How Hypnotherapy Works And Why It Gets Results Nothing Else Can | Marisa Peer

0:00Marisa Peer:And I saw the most profound turnarounds happening. So I worked with my two flatmates. They both got over it completely and became normal. I worked with everyone. And it was so lucky for me because I was working for Jane. So I trained in hypnosis to call my clients straight out of her class and was doing very well. People would call me and go, hey, I know you're the eating disorder girl, but I've got a pair of elevators or bees. Or can I come to you? And I'd say, sure. And then I realized it was much more interesting to diversify. So I went from being an aerobic instructor to a hypnotherapist, and I absolutely loved it.

0:36Marisa Peer:I still do. I love it as much now as I did on day one. And I really loved it because it got results. You see, psychotherapists, bring me your pain, and we'll have a conversation for five years or ten years or a year. But I saw my clients were in so much pain. I mean, pain of having tension, migraines, they couldn't get out of bed, or irritable bowels, they couldn't go out of the house in case their stomach expanded or needed the loo. Or pain of saying, I can't find love, I self-sabotage. Every time I get a job, I end up getting fired and it's all down to me. And it was all painful. And people in pain have one request and it's this, can you get me out of pain right now?

1:20Marisa Peer:After all, if I went to A &E and sort of broken my leg, they wouldn't say, let's talk about it. come back next week they go well let's get you out of pain so I wanted to get people out of pain and as I began to work as a therapist I began to just see the stuff that really worked for clients and it was always stuff that was immediate so I'll give you an example I was working with a very famous guy who said to me well you know you can't help me I've seen everybody in fact sorry I'll go back a bit i was working with i was working on a show in america with celebrity fit club and then i was filming in the studio and another director said hey we've got this guy on set and he's just a nightmare he keeps turning up late it's costing a thousand dollars a minute to film this show he's always absent can you fix him i'm like okay so i had to drive to his house and they said what car have you got i had a mustang this you've got to hide that around we can't put mustangs on his drive only like Porsches and so hide that around the corner so I drove my little red Mustang parked around the corner knocked on the door of this big amazing mansion he opened it I don't even know why you're here you can't help me and I happen to say I love your house because I hate this house I'm moving the neighbors are hell and as we walked in he said you remind me of my fourth wife I said thank you don't thank me of all my wife she was the worst the most disappointing then we went into his office and he had a BAFTA and I said oh you have a BAFTA is that a curse.

2:43Marisa Peer:Do you know what a curse it is to get an award because now I've got to get another award every year and I went oh I know what's wrong with you. What I said you just don't think you're enough do you? I mean you can't have a Mustang on the drive you've had four wives that have all disappointed you. This beautiful house is a curse and this BAFTA is a curse so I realized straight away what was going on with him is that he didn't feel enough. And 80 % of people have that thing. The common issue now is we just don't feel worthy enough, good enough, interesting enough. And when I tracked back to his life, it was very clear where this came from.

3:18Marisa Peer:His mother worked night. She was a nurse, got more money working. His dad was in construction. I think they lived in somewhere like Milwaukee. And when it was snowing, the dad had no work. And they didn't have any money. and he would make his father this construction dinner, but he didn't get to share. He had, like, sandwiches. And I said, did the dad give you? He said, no, he gave the leftovers to the dog, not me. I said, well, that's it. As a little kid. Imagine a little kid living in a trailer. Mum's always at work. Dad's very angry. And a child tries to make sense of that by owning it. My mum's always at work because she'd rather be there than with me.

3:55Marisa Peer:My dad's always angry because I'm not making him happy. I'm failing. because a child always goes in to work out what it is. And once you buy into I'm not enough, you take it with you everywhere you go. So he didn't stop loving his parents. He stopped loving himself. He had a belief, I'm not enough. And weirdly, that belief can drive people to fame. I'm not enough, but I'll be famous and everybody will love me. And he became famous and wealthy, but he took it with him. So nothing was enough because he wasn't enough. and as we fixed that it was incredible he rang me up later and said you know I'm dating a hairdresser I've got a mini on the drive I might even get one myself he said my life is just so different because I understood because you tracked back to where it began that little boy who felt not enough was still in me and all I had to do is have a good old conversation and say that's not me anymore so each client's story like that would give me something oh this not enoughness let me use that with my next client and my next one.

4:56Marisa Peer:So my own clients taught me what worked and indeed what didn't work. And I practiced stuff. And eventually I collated all the things that worked and created this therapy. Well, RTT is a combination of NLP, CBT, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, neuropsychology. But what RTT does is find the pattern, understand the pattern, change the pattern, find it, make sense of it, change it. I think EMDR is great if you've been in trauma. But people come to me with OCD, compulsive shoplifting, compulsive skin picking, compulsive pulling out their hair, compulsive destructive habits. And I'm a great believer that you can't fix what you don't understand.

5:41Marisa Peer:So I'll give you an example. I had a girl came in with chronic OCD, could hardly leave the house. She had to go through these rituals of showering and teeth brushing. Everyone wants to start again and again, and it would take her hours. Plus her skin was in a really bad state because she was having 10 showers a day. And she said, it's a complete mystery to me. I have no idea why I do this. I wish I could stop, but it's compulsive. I have no control. So the thing about the brain, which I love, is it always goes back to work out what something means. If you say, oh, every time I hear, I don't know, Shakira, I'm back on that holiday in Greece.

6:17Marisa Peer:Every time I smell, she's number five. I'm with my mum. Every time I have apple pie, I'm in my grandmother's kitchen. So smells and tastes and sounds take us back instantly. Even if you run up the street with your arm up like that, after a while you'll start to feel like you're two years old because even physiology will take you back, which is why we will sleep in the fetal position because the brain goes backwards. So I just asked her brain to go back to where this began because no baby is born with OCD. They don't think, gosh, my crib's a bit messy here, the teddies aren't lined up, and I've got my shoes on the wrong feet.

6:49they're oblivious and she went back to this very interesting set of scenes a little girl

6:55Marisa Peer:living in a really dysfunctional house mum had so many kids with different partners she was put into foster care given to an aunt given to another relative then sent back and that is a powerless situation for a child but the little corner of the room she had she began to control that everything was just so every book was lined up she didn't have much what she had was all in order and then she took it with her for her whole life and just being able to say to you know that's not you anymore that little girl had no power and because that word safe she felt safe when everything was just perfect in that tiny corner the only thing she had that tiny corner so then she began so I'm safe if I don't step on the cracks.

7:40Marisa Peer:My doll is just lined up. The bed is made perfectly. And her brain began to believe, oh, this makes you safe. So let's amplify it until every cushion had to be just so every spoon, every fork. But the minute she understood that this was a little girl and any kid in that world probably would have done what she did or something similar, but it's not you. So we found the pattern immediately. It's very important to make sense of it to say look this is not craziness actually this is very smart this is a really smart thing you did in order to feel safe but guess what you are safe you're now 42 you're never living in that world again you don't need it anymore you can let it all go and in one session she never had OCD again so it's very important to find the pattern make total sense and recognize it was trying to help you and it's now redundant and then to change the pattern so magnetically attractive I have loads of friends Jeannie I wish to always eat lunch with other kids because everybody likes me and I like them so if you make a directional wish it will come true but we we make the long wishes I wish things wouldn't keep going I wish I wasn't alone I wish I couldn't keep getting ghosted that's such a silly wish because the brain has to action it the brain that has to try and make you feel safe right yeah so if you keep talking about being ghosted anyway you can feel safe is never dating on again for the rest of your life then you'll never be ghosted and then you'll be scared of being alone yeah so well that's what we do we just swap out all our problems i don't want to be ghosted now i don't date i'm by myself i don't want to fail so I don't take risks.

9:22Marisa Peer:And the only risk, of course, is to never take the risk. So flip your wishes and wish for what you want. When you wish for what you don't want, that's where you're going. But when you wish for what you require, that's where you're going. We sat down here earlier and you said, I wrote a book on fertility. And I was like, wow, I haven't actually got that in my questions. But I feel like this is maybe a good time to think about it because I know a lot of people that want to get pregnant but are very fearful of not getting pregnant and have really struggled on their journey. And there's lots of copious reasons.

9:59But I have heard you say about, you know, some people really want children but they have a conflicting belief in the same sentence. So talk to me about that because I also think about this with things like perimenopause or menopause. Like, for instance, I went to go and see, I don't know if it's coming out on Friday, you should definitely go and see it. It's called The Invite with Olivia Wilde and Seth Cogan and Edward Norton. And Penelope Cruz and Olivia Wilde have this moment where they're talking about perimenopause, and Penelope Cruz is a therapist, like, it's the worst thing in the world.

10:29You know, you have hot flushes, and you're an emotional wreck, and I kind of was just watching this. And it was done in comedy. But what you're expecting. Watching this and thinking, I am terrified of going through that now.

10:42Marisa Peer:And you see, that's an interesting word, terrified. Because it was, like, quite a terrifying experience. and then you know the end of the film is you know this couple ends up breaking up because they realize that they kind of hate one another and how they talk to one another and you kind of go through all these emotions thinking about relationships and patterns and perimenopause and I was like I don't know I mean it's an amazing film but it really made me think about the language before today of course and so I think about that with pregnancy fertility love perimenopause menopause like there's a lot of fear around all of these different things right how can a conflicting belief stop you from maybe even conceiving a child so the brain is very directional so let's say i'm saying i want to conceive a baby i want to conceive and carry and deliver a perfect healthy robust baby that's very directional i want to get pregnant what does that even mean You could have eight pregnancies and never have a baby.

11:40Marisa Peer:So don't say I want to get pregnant. That's only the beginning. That doesn't mean you'll ever have a baby. I want to fall pregnant. That's even worse. I am conceiving, carrying, and making a robust, healthy baby. So I was told I could never conceive a child. And even if I could conceive a child, I couldn't carry it to full term. And even if I could do that, I couldn't make a healthy baby. And I remember my doctor telling me that. And I said, you know, I'm not really going to let that in. I'm not even thinking of having a baby right now. But I do remember this voice in my head saying, do not let that in, because I know we are shaped by what we let in and don't let in.

12:19Marisa Peer:So I didn't really let that in. And when I was ready to have a baby, well, actually, before, I did become pregnant. And I was sort of straight, well, you know, this is not going to be viable. It will never go to full term. You cannot have a normal baby. It's going to be very underweight. and I had a perfect baby. She was almost eight pounds and my perfect baby is just having her second perfect baby next week. And I was like, well, they wouldn't be here if I let that in. If I let that in, I wouldn't have my daughter. She wouldn't have a beautiful little Ziggy and Jessie who's just about to arrive.

12:50And so after I had my baby, I realized all this negative stuff

12:55Marisa Peer:I was told that didn't happen. And I always remember being in hospital with my little baby in my arms and the nurse gave me, she literally gave me a box of Kleenex. She said, that's for postnatal depression. You know it's going to arrive on day three. And I said, oh, I'm not having that, darling. I'm having postnatal euphoria. She always thought I was a bit nuts. So she sat down, very nice, began to explain. It's the hormones, you see, you've got them here, they're going to go, all going to drop, and then you're going to be so depressed, the whole water's a sea of weeping. I said, well, I better go home then.

13:23Marisa Peer:I said, I don't want to be a sea of weeping. I don't want my little baby around a sea of weeping. But they told me, it's going to arrive on day three here's the tissues you will have post natal depression and I didn't I actually got in my car checked out went home went to my mother's with my little baby and I was out with her and someone said how old is she is today they went you should be in bed you know you shouldn't be out with that baby in the middle of summer I said but we're not ill but people do give you these weird expectations pregnancy is an illness you get post natal depression, you get really fat, the weight can't come off, you just turn into a milk bar, babies always cry, you can't sleep.

14:02Marisa Peer:They sleep all the time.