, about, "Let's give you a different belief." But in fact, you have to do all three seamlessly together because that's the perfect recipe for change. "I understand, I can let that understanding go, and at the same time, I'm gonna put in something completely different."

6. 25:09 – 26:28

   The Increase in mental health issues

   1. MPMarisa Peer25:10

   2. SBSteven Bartlett25:10

      Uh, you know, the... With all these, um, with a lot of the sort of mental health disorders, you know, depression, anxiety-

   3. MPMarisa Peer25:15

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett25:15

      ... et cetera, there's been a lot said about the- the recent and the just apparent increase in the amount of people reporting to have these-

   5. MPMarisa Peer25:23

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett25:23

      ... you know, illnesses. Um, do you believe that there has been an increase, and if so, what do you think has been the cause?

   7. MPMarisa Peer25:29

      I, yeah, I would say there's definitely been an- an increase in depression. You know, I've found in my experience, it's only my experience, that the major cause of depression are a couple of things. One, are harsh, hurtful, critical words that we say to ourselves on a regular basis. That is guaranteed to make you depressed. The second is being disconnected, and we have an epidemic of disconnection 'cause everyone is on their phone and their screen. We worked from home in COVID. Some of us are still doing that. We go to the store and we do a self-checkout. We go to the bank and we check out with a machine. So we are becoming disconnected, and human beings are wired for connection, not disconnection. And the other thing I find is a massive cause of depression is failing to follow your heart's desire, doing something 'cause, well, the family expect it, the pay is good, it's a solid job. So those three things, I think, are the massive cause of depression.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett26:27

      On that-

7. 26:28 – 30:50

   People putting themselves down

   1. SBSteven Bartlett26:28

      on that first point about people telling themselves negative stories, um, we'll all know people that are very self-disparaging.

   2. MPMarisa Peer26:34

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett26:34

      Is that... And- and it's interesting because I don't, I- I mean, I don't know where that originates from, but I know so many people that are incredibly self-disparaging.

   4. MPMarisa Peer26:42

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett26:42

      The first thing they'll say to you is, "Oh, I, sorry, I look bad today," or-

   6. MPMarisa Peer26:45

      I know. "I messed that up. I'm just a mess. I always fail. I'm so sorry," you know. They look in the mirror and they go, "Oh my God, look at me," or they go, "I'm gonna do this but it won't work." Where it comes from, funnily enough, is- is our- our tribal need, you know. We're still inside tribal people and we need to connect with a group. And so bragging, "I'm better than you, I'm smarter than you, I've got more than you," is disconnecting. And so people learn to connect by e- not having that tall poppy syndrome. We have to be the same, you know. Children at school bond by being the same. And I found many clients would say, "You know, my parents were rich or dirt poor. I was the only kid with glasses and I felt different, like being the head teacher's daughter." So it comes from there. So it's a strange thing that a few- 100 years ago, a few 100 years ago and beyond, being negative actually saved your life, looking for danger, looking for snakes, looking for lions, looking for weird people. You might... They do it because they believe it protects them from hurt and pain.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett27:51

      If they reject themselves first.

   8. MPMarisa Peer27:52

      Yeah, if they reject themselves first. "No one's ever gonna like me. See, I knew it. And now it doesn't hurt." But it really hurts. And so our job is to show people that no happiness is there. You might as well expect the best. You know, Muhammad Ali said, "I told myself I was the greatest before I even was. And then something amazing happened. I became the greatest." He could have said, "Oh, I'm not much good, me. I'm useless really. It's all a fluke." But he said, "I am the greatest," long before he was. And that was so good for him 'cause people think of him as undefeated, whi- which isn't true, but that's the idea of him because he told himself a better lie. And if we could only all do that, our lives would be so much better, mostly because the mind doesn't know or care if what you're telling it is true or false or good or bad. It just lets it all in.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett28:47

      It's like our th- as you say, you said our, you know, thoughts are actually blueprints, and I was thinking about them, about them as, like, they're- they are code going into a sat-nav.

   10. MPMarisa Peer28:55

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett28:56

       So if I tell myself, "I'm beautiful and I'm gonna be successful and I'm gonna get married," then my mind and my being will take me in that direction. Maybe even subconsciously it would... M- m- my actions will further me in that direction. I will say yes to things that are confusing-

   12. MPMarisa Peer29:10

       Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett29:10

       ... with that outcome. Um, and it really goes to show, doesn't it, the- the power of, um, you know, as you say, the limiting beliefs we tell ourselves 'cause we all say them. I- I've-

   14. MPMarisa Peer29:19

       Yeah.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett29:19

       ... gone through my life telling myself that, "I'm really unorganized."

   16. MPMarisa Peer29:21

       I know, yeah.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett29:23

       'Cause I'm in... 'Cause I grew up in a really unorganized home where my parents were never there, so everything was just a mess.

   18. MPMarisa Peer29:26

       Yeah, and, "I'm not wanted or I don't matter." You know, I was working with a kid a couple of years ago who was in the Chelsea junior team, Chelsea Football Club, and every day their coach would say, "You've got a 2% chance of getting into the main team playing for Chelsea, just 2%. You've gotta shape up." But you see, most kids when they hear that think, "Oh, I got a 98% chance of failing here. 2% is tiny." I said, "Listen, you've just gotta say, 'I'm in the 2%.' Someone else told me that their doctor said, 'You have a 20% chance of surviving cancer.'" Says, "That's great. I'll go in... I'm in the 20%. I'm in that 20%." You might think that's foolish, but-When you set your mind to something and look at being in the percentage that makes it, actually your mind and body start to work at a level that make you stay in that percentage. If you do the opposite, "Well, I'm in the percentage of failures," the same thing happens, your mind and body work to make you stay in that percentage because the strongest force in humans is that we act in a way that totally matches how we define ourselves. When you say, "I'm a loser. I'm a hot mess. I'm a train wreck. Everything I touch doesn't work," if only we knew how we are making those thoughts real and how our mind's job is to actually start making our thoughts real, we'd probably stop them.

8. 30:50 – 34:08

   How do you default to optimism

   1. SBSteven Bartlett30:51

      But, but it's not... I guess it's not so easy just to make someone-

   2. MPMarisa Peer30:54

      Hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett30:55

      ... an optimist.

   4. MPMarisa Peer30:56

      No, that's true.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett30:57

      You, you know, if we think about the pessimists in our lives, and I've, I mean, I've got friends that are pessimistic about-

   6. MPMarisa Peer31:01

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett31:02

      ... they, it just seems to be their default.

   8. MPMarisa Peer31:04

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett31:05

      And no matter, I mean, none of us in our friendship group are therapists, but the efforts we've gone to to try and make this individual not pessimistic in every situation-

   10. MPMarisa Peer31:12

       Yeah.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett31:13

       ... have never, ever worked. I'm thinking about a friend I have back home who always, and used to work for me, who always defaults to just pessimism and everything's going wrong and whatever.

   12. MPMarisa Peer31:23

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett31:23

       And I, you know... (clears throat) Yeah.

   14. MPMarisa Peer31:26

       But then you have to ask them what's, if you say to them the same thing I say to alcoholics, "What's good about it?" They'd say, "I'm never disappointed."

   15. SBSteven Bartlett31:33

       What's good about your pessimism?

   16. MPMarisa Peer31:34

       Yeah, "What's good about it?" If I said to my mother, "What's good about being a hypochondriac?" She'd say, "Well, I get lots of attention. I love being in hospital. Everyone's so worried about me. People come to visit me." So you have to ask a person, "What's good about being a pessimistic..." And he'll say, "I don't let people down. People don't expect anything of me." And so-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett31:55

       It's that expectation-lowering.

   18. MPMarisa Peer31:56

       Yeah, and it's, it's a little bit more than the thought because if you imagine a stack, I have to use my fingers to explain it, that's the thought.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett32:03

       Mm-hmm.

   20. MPMarisa Peer32:03

       And thought always comes first. And then you think a thought, and when you think a thought, you then feel a feeling, and then the feeling dictates how you act. So imagine you thought a thought, which is, "I'm not enough." The biggest cause of, um, issues in the Western world is this not enough-ness. If I thought, "I'm not enough," and I went straight to the next ladder, the next stage, how would I feel if I thought, "I'm not enough?" I'd feel sad-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett32:29

       Sad.

   22. MPMarisa Peer32:29

       ... dejected, demoralized, maybe angry, maybe resentful, maybe bitter. So I've thought a thought, I got some feelings that come with thinking the thought, but then what actions come from thinking that thought and feeling those feelings? Often no actions. "I don't take risks. I don't ask people out or ask for promotion. I'm actually angry and defensive." So now we've got actions and behaviors. "I'm angry, I'm defensive, I'm reclusive, I'm a loser, I don't bother," and then we justify it by going back, "Because I'm not enough." But if you switch that to, "I am enough," and just took out the not and go, "Okay, if I thought of I am enough, if I said it, even if I didn't believe it, but said it, said it, said it, what would I feel?" Well, I might feel optimistic. I might feel confident. I might feel reassured. I might feel hopeful. I might feel excited. And then what thought actions would I have? Well, I, I would take some risks. I'd, I'd ask people out, I'd ask for that promotion, I'd follow my dreams, I'd behave differently, and I justify it again. It's like a loop. Thought, feeling, action, behavior, thought. So although it sounds very Pollyanna, "Oh, you're just thinking great thoughts," it's much more than that because when you think a thought, you feel a feeling, and then you act on that thought and feeling, and you behave in a way that's linked to that thought and feeling in a lot of things. They say, "Let's change the behavior, stop drinking, stop smoking, stop sabotaging, stop procrastin- stop acting out," but the behavior is the last thing to change. You have to go back and change the thought first, and then it's easy.

9. 34:08 – 41:05

   Rewiring your thoughts

   1. MPMarisa Peer34:08

   2. SBSteven Bartlett34:08

      Does the thought, or the, or, like, the underlying belief come from some kind of subjective evidence or experience we've had in our life? I always, I always think about all my beliefs, and I always think that they are all based on some, whether right or wrong-

   3. MPMarisa Peer34:20

      Mm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett34:20

      ... whether true or false, evidence.

   5. MPMarisa Peer34:22

      Mm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett34:23

      So, you know, I struggled with relationships, we've talked about that a lot on this podcast, but I struggled with relationships, and that meant that I was avoidant. Even if I was attracted to someone-

   7. MPMarisa Peer34:30

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett34:30

      ... even if I pursued someone, the minute they asked to commit to me, I would dissuade them.

   9. MPMarisa Peer34:35

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett34:35

       I would tell them all the reasons-

   11. MPMarisa Peer34:36

       For sure.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett34:36

       ... why we should not be together. Um, and I, and I look back in, at my childhood, and really the evidence that was at the center of my belief was watching my parents screaming at each other every day-

   13. MPMarisa Peer34:45

       Mm.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett34:45

       ... really awfully-

   15. MPMarisa Peer34:46

       Yeah.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett34:46

       ... and this belief that my dad was in prison that I always had-

   17. MPMarisa Peer34:49

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett34:49

       ... and I was always trying to bail him out of prison from my mom screaming at him.

   19. MPMarisa Peer34:51

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett34:52

       So the way that I viewed it was, once I became aware-

   21. MPMarisa Peer34:54

       Mm-hmm.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett34:55

       ... of this faulty evidence I had in my life-

   23. MPMarisa Peer34:56

       Mm.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett34:56

       ... from my childhood, h- honestly from writing and doing this podcast, it finally dawned on me where I'd learned what love-

   25. MPMarisa Peer35:01

       Mm.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett35:01

       ... and was, and how identical the feeling I felt about being imprisoned was similar to the seven, six-year-old Steve looking at his dad being screamed at.

   27. MPMarisa Peer35:10

       Mm.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett35:11

       So for me, uh, the, the, what I thought happened was I became aware, and then the awareness of it allowed me to not... The trigger, which would be someone asking me to be in a relationship with them, no longer held enough power over me-

   29. MPMarisa Peer35:24

       Mm.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett35:25

       ... which allowed me to get into a relationship to rewrite new evidence.
10. 41:05 – 43:23

    Using words to change your actions

    1. MPMarisa Peer41:05

    2. SBSteven Bartlett41:05

       Just the subtlety of words-

    3. MPMarisa Peer41:07

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett41:07

       ... y- you seem to, um, assert that it makes a tremendous difference.

    5. MPMarisa Peer41:11

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett41:11

       Just one word that we use.

    7. MPMarisa Peer41:12

       Just one word.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett41:13

       Because we go through our lives saying things. So we go through our lives, I'll say like, you know, "I'm not organized," or I'll say, "Oh, I can't do that."

    9. MPMarisa Peer41:19

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett41:19

        You know, and a lot of the time, the truth is I probably could.

    11. MPMarisa Peer41:23

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett41:23

        But I've just been, we- we're in this culture of just the flippancy of words where we say, "Oh, I can't. That's not me. I-"

    13. MPMarisa Peer41:28

        Yeah.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett41:28

        "... I'm not that person. I am-"

    15. MPMarisa Peer41:30

        Sure.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett41:30

        "... this." These kind of, like, binary definitive statements, are they dangerous?

    17. MPMarisa Peer41:35

        Yeah. When you say to someone, "How are you?" They go, "Not bad. I'm all right." "How was your weekend?" "Not bad." So they're- they- they're really minimizing anything that's good. And I- I think you have to turn it right up. But often the one word... Like many years ago, one of my clients said, "I wish you could see my mother. She has a hell of a life with my dad. He hits her, he's aggressive, but she's very invested in, you know, the front of a marriage." So in came this sweet little old lady, and she kept talking about her husband, saying, "He's a good husband." I said, "But he's not a good husband, darling. He's a good provider. I want you to switch the word 'husband' to 'provider,' because he hits you, he's abusive, he diminishes you. That's not a good husband, but he is a good provider. I know that's important. You got a nice home."... three kids. He went, all left. So she began to say, "He's a good provider." She said, "You know, it's amazing. I went home and within three months I divorced him because I thought, 'Oh, well, I don't need to be with a provider. I've already got this house, I've got my pension.'" So for her, that one word, "He's only been a good provider in my entire marriage, and he's actually hurt me a lot. And do I need him to provide? I've got a pension, I've got a house, I've got friends, I've got my children. He can't provide anything I can't provide myself. He's not a good husband at all." And so for her, just taking off the blinkers and having someone tell her the truth, that's not love. Look-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett42:51

        Isn't that crazy, just that one word?

    19. MPMarisa Peer42:52

        Love doesn't hurt like that. People say, "Oh, my boyfriend loves me so much he hits me." That's not love. You may believe it's love, it's passion. It's not love. "My dad hits me because I don't behave," that's not love. And often you have to educate people in a very nice way and change one word... "I'm useless." "No, you're smart." "I don't matter." "You matter a great deal." And going back again to work with all these teenage kids wh- who say, "No one loves

11. 43:23 – 48:00

    Heartbreak cases

    1. MPMarisa Peer43:23

       me. I don't matter." I go, "Look, if your life was a clock, you're talking about the first five minutes of the clock. The first five minutes is horrible, but you've got the whole rest of the clock to have an amazing life." You know, you... This is your life today, but it's not your life. Your life today is, you being bullied at school, your parents don't seem to care, and no one's there, and that's horrible for you. But... And that is your life, but it's not your life. Your life's going to be amazing. And then you have to help them stand up to bullies and believe they matter and, and not tolerate it. But it all starts again. You know, there's a great song called It Started with a Kiss, but nothing starts... It starts with a thought about a kiss. Everything goes back to a thought. And if you can keep peeling back to the thought, like your thought, "Marriage is prison," then you think, "But I have the power to change that thought at any stage, no matter how long down the line it is." If you change the thought, you change everything, because the law of control begins with thought. You can't control the weather or the traffic. You can't even control your body or you'd never get a cold, but you can always control your thoughts. And when you control your thoughts, it changes your whole life. And I know it sounds easy or simple, but that's because it is simple. You know, I've been doing this five-day challenge in schools and it's called the I Can't To I Can, and it's just five days where every day these children go from "I can't" to "I can." They have an imaginary cheerleader that does somersaults and bangs cymbals and cheers them on, and they've all said it's made such a difference because they realize they can. That when you say, "I can't. What if nobody likes me? What if I fail? What if I get it wrong?" Well, you might, but you also might get it right. And if you get it wrong, you've learned something. You know, you c- y- you couldn't... If you never make a mistake, you've never made anything, because the only way you can learn is often by getting it wrong and thinking, "Oh, I tried that. I didn't like it. I never want to do that again." (page turns)

    2. SBSteven Bartlett45:24

       We're now playing in a world where the digital landscape is changing every single day, and to succeed as a small business, the most important thing you can do is stay informed with the latest trends. And that's why I've partnered with Vodafone Business. They genuinely want to help small businesses like you navigate this fast-moving space. They've developed the V Hub, a site containing everything you need to get up to speed with what's going on, and you can even ring up a V Hub digital advisor for completely free and have a one-on-one conversation with them about your business. If you haven't checked out the V Hub, I'd highly recommend you do so as it will help your business navigate the changing landscape and keep you on the front foot. So go to V Hub by Vodafone. You can search that anywhere on Google and check it out now. (page turns) Being a therapist and, and speaking to a wide variety of people, you must also face some pretty heartbreaking outcomes and cases. Tell me about one that comes to mind when I say that.

    3. MPMarisa Peer46:23

       I think my saddest case was a b- boy of 14. His father was very physical with him, but he lived with a mother and he didn't have any skills to handle that stuff. He became very violent at school and was being expelled. And when I saw him I said, "Darling, your dad's not allowed to put his hands on you. You know that." He said, "But I can't..." I said, "But you can stop him. You have to..." So we practiced rehearsing a lot that he would say to his dad, "You may not put your hands on me." And then I said, "I think you have to not see him for a little while." And l- And then the mother said, "But he needs a dad." I said, "Well, not like that, that's hitting him with a belt. Nobody needs that." And he does need a dad, but he needs a dad that respects him. So we had to all have this little family conversation that they were going to go home and ring him and say, "I can't see you until you get help." And the father was so childish, he smashed up his Xbox and dumped it in the garden. But he didn't seem... He stood his ground, and then the father wanted to see him, and I said, "You know, every time... You must say to him, 'You cannot put your hands on me. If you do, I can't stop you, but when I leave I will call the police because I've got to get you some help. Y- y- you can't be like this.'" And actually it was amazing. I did feel sorry for that kid because the father was so dismissive, but eventually the father realized that the only way he could see him was to stop being violent because, I had to give this little boy the power. "You're only 14, but you're smarter than your dad. You're more educated than your dad. You're more grown up than... Your dad is a child, and you have to be the man here and say, 'I won't let you hit me because it's damaging for you

12. 48:00 – 50:55

    Mistakes parents make

    1. MPMarisa Peer48:00

       as well as me.'" And often with kids it's giving them a voice, giving them the power to say no when someone is abusing them, molesting them, taking their lunch money, you know? A- and that's often the case. So many kids just don't have the power to say no, because when they say to their parent, they say, "Don't you say no to me."When people say to me, "My kid's so annoying," I say, "That's how they learn." I mean, my kid argued with me all the time. And I always think, "I'm secretly rather pleased that she could stand up for herself and defend herself, and wasn't a yes person." And we forget, when we won't let our kids have a say, they go into the world and they don't know how to have a say, and that's a terrible injustice for them.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett48:47

       I was reading, uh, in your book about... children. Just more broadly about the, the, um, some of the mistakes parents make when they're-

    3. MPMarisa Peer48:55

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett48:55

       ... raising children. And one of them, as you kind of cited earlier, was about, um, telling them not to feel-

    5. MPMarisa Peer49:00

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett49:01

       ... things, right? So if they fall over-

    7. MPMarisa Peer49:03

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett49:03

       ... tell your-

    9. MPMarisa Peer49:03

       Don't cry.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett49:04

        Don't cry, yeah.

    11. MPMarisa Peer49:05

        Be a big boy. Stop being a baby.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett49:07

        That's definitely what I had planned to do with my kids.

    13. MPMarisa Peer49:09

        Yeah.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett49:10

        Tell me why I'm wrong.

    15. MPMarisa Peer49:11

        Yeah. You know, I, I said to mine, I go, "Don't, don't be a baby." She goes, "Mommy, I am a baby." And I thought, "Oh my God, she's so smart. She is a baby," because she was my teacher. And then I remember to say to her when she hurt her leg, I went, "Ooh, that really hurt, didn't it? Ouch, that hurt." She goes, "Yes, Mommy, it hurt," but then she'd be okay. But when you said, "Don't cry, you're a big girl now. That didn't hurt. Stop making a fuss," what you're saying is, "Don't feel your feelings. Swallow them, push them down, pretend you're okay, put on a happy face," and then people walk through the world and say, "Well, I can't tell anyone what I'm feeling," because we've trained them in the same way we train kids to finish everything on their plate. One of the best gifts you can give your children is letting them feel, you know, that hurt. "You're a great kid, but today you're being really mean to," says, "What's going on?" And then they'll say, "You said she was my favorite." Years ago, I took my little daughter, we were lambing, and she pushed my nephew, she pushed him off a haystack, and my brother was very cross. And I said, "Why did you do that?" And she said, "You said he was your favorite." I said, "No." I said, "He was my favorite nephew. You're my favorite. You'll always be my favorite. He's my favorite nephew, and you cannot do that, and you have to go and apologize." And she did. But I was really quite pleased that I was able to say what just happened then. You can't always do that. Sometimes you have to intervene, but... Good kids do bad things. Smart kids do stupid things. And rather than saying, "You're so annoying or naughty or bad," you say, "What's going on? What made... Why did you just do that?" And they'll tell you something that you would never expect, and then, then they feel safe sharing what's going on. And it, you, you, you... Children need

13. 50:55 – 54:15

    Come with a question rather than judgement

    1. MPMarisa Peer50:55

       you to be there as safe as possible. They need to come to you and say, "Hey, my friend's taking drugs." My little girl came home and she goes, "Mum, my friend's brother, we went out, and he's much bigger, and he was stealing all these baseball hats and he made me wear. I didn't want to wear one." I said, "Oh, that's your feelings telling you it's wrong. You must always listen to those feelings, and when it happens again, you must say, 'My... I, I don't feel I can wear that baseball hat.'" And so, I was very pleased that she'd come in and tell me stuff about drugs and sex and shoplifting, and some of the stuff. Literally, your eyes literally pop out on stalks. But you have to not judge your kids. It's, it's very easy to say, not so easy to do. But you just have to take a deep breath, even if it's and ask them, "What's going on?"

    2. SBSteven Bartlett51:42

       There's something that I, I, I sort of garnered from all of that which, um, I think is really applicable to business, and generally like leadership and real- I guess friendship as well, which is typically we, we come with answers and we come with statements.

    3. MPMarisa Peer51:54

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett51:54

       Whereas the, the approach you seem to take even with your, your daughter there is much more question-centric. It's asking questions and being kind of-

    5. MPMarisa Peer52:02

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett52:03

       ... removed from having a bias or presumption. So, and I was thinking about that from a leadership perspective. If you... When there's an issue in your business with, with an employee or something-

    7. MPMarisa Peer52:11

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett52:11

       ... instead of coming with statements and presumptions, it's probably wiser to come with a question at first.

    9. MPMarisa Peer52:18

       Yeah. "What's going on?" I was... I said that to my PA the other day and she said, "I just am overwhelmed by something in my personal life." So when you can say to someone, you know, "What's going on?" Or... Yeah, it's, it's easier, you know. I was meeting my daughter in London recently. I hadn't seen her for ages. I was so excited. She turned up at this restaurant. She was in a really bad mood. And I said, "Do you want..." And I don't like that. "Do you want a coffee?" "No, I hate that." And, and I f- I... My... I felt like saying, "You know what? I'm just gonna go home. I don't know why I've come here." But I just said, "Well, anything... You know, I don't like anything here." And then I said, "Well, let's order a coffee." So she... And then she... And then she said, "Mommy, I'm so glad that you understand me 'cause it's not you. I've had a big fight with someone and I'm in such a bad temper, and I was just being really defensive." And, and I felt great too because I learnt to not think, "Oh, how dare she talk to me like that? I might as well go home." I thought, "Oh, something's going on with her. Why don't I just sit here, drink my own coffee, and just wait for her to work it out?" So if you can sit with someone and not judge them and say... I mean, everything: I obviously she didn't want it, but I just left that. Then usually they'll tell you what's wrong, but you can't interrogate people. And sometimes you just have to give them a, a little while to come around. But I think when you stop judging people, which isn't always easy... Amazing. And when, when you have a workforce that mess up or are super defensive, you, you know, try that, so there's- try a little tenderness because you get much better results. You know, my husband and I have this great thing where I'll say, "Oh, what's the story you're telling yourself?" One day we were driving in the car, and I think I was driving and he was on his phone. I was talking, he wasn't listening. I talked again и I went, "Oh, I'm telling myself a story here that you're not interested in anything I have to say." And he went, "Oh, that's really funny because I'm telling myself a story that you're annoying me 'cause I've just got a message from our accountant saying our, our account's been

14. 54:15 – 59:25

    Taking responsibility

    1. MPMarisa Peer54:15

       hacked and I'm feeling really panicked and I'm looking at this message and you're yap, yap, yap." So we both go, "I'm telling myself a story that you're not allowing me space to read this very important message." Now my story is-... you're not listening. But I told that on a podcast, and this girl

    2. SBSteven Bartlett54:30

       (laughs)

    3. MPMarisa Peer54:30

       And she said, "Well, he was wrong. He was definitely having an affair because banks don't like to say you've been hacked. In fact, it was our, it was our accountant that sent him a text saying, 'You've been hacked.'" But that was so funny because there was a third story in there-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett54:44

       Uh-huh.

    5. MPMarisa Peer54:44

       ... someone else's story, which was, "Oh, he's definitely cheating on you because..." And so, I thought that was so funny. That didn't upset me because we all tell ourselves the story, "You don't love me anymore. You forgot my birthday. You don't give me the attention you used to. You're not interested in me."

    6. SBSteven Bartlett55:02

       The significant shift there as well is the responsibility-

    7. MPMarisa Peer55:05

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett55:05

       ... 'cause you're, you're... Even in the car example-

    9. MPMarisa Peer55:07

       Sure.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett55:07

        Like, I, I s- It sounds like a conversation I had with my girlfriend recently, where I was trying to do something and she tries telling me something. I'm going through a crisis on my phone.

    11. MPMarisa Peer55:17

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett55:18

        And I'm telling myself that she doesn't understand my world and she's-

    13. MPMarisa Peer55:21

        Of course.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett55:21

        ... da-da-da. And she's telling herself that I'm, I never listen to her-

    15. MPMarisa Peer55:24

        Hmm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett55:24

        ... when she's talk- saying important things. Thankfully, because I, I'm in a slightly more mature phase of my life, we're able to have the conversation-

    17. MPMarisa Peer55:32

        Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett55:32

        ... as you've described, where I'd say, "This is how I felt-

    19. MPMarisa Peer55:35

        Hmm.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett55:35

        ... and I was telling myself this, and you know-"

    21. MPMarisa Peer55:38

        Yeah.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett55:38

        But a lot of people don't do that. Blame is much... feels much easier.

    23. MPMarisa Peer55:42

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett55:43

        And it takes a certain type of maturity in person to even be able to take responsibility-

    25. MPMarisa Peer55:48

        Mm.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett55:48

        ... in the first place. I tend to believe that people who are, who have... I don't know if this is accurate, this is just a belief I have, but, um, that have, like, lower self-esteem are less capable of allowing themselves to look in the mirror and take responsibility for things.

    27. MPMarisa Peer56:01

        Yeah. Th-

    28. SBSteven Bartlett56:01

        They are the most, like, protective of...

    29. MPMarisa Peer56:03

        Yeah. They're, they're much m- more adept at blaming, refusing to budge, because they believe that if you're right, they're wrong. It is easy to be defensive and blaming and never admit you're wrong, because we think being wrong means that we're weak, you know? It's why men will never say, "I'm lost," because if you're a hunter, you are useless to the tribe if you say, "Ah, I'm lost. I don't even know how to find my way back." And so, it's the, it's the fear of being wrong. And, but how to get it around to say, "Listen, here's the truth. You're flawed, I'm flawed. The best we can ever be in the world is two flawed people having a flawed relationship." I call it being flawsome. So, if you can decide, "Hey, I like being flawed..." You know, I tell all my clients, "The unhappiest people I've ever worked with, without a shadow of a doubt, are the ones who try to be perfect." And they're always the loneliest too.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett56:56

        Mm-hmm.
15. 59:25 – 1:06:33

    I know who I want to be but I still go against it

    1. MPMarisa Peer59:25

       or canceled at the last minute, you have to say, "Oh, yeah. I hear that. I'm really sorry. I h-" Even if you think they're being ridiculous, you still have to go, "I hear that that hurt you, and I'm sorry that hurt you." Because being heard is so important to us. When we feel heard, we feel valuable and we feel significant. You know, again, our needs are to feel significant and worthy and enough. So, if you can hear someone, you make them feel significant and worthy and enough. And if you don't hear them, they go, "Oh, you're just being over dramatic. You're overreacting. Not that again. Why don't you just get over yourself?" Then you don't feel significant, you don't feel worthy, and you don't feel heard. So, we all wanna have higher self-esteem, and if you can tell people, "Oh, yeah, I can hear how I upset you. I really feel bad about that," you're growing their significance. And then when you can feel heard, you feel more significant too. So, it's such a gift to give someone, just hearing them. And even if it doesn't make sense to you, still saying, "Yeah, I, I get it that you feel like that. I'm really sorry."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:32

       In your book, when you're going through the case study of Joe, I believe it was-

    3. MPMarisa Peer1:00:36

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:36

       ... you talk a lot about food and diet-

    5. MPMarisa Peer1:00:37

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:38

       ... and how we all have the belief, and even I do, you know, I work out every day, pretty much every day, about six days a week, and even I know who I want to be in terms of my diet.

    7. MPMarisa Peer1:00:46

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:46

       I know that I want to lose fat. I know that I want to not eat the Pringles.

    9. MPMarisa Peer1:00:50

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:50

        I'm very clear on this. I think about it a lot.

    11. MPMarisa Peer1:00:52

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:53

        But I still eat the Pringles, and I still have the chocolate, and I still don't seem to be able to live in accordance with what I know, or at least what I say, um, I want to do. And also, as you've articulately said, we all know what good food and bad food is.

    13. MPMarisa Peer1:01:10

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:12

        But we still continue to make the wrong choices-

    15. MPMarisa Peer1:01:14

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:14

        ... or-

    17. MPMarisa Peer1:01:15

        But from an evolutionary point of view, sugar is a good food. You know, if you were living thousands of years ago and you're out on the prairie, if you found honey or fruit, it was probably gonna be very safe and had a lot of fructose, and it would keep you going. If you found some lettuce, that wouldn't be the same, and bitter stuff was more likely to poison you. So, we actually are hardwired to prefer sugar because it gives us a lot of nutr- a lot of calories, a lot of energy for something small, whereas something else wouldn't do that. And our primitive brain still believes that we'll run out of sugar, which is why no one says, "I've got that lettuce in the fridge calling me." No, but that Ben and Jerry's, that cake, those cookies, I keep going back for more. And so it's very hard to fight your primitive wiring. You are hardwired to remember where sugar is and finish it. You're hardwired to eat food when you see it, because if the hunters came home with some fish and you said, "I don't really fancy fish," two days later, you would be kicking yourself because you should have eaten it when it was in front of you. We're wired to be scared of hunger. If you're scared of hunger, you can't be rational. Also wired to go for fat, you know? So Pringles and potato chips are the new cigarettes because we love the fat, we love the crunch because we have stress receptors here that love biting and crunching. And so everything we think w- was wrong about food is actually from a mindset of, "No, it's right. You should eat when you see food. You should load up on calorific food," because we lived in a feast and famine for years. But if you can understand it, you can change it, and the whole diet industry is based on absolute abuse and self-hatred, you know? We talk about punishing those pounds, doing a punishing workout, living on a shake diet or powdered soup diet that just tastes disgusting. We go to, um, groups where we get weighed and shamed in front of people. We talk about food as sins, and we've had a naughty day, or, "I've been good. I've been so good. I haven't eaten. Now I've been really bad. I ate a cookie." And that, that is wired to make you feel like a massive, massive failure. Even you saying, "I shouldn't eat the Pringles. I shouldn't eat the chocolate." You know, the way you eat is only down to the pictures you make in your head. If the picture's right, you eat. That's why vegans can't eat meat, because the picture is wrong. Jewish people can't eat pork because the picture is wrong. So if you want to succeed, you got to maybe set fire to some Pringles or do something, make some glue with jelly sweets, and then when you make the picture different, you'll never want to eat it again. But you can't succeed at that by beating yourself up.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:02

        That's so very true. The thing that stopped me drinking Coke was watching a, a clip that someone had shared, and it, they just boiled Coke-

    19. MPMarisa Peer1:04:10

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:10

        ... and they s- they showed the residue that was left behind-

    21. MPMarisa Peer1:04:12

        Yeah.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:12

        ... and it looked like oil.

    23. MPMarisa Peer1:04:13

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:14

        And this v- picture I have in my head now is that if I drink Coke, I'm putting this gloopy, black oil in my body.

    25. MPMarisa Peer1:04:19

        Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:20

        And it, I'm scared of that.

    27. MPMarisa Peer1:04:21

        The way you feel about everything, everything is down to only two things, the pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself. And I think I've now trained 13,000 therapists in RTT all over the world, and they all say, "You know, that, that's such a condensing therapy into a moment." The way you feel is down to the pictures you make and the words you control, which you are free to change. "I can't get on a plane. It's killing... It's dangerous." Well, actually, the most dangerous part is the cab ride to the airport. So it's a state of mind. They feel free. And so if you can just look at... Every time you think of something or feel something, think, "What are the pictures and words? What am I saying?" And if you can change them, it changes everything. And of course, they are your words and pictures. "I'm going on a date. I might be rejected." But I could be with someone amazing who just thinks I'm the most amazing thing. "I'm going to this... I could fail, but I could also get this amazing job of my dreams." We've all been told that human beings are very complicated and that the mind is very complex, and it isn't. It's very simple. You only have to know three things about your mind. One is, the way you feel about anything is down to the pictures you make in your head and the words you say. The second is that your mind is hardwired to keep returning to what's familiar while running away from what's unfamiliar, which... And that's true, but you can make anything... You can put a bit of silicone on your finger and shove it in your eye every day and become so familiar. But at first, using lenses is very unfamiliar. But the most important thing about the mind is that it does what it thinks you want. And you got to sit down and think, "You know, but what do I want? I want attention, so I've got a nervous twitch. I want attention, I'm getting all these illnesses. Oh, I see. I should have sen- said I want positive attention for being really smart or really kind or really evolved." So, really, you don't need to study in human behavior, you need to know those three things. And if you know them and apply them, you can make sense of your life and everyone else lives. But also you can make your life so much better by thinking,

16. 1:06:33 – 1:11:19

    Your triple A process

    1. MPMarisa Peer1:06:33

       "I can change the pictures. I can take sugar out of my coffee and make it familiar very quickly." And if I tell my mind like a Spice Girl what I really, really, really want but I'm very clear...Like, you know, "I want more money." Well, what's that, 10 bucks? "I want passionate relationship." For how long? A week? So if you just keep always going back to those three things and, and looking at them, you, you can have whatever you want once you can look at those three things and make them work for you, and not against you.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:07

       When I talked about the Pringles there, you talked about the, kind of this initial stage being that acceptance of-

    3. MPMarisa Peer1:07:13

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:13

       ... understanding that, "This is my hard wiring."

    5. MPMarisa Peer1:07:15

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:16

       Um, and this is, you know, "I'm not, I'm not a bad human."

    7. MPMarisa Peer1:07:20

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:20

       "In fact, I am a human."

    9. MPMarisa Peer1:07:21

       You're doing what nature wants you to do, actually.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:24

        Yeah. And that, that acceptance is, um, you talk about it when you talk about Terry in your book.

    11. MPMarisa Peer1:07:27

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:28

        When you're talking about dealing with hard feelings, this AAA-

    13. MPMarisa Peer1:07:30

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:31

        ... sort of process. Can you give me a little bit of, um, illumination on that? Just-

    15. MPMarisa Peer1:07:34

        Triple- Yeah, I love AAA. I, I invented that. A lot, lot of things I invent. Is first of all, makes it easy for me, but when I'm teaching therapists, they... It's easy for them to think, "AAA, what does that mean?" It means be aware of what you're feeling.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:47

        So this is a, a formu- a almost a, a three-step process for dealing with hard feelings.

    17. MPMarisa Peer1:07:51

        Yeah. So any hard feelings or indeed any feelings, doesn't even have to be hard, um, be aware of what you're feeling and accept it. That's the second. People think, uh, "What am I feeling? I'm feeling jealous. I shouldn't feel jealous. I need to eat a cake. I'm feeling a feeling in my stomach, the seat of all emotions, and I shouldn't really feel that feeling. Let me eat it, drink it, smoke it, shop it, Netflix it." But when you say, "I'm gonna be aware. I'm aware that I'm feeling incredibly jealous of someone else whose book is selling more than mine. Oh, I feel really jealous about that. Now I've got to accept it, yeah? I'm feeling a little envious, but you know what? My book's doing good. Not as good as theirs, but I've got to accept it." Then I've got to articulate it. I gotta say out loud, "I'm feeling really a little envious about that Paul McKenna, who's got so much bigger numbers. But, you know, Paul deserves it. He's worked really hard. He's not me, I'm not him. Our books are different." And if you can just do that AAA, always start with the awareness. "What am I feeling?" People say, "Oh, well, you shouldn't feel that." And you go, "Well, but my feelings are the most real thing I have. How can I not feel it?" I was having a conversation, someone said, "Well, you shouldn't feel that." I'm like, "Shouldn't feel it? The feelings are real. I can't not feel it." It's like saying, "You shouldn't be diabetic."

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:09

        Mm-hmm.

    19. MPMarisa Peer1:09:10

        So first of all, I'm feeling it and you can't tell me I can't feel it, 'cause I'm feeling it. So I'm aware I'm feeling it and I'm gonna accept that I'm feeling it. And then I'm going to articulate, "Right now, I'm feeling this rage towards my boss who's taken my idea and passed it. And I'm feeling this rage towards my sister or my partner because they're not listening to me." So I'm aware, I accept, I articulate. But if you do those three, it goes away because feelings are like children going, "Hey, notice me." And if you don't notice them, they regroup and become stronger. When you eat your feelings, shop your feelings, Netflix or drink or drug your feelings, they don't go away. They regroup and come back. But when you feel them, when you are aware of them and you accept them and you articulate them, they actually go away really quickly. So many people come in and say, "I just feel so angry, so sad, so frustrated, so disappointed." Well, okay, let's feel that right now and let's say it out loud and then, then it will go away. And if only we all knew that, it makes such a difference to our life.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:22

        You see it in men, don't you? Men express themself the least and kill themselves the most.

    21. MPMarisa Peer1:10:26

        Yeah.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:26

        Mm-hmm.

    23. MPMarisa Peer1:10:26

        The high- highest suicide rate in the world is young men. And actually it goes, they always, someone has always made them wrong. It's always someone has made them wrong before they take that action.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:36

        Someone has made them wrong?

    25. MPMarisa Peer1:10:37

        Wrong, yeah. Someone has made them wrong. Someone else has been right and they feel very wrong. They've been dumped, they've been rejected, they've failed at some exam, they've been humiliated. They feel wrong. But yeah. And, and, but they don't feel that they're allowed to have those feelings, you know? "Men don't cry. You're running like a girl. Stop being a big girl's blouse." We have all these expressions for men. "Man up." And all they say is, "Don't feel." And, and that's killing people, not feeling. It's, you know, we've got people, a glut of people taking antidepressants to be numb because they don't want to feel, and yet

17. 1:11:19 – 1:15:25

    The last guest question

    1. MPMarisa Peer1:11:19

       your feelings are the most real thing you have and they will do you an immense favor if you tune into them. Sometimes you think, you know, "What am I feeling? Actually, I'm feeling really nervous. I'm about to give a speech and I'm feeling kind of nervous. What can I do?" Well, I can remember that I always feel like that before a speech, but I always do them, and in five minutes it'll all pass, it'll be gone, and I'm just talking myself into it instead of talking myself out of it. So I'm gonna accept I feel nervous, I'm aware of it, and I'm gonna say, "Oh yeah, here's that old nervous feeling again. Actually, it's adrenaline, it's excitement and I always get this and it's always gone." You can always talk yourself into something or out of it. Talk yourself out of the negative and into the positive ones. It, it will change your entire life.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:06

       Incredibly, incredibly inspiring and, um, I relate to a lot of that. Um, we have a, um, we have a closing tradition on this podcast.

    3. MPMarisa Peer1:12:14

       Okay.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:15

       Where the previous guest writes a question for the next guest.

    5. MPMarisa Peer1:12:18

       Oh, okay. How cool?

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:20

       So the previous guest has written you a question. They didn't know who they were writing it for.

    7. MPMarisa Peer1:12:24

       Okay.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:25

       Um, and I won't tell you who they are. But, uh-

    9. MPMarisa Peer1:12:27

       Okay.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:28

        ... you're gonna have to riddle this one a little bit. But the question is, "Are you experienced? If so, what did you learn?" And then, uh, they've done an asterisk at the bottom that says, "In the Jimi Hendrix sense."

    11. MPMarisa Peer1:12:41

        Oh, I lo- love Jimi Hendrix. "Are you experienced?" Yeah, I am experienced. You know, people say to me, "But you're not a doctor. You're not a psychologist. You're not a psychiatrist." But I've been a therapist for 35 years, my entire adult life. And, um...I feel I am very experienced in understanding human pain. And what did I learn? I learnt that almost all my clients' pain comes from not believing they're enough. It's why I have all these I'm enough braces, why I created the I Am Enough movement, because I worked with millionaires and Olympic athletes and sports stars and movie stars, and I realized they have the same problem. So what my experience taught me, from starting as a therapist working with, you know, everyday people, schoolteachers and police officers and stay-at-home mums, to working with billionaires, taught me that we're all the same and we all have the same core issue: "I just don't feel enough." But that isn't true. But if you keep saying it, it becomes true, because it feels true. And so if we can just change those thoughts and feelings. So my experience taught me that therapy is not complicated, and it taught me that this belief, "Oh, someone's got depression. That's very complex, so the treatment's complex too," no, it isn't. Treatment can be really fast and effective, because it comes from, again, the not-enoughness that's so insidious. But it's not even real, but it's like saying, "My headache is psychosomatic." That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It's just the same as a headache that's caused by an exposure to toxic fumes. They both hurt the same. One is real, one is psychosomatic, but they feel the same.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:24

        Mm-hmm.

    13. MPMarisa Peer1:14:24

        And so my experience taught me to treat people and to simplify, simplify therapy, simplify the cure. You know, the word "cure" comes from the word "curious", and if you're curious, and if you treat every client as if they are fascinating and compelling and interesting, you'll always unravel in your curiosity. I mean, we're not allowed to say we cure people, but still, I love the fact that "cure" comes from the word "curious".

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:53

        Marisa, thank you so much, and thank you for writing such a brilliant book. I know it's-

    15. MPMarisa Peer1:14:56

        (sighs)

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:56

        It's the first time I've read a book like this, that was centered around case studies of patients-

    17. MPMarisa Peer1:15:01

        Mm-hmm.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:02

        And because you're telling real stories, um, of patients, and really dissecting them-

    19. MPMarisa Peer1:15:06

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:06

        ... it's much easier to follow and to relate to than-

    21. MPMarisa Peer1:15:09

        Yeah.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:10

        ... if you were just, like, you know, if it was a textbook-

    23. MPMarisa Peer1:15:12

        Sure.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:12

        Because I- I read those textbooks in school, the- the childhood psychology textbooks-

    25. MPMarisa Peer1:15:16

        Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:16

        ... the psychology textbooks. They were difficult-

    27. MPMarisa Peer1:15:18

        They're hard, yeah.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:18

        ... with diagrams and stuff. But this felt very, very human, and I think that's what made the book so-

    29. MPMarisa Peer1:15:22

        Yeah, I wanted people to- to think, "I identify with Terry."

Episode duration: 1:17:56