The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 78 - World Leading Therapist: A Simple Habit That Will Change Your Life: Marisa Peer

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. In this moment, Marisa Peer lays out a step by step guide for how to feel like you are enough. The foundation everything we do, every mistake we make, every bad habit we form, is our thoughts. Marisa charts a toxic cycle of self-negativity as ‘Thought, feeling, action, behaviour, thought.’ - it all comes back to thoughts. Change the thoughts, change the action. Change the action, change the behaviour. And so Marisa reveals the life-changing potential of flipping our negative thoughts on our head to say ‘I’m not this, because…’ Listen to the full episode here -https://g2ul0.app.link/41eubuLGUtb Marisa: https://marisapeer.com https://www.instagram.com/marisapeertherapy/ Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue i guess it's not so easy just to make someone an optimist. No, that's true. If we think about the pessimists in our lives, and I've got friends that are pessimistic about... It just seems to be their default.

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 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 and i you know yeah but then you have to ask them what if you said to them the same thing i say to alcoholics what's good about it they'd say i'm never disappointed what's good about your pessimism yeah what's good about it if i said to my mother what's good about it? They'd say, I'm never disappointed. What's good about your pessimism?

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, 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 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. And thought always comes first. And then you think a thought. 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 issues in the Western world is this not enoughness. 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, dejected, demoralized, maybe angry, maybe resentful,ful 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 ask for promotion i'm actually angry and defensive so now i'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 I'm 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 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 would take some risks. 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. And a lot of things say, let's change the behavior stop drinking stop smoking stop sabotaging stop procrastinating 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 does the thought 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 whether true or false evidence 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 even if i pursued someone the minute they asked to commit to me I would dissuade them I would tell them all the reasons why we should not be together and I and I look back and my childhood and really the evidence that was at the center of my belief was watching my parents screaming at each other every day really awfully yeah this belief that my dad was in prison that I always had and I was trying to bail him out of prison from my mom screaming at him yeah so the way that I viewed it was once I became aware of this faulty evidence I had in my life from my

childhood honestly from writing and doing this podcast finally dawned on me where I'd learned what love 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 so for me 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 which allowed me to get into relationship to rewrite new evidence because really you stopped thinking the thought that a relationship is a prison that's what it really goes back to. You began to understand that you weren't born with that thought.

You acquired it, and anything you acquire you can release. So you worked out, oh, I've been seeing this with the filter of a six-year-old. A six-year-old filter says a relationship is like prison, especially for a man. But then you realized you weren't six, and there's lots of other evidence that says that's not true. And you changed your thought. You see, when you question a belief, you don't believe it. That's why in religion, you may not question the priest

or the abbot or the imam. Not allowed to do that because we understand when you question a belief, you begin to doubt it. That's why people who are deeply religious never question it. I know God exists. How do you know? I just know. When you question a belief, like when you see your children, my little girl saying, mommy, but how does Father Christmas get down there? How does the reindeer get down the chimney? They're that big and the chimney's that big. And how can you get all around the world in one night and know they're beginning to doubt, which is a great thing. So if you question a

belief, you introduce doubt. And that's what a great therapist does. It says, really? Are you always a failure? Were you really meant to be an accountant to please your dad? Is that why you're here on the planet? Do you really think that everything you touch fails? Do you really believe there's no one in the world that can love you? So when you start getting able to question beliefs, you open up a little glimmer of, oh, right, yeah, that doesn't have to be true and it doesn't have to be true for me and that's why it's important, which you did so eloquently.

You looked at the belief of a six-year-old and thought, but that's not me. One of the things I talk about in the book a lot is having clients say, that's not me because, and they have to justify why that isn't them. Oh, that kid that wore secondhand clothes and mom was never there. That isn't me. I've got a wardrobe full of clothes. I don't have to do that anymore. But, you know, we play the only part we've ever known. And then we make that part our own. And we don't even to do that anymore. But, you know, we play the only part we've ever known. And then we make that part our own. And we don't even know that there's many other parts

we could take on if we wanted to. Even those beliefs, that imprisonment belief that I had, that relationships were prison, I felt it, the power of that belief deteriorate over time. Good. But I still believe that it's there somewhere. And that kind of makes me wonder if those very sort of deeply held childhood beliefs ever really completely vanish or if they are still capable of being triggered.

So for example, if I was in a relationship now and my girlfriend started, say, shouting at me in the same way my dad shouted at my mom I could very well see myself just getting up and leaving not shouting back just getting up and leaving trying to like flee flee the jail and I just wonder with these you know even with your the clients that you have and the patients you see whether they really ever fully overcome I think a lot of them do I think it's a work in progress. It's about, you look to that little boy who said relationships are prison

and you realize that was a statement that for you is a statement of truth. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. And then what you have to do is start making a different statement. The mind learns by repetition. Relationships are wonderful. People say to me, marriage is such

hard work. I'm like, I don't think so. I found it hard being single. I got the flu. I've got to get out of bed, go to the pharmacist myself, make myself some soup. In a marriage, in a relationship, someone else will say, I'll get that. I'll do that. Let me do that. So you question the belief that you have, but then you have to also change it and you have to keep repeating the changes. You know, I worked with somebody once who said, I have no coping skills. My mother was hypersensitive to light and noise. I couldn't open a packet of potato chips without her going mental. We never went to the cinema or the swimming pool or the beach. She didn't like light.

She didn't like noise. She didn't like people. And then she said, and I have no coping skills. And I made her say, I want you to say I have phenomenal coping skills. And so she had to say that every day. She didn't believe it, but she said, you know, it's amazing. I say that every day and I've become this person who feels she can cope with anything. So you have to look at your question, your statement, and just change it. I don't matter. I matter. I'm insignificant. I'm significant. I'm not lovable. I am lovable. I'm not enough. I've always been enough. And if every person in the world could wake up and just say,

I matter, I'm significant, I'm enough and I'm lovable. That would change. I know that to be true because I've got many anti-bullying programs in schools. All of them, they all say the same thing. All the kids say that every time enough, they've made a little plaque for their desk. And bullying has almost disappeared in this school just from those simple statements. Because bullies don't feel enough. It isn't enough to work with a bully child.

You must work with a kid who's doing the bullying. What's going on with them? Nobody says, oh, my life is so great, so wonderful. Who can I bully today? I'm having a great time. I think I'll go off and troll somebody. So we know that the not enoughness is the core of so many of our beliefs. But since the mind doesn't know or care what you're saying, if you switch I'm not enough to I am enough,

the shift isn't subtle, it's profound. Just the subtlety of words, you seem to assert that. It makes a tremendous difference, just one word that we use. Just one word. 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, I can't do that.

You know, and a lot of the time, the truth is I probably could, but we're in this culture of just the flippancy of words where we say, oh, I can't, that's not me. I'm not that person. I am this. These kind of like binary definitive statements. Are they dangerous? Yeah. When you of like binary definitive statements, are they dangerous?

Yeah, when you say something, they go, not bad, I'm all right. How was your weekend? Not bad. So they're really minimizing anything that's good. And I think you have to turn it right up. But often the one word, many years ago, one of my clients said,

I wish you'd 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 the 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, you went all left. So she began to say he's a good provider. She said, you know, it's amazing.

I went home 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 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. Isn't that crazy? Love doesn't hurt like that. We will 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 all these

teenage kids who say, no one loves 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, this is your life today, but it's not your life. Your life today is you're 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 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 thoughts. 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 you? 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, if you never make a mistake, you've never made anything because the only way you can learn is often by getting it wrong. You think, oh, I tried that. I didn't like it. I never want to do that again.