The Resilient Mind - Unlock Your Mind’s Power: Create the Life You Want - Marisa Peer

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Marisa Peer is a world-renowned therapist, best-selling author, and speaker specializing in rapid transformational therapy (RTT). With over three decades of experience, she has helped thousands reprogram their subconscious minds to overcome limiting beliefs and achieve success.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠This episode is brought to you in partnership with The Icons by Motiversity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXi_ZdT8sQY&t=131s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Unlock Your Mind's Power with Marissa Peer. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Now, I read that you have a weekly reach of 25 million people. I mean, it's hard for me to even wrap my head around that. But what do you think it is about what you say that has people listen? I think it's hard for me to wrap my head around it too.

But I think people want someone to simplify the workings of the mind. You know, we're all taught by teachers that the mind is very complex and it takes a lifetime to understand it and a lifetime to apply. And that simply isn't true. When you understand the workings of the mind, it's not complicated at all. So I always wanted to make stuff simple. You know, you can change like that. Can you change in 21 days?

You can change in 21 seconds if you know how. In fact, you can change twice every day, first in the way you think and the second in the way you act. So I think, I believe it's the fact that I've made it simple. Everything I talk about, the strength is in the simplicity and the honesty, there's no need to complicate stuff. People want some simple, but they also want it to be fast. We live in such a fast world. And if you can't give you a message, like really fast, people are just not interested. And I get that.

Has it always been simple for you? Or did you have to go through some kind of transformation yourself where things just became clearer? No, it's always been simple for me. I think getting other people who are very invested in, it's long, it's complicated, it's complex. So, for instance, a lot of people I work that will say, I've got OCD, or I've got anorexia, or I've got anxiety, and that's very complex. So the treatment must be complex. And that doesn't have to be the case.

It can be, but it also can't be. So it's always been simple for me. for getting other people to buy into the simplicity was probably challenging at times. I read that you knew your purpose in life in 1984. I don't know how many people have it on a calendar like that where it just becomes that clear. I mean, one of our big channels' motivation to study, one of the big questions we get from people is, how do I discover my life purpose? And I'm feeling a lot of pressure for it, and I actually just don't know how it works.

So what is your purpose, and how did you discover it? My purpose, I would say, is to give people freedom and empowerment from their issues and their pain. That would be my purpose and that would be what gives me meaning in life. And I think you know what your purpose is because when you're doing it, it feels so right. When I'm on stage talking, it's not scary. I absolutely love it. In fact, it energizes me. When I'm working with clients in my office, I never find it draining.

I find it invigorating. And I think that's the thing when you do what you love and you love what you do. First of all, you feel like you never work. But secondly, it inspires you, it motivates you. And if I do what I don't love, I feel the difference immediately. And so we all have a gift and I think your challenges find out what you love to do and become brilliant at it. And we've all got something unique that we can do.

So I guess in 1984, when I was training in hypnotherapy, I knew immediately, you know, this is me and this is me for the rest of my life. I knew that that was my purpose, that was my meaning, that was my passion. And of course the second wonderful thing is that when you do what you love, it gives you every bit as much as you give other people. Like I was speaking here this week and we were saying, oh my God, it's so amazing what you gave me. And said, well, what you gave me was also amazing because you were receptive and you liked it. And so it's a great thing about giving and receiving, giving energy and receiving it back. So for the 20-year-old who's listening, who's wanting that so desperately, they're wanting to feel that energy, to feel like this is me, I want to get good at it, but they're not finding that yet.

Would you tell them to be patient or is there a different way they could start to search? What would be your thoughts for that 20-year-old? Yeah, you know, when I was 20, I was very clear. I was going to be a school teacher. My father wanted me to do that. He told me it was a wonderful job. He was a school teacher. I was going there.

I was going to teach a training college. and I was going to be a school teacher. And somewhere in that teacher training college, I thought, you know, I don't want to be a teacher. I'd actually like to be a child psychologist. So I began to switch to my training. And then I realized, again, actually, no, I don't want to do that either

because when you work with children as a therapist, you always have three patients, mandat a child. And so I was going there. But in fact, I went there and I went there. I became a therapist. I wrote books. I began to work on television. television shows and then I created my method and so actually I became a teacher after all but it was a

go over here and then go back and I think at 20 you very rarely know what you want to do and if you do that's not always a good thing because I work with many people in their 40s who say you know all my life I've been a lawyer and accountant and I've realized I didn't even want to do that doesn't make my heart soon but it's very hard to know at 20 what you're meant to do so give yourself a break find out what you love, find out what makes your heart sing. In fact, one of the major causes of depression is failing to follow your heart's desire. And we're so into it, well, this is a good career and this has good benefits and the salary is good. And we think, but I don't love it.

I recently trained a police officer to be a therapist who said, I went into the police force to make a difference and discovered I was just locking up alcoholics and drug addicts every night and it was very demoralizing. And now I'm a therapist and here I am making a difference. So be open. Don't put any pressure on yourself. Just find out what you love. And when you do what you love, you'll feel like you never really work a day in your life. I mean, I work very hard, but I also feel like I never really work. And that's a great thing. You know, we teach leadership, and that's my background. And I think there's a misconception.

Sometimes people think leadership is having this clarity that just allows them to be on a straight line their whole life. It's actually not what it is at all. It's the ability to create these inflection points if you feel like you're on the right path to bend it. And so that doesn't require you to have all the right answers. But just the faith that you can create that change once you discover more, isn't it? Yeah, I think I teach a lot about being a leader. And, you know, leaders so interesting because they're, think outside the box, they're very good at finding talent and nurturing. Not everybody wants to be a

leader, but natural leaders have a lot of gifts and you can learn from them. And that's the thing. People who are good at what they do, whatever it is, they always leave clues. And one of my friends, who's head of a major television network, said, you know, people who are good make it look so easy and things, oh, I can do that, I can do that. And then because you make it look so, you make it look so easy. You often lose credible. You think, well, you know, you can just turn up on stage and act, but they don't realize all the work that goes into it. And I think leaders make it look very easy, but it's also because they love it. So we've got two milestones, 1984, Discover Your Life Purpose. Today, 25 million people a week. Can you fill in the career trajectory between those two

points? It's a big question. So in 1984, I just, I was actually, I'd gone to college. I left college. I to LA, I became a personal trainer for Jane Fonda, which I loved. But I was fascinated by the psychology of bulimia and anorexia and orthorexia and body dysmorphia, which I saw in my classes all the time. And I saw something that, two things that really intrigued me. One is, this is a mental issue. Anorexia is not something you can cure with going to the gym. You can't cure bulimia with aerobics. And that bothered me that people were trying to fix something deeply emotional, which was, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy enough. So I need to be thinner, smarter, more attractive. I need to go to the gym to change this bit. But it's this bit you have

to change. And the second thing I saw, which bothered me even more, was how abusive the diet industry was. We talk about punishing those pounds, doing a punishing, going on a strict diet. I'm starving myself. I've been so good, I've been so bad, and I hated that, because it makes people feel bad about themselves. And if I had omission, it would be to make everyone feel good about themselves all the time. So I stayed working for Jane because it was amazing, but I trained in hypnotherapy in 1984.

And at the time, one of my roommates was bulimic, one was anorexic, one would eat a couple of frozen grapes, and now the other would defrost a whole frozen cheesecake and eat the whole thing while crying. And so I was working with all these people. It was really amazing to understand that it led me into my, I'm Enough movement because I realize that people with eating disorders and compulsive shopping and hoarding and drinking and addictions all had the same thing, I'm not enough, the core.

I've worked with thousands of addicts. I've never met one ever who said, I'm good enough, I'm worthy enough, and I just drink for fun. They drink because of the emptiness inside. And the emptiness is the needs that were not met as children, that they're still trying to fill. And so in 1984, I saw many things that fascinated me and were all to do with this feeling of not enoughness. And so in 1988, I began to research the psychology of eating disorders,

the psychology of not enoughness, It's like what lies behind addictions? And over maybe four years, I developed my own method of therapy. And clients would come in and say things like, oh, you know, when you said that one thing or did that one thing, that was a game changer. But often they'd say something different. So I began to collate all the things that really worked for clients. Because therapy is not about the therapist.

It's about the client. What's wrong? What happened? And I realized that to be really good, you have to do three things at the same time. You have to become what I call a detective, a good detective, a good detective lays out pictures and they look at them and then they try to work out what's happened in this scene. So I'd be looking at information and working out with the client, not for them. How did you become anorexic?

How did you become believing it? When did you become a hoarder? what happened when you began to have these issues. I never say what's wrong with you. I never even say, how are you feeling? I always say, what happened? What happened to you? Let's track back like a detective.

When you're 11, you suddenly developed an eating disorder. When you were 12, you suddenly got contact dermatitis. What was going on in that moment? And after you've got that information, which is very easy to get when you ask the right questions. The next thing is to become more like a dentist and a detective and you start removing all those toxic beliefs. Look, just because your dad never saw you, just because you were the fifth girl and you should have been a boy, that's not you, you're meant to be you. So I would then, so it's like a detective gathering information, a dentist extracting all the toxic stuff,

and then you become a coder and you code in and wire in and fire in better beliefs, rather like if my computer started to slow down, I'd get an excellent, you go, it's got a bug in it. I'm going to upgrade your software. But we have a bug in us, and we need to upgrade our software. And then in doing that, I realized that really all of my clients could only have one of three things wrong with them. And that would be a billionaire, an Olympic athlete, or maybe a school teacher, or maybe an unhappy teenager that was desperately depressed.

and the three things are always, I'm not enough. That's the huge thing, I'm not enough. And if you start from I'm not enough, then you need more. More cake, more drinks, more drugs, more sex, more stuff, more shopping, more followers. Because we've got so into, I'm not enough and I need more. And it's actually very easy to fix that, which is why I have all these, I'm enough bracelets. And I have an I'm enough movement, and we've got it in schools now. and it's making a profound difference.

The next thing wrong is what I want isn't available. I want love, but I'm not lovable. I want success, but I didn't go to college. I want to be free of depression, but I've got the depression gene or the alcoholic gene. I'm not really convinced they even exist, but the belief that I want something so much, and I'm going after it, but it's not available.

It's this block, these blocking thoughts, these limiting beliefs. And the third one is I'm different, so I can't connect. And that sounds silly, but it's actually the vein of people's lives because we're tribal people, wired to connect, why to belong, wired to find connection and avoid rejection. But we live in a world now where we connect with our screen and we connect with our phone.

And it's really damaging people. So I find with all my clients, and I've trained 15,000 people now to be our T-T therapist or coach. And I would say, look, don't make it complicated. Look for those three things. You'll find them. And when you look for those, it can only be one of those three things or degrees of it.

It just makes life so simple because clients love it when you say, look, I know we're talking about the addiction to alcohol and the addiction to drugs and the self-sabotage and the procrastination. But really, the only thing wrong with you is you don't think you're good enough. And that's a belief. That's a belief and here's how it works. You think a thought.

And the thought makes you feel a feeling. And the feeling makes you behave in a certain way which you justify because you think were thoughts. So don't worry about changing the behaviour. Or indeed the feeling changed the thought and here I am in Estonia. I've been working with children all week and it's been such a joy.

And we actually made a big triangle and they had to start at the thought and think a thought and the thought was I can't make friends. Now run to the next point and write a feeling. I feel so sad. Now run to a behavior. I cry because I can't make friends. And I, so we've gone to the thing, I can't make friends. That makes me feel sad. That makes me cry and act out because I can't make friends. So let's change the thought.

I make friends easily. People like me now go to a feeling. Well, I feel good. I feel confident. I feel all right. And what's the behavior? I talk to other kids. I invite them to come to my home. I invite them to a play date. And I do that because, because, because, because, because, I think a thought. So it's so great that we're getting small children to understand that your thoughts are yours to change. You're not your thoughts. Change them. And I think a lot of conventional therapy is so busy trying to change the behavior or the actions or the feelings when the law said, the law of control says it all starts with a thought. But changing your thoughts is easy, it's free, can be instant. And so I really like to simplify what makes humans tick, because what's the point of making it complicated? How does that help anyone who says, well, I'm messed up and so hard to change and people can't change? It's like, well, that's not correct.

Who taught you that? For the minute you're born, you're changing. Oh, you know, it's long and arduous to recover. No, it isn't. Some people will recover like that. Some people don't, but you could be one of the ones that changes your thoughts, changes your feelings, changes your actions after all. Most of us have had an experience of eating something being violently, saying, oh, I could never eat that again. I could never look at whiskey again. There's nowhere I could ever eat shellfish again because I've changed the thought. You know, I was in New York a few years ago and I always ate shellfish and I went into anaphyliptic shock. It was really bizarre. And now I have to think a thought, if I eat that, I could go into anaphyliptic shock. I was fine because I was unconscious, but my poor husband and sister, that was awful for them.

And my husband, you must promise me, you'll never do that again. I said, no, I promise. And so I think, oh, I could eat a scallop, but it would really upset my husband. So I think a different thought. I don't think, no, it's not fair. I can't eat scallops. I think of all the things I can eat instead. But it's very simple to think a different thought, because we own our thought.

and we can change our thoughts. And if we just learn to question, why do I think that? Who told me that was true? Question a thought, upgrade your thought, update your thought. For women especially, all these thoughts, you can never find love after 50. Nobody wants somebody with cellulite.

If you're a successful woman, a man won't like you. Well, that's not true. That's not true for Michelle Obama. Why would that be true for you? There's lots of women getting married for the first time at 50, including me. Your lovability has got nothing to do with the numbers on the scales or the numbers in your clothing label or the numbers on your person or the number of your followers.

So we get very consumed by the number. I need to be thinner, taller, smarter, better grades, more followers. And you've got to stop all of that and just believe that you're great and you can be even greater when you stop defining who you are by what the numbers say. There's so much I want to unpack there. When you talk about those three things that typically are at the root of just whatever when you work with, I'm not enough. You know, I want that, but it's just not possible for me.

I just don't fit in. Yeah. You know, and I'm thinking about that first and I'm not enough. And the people I've known in my life who have been addicts, you know, the things that I've struggled with, I can see a bit of that. But the second one, as soon as you start to talk about, I want that, but it's not for me. The tricky thing about that is that there's typically a lot of data that people believe in. You know, I think about myself.

I grew up really shy. I didn't speak to anyone outside of my family until I was in my teens. And then at some point had the opportunity to speak for a living. That was a very different story, a very different, and caused quite a bit of internal pain and internal struggle for myself. And I had a lot of data. I can't speak for a living. I'm painfully shy. And needed to find a way to change that narrative.

Is that really the basis of RTT to rapid transnational therapy, to have people change their narrative, whether they do it on their own or they do it through a therapist? What's the basis of the treatment? Well, I think for most of us, we make a belief without realizing that that belief turns around and makes us. And then we have something called confirmation bias. We now look for proof of that belief as well. So I can have a belief.

I'm painfully shy and I can't speak to people. I've made a belief. But that belief is making me now because I stress. about speaking to people I might blush, I avoid situations. And now I'm looking for proof, the confirmation bias. Look, last time I spoke, I went bright red, I got all tongue tied. That person, I could see they weren't interested. I felt like an idiot. So I better make sure I carry on not speaking. So you have to switch it. I've made a belief. Why don't I change that to, I can talk to people, other people do it. I have two ears and one mouth. That means I should

listen, more, talk less, but I can engage with people. If I can talk to my friends or my pet or someone, I can talk to people. I'm making a different belief. And that different belief is making me. Now I'm looking for confirmation bias of how, oh, I spoke to a guy in the store and they were engaging. I spoke to someone at a bus stop and they were engaging. And if I can speak to one person, I can speak to many. And I can learn. I can go on YouTube and just learn what makes a great speaker and I can learn that you know I have a great brain that can learn stuff and one of the reasons I called my book tell yourself a better lie is because in my experience all of my client's greatest pain was the lie they told themselves and the story they brought into and I say listen if you're

prepared to tell yourself a lie which is if I look at cake I gain weight everything I touch falls apart my family has ever done anything. I've got the depression gene. We don't even know if that's true. That's probably a lie. When the people say, I've eaten like a horse all weekend. No, you haven't. You didn't have a nose bag on.

I'm assuming you peed occasionally. So you didn't really eat nonstop like a horse or weekend. Let's change that. So if your lies, I gain weight by looking at food, you might as well say, I've got a super fast metabolism. My body is a fat. burning machine, is that true? But it doesn't matter because saying you eat like a horse is also not true. But here's how it works. You've got a belief. You've made it, it's making you and you're

looking for proofs and make a better belief. When people say, oh, I got a memory like a sieve. Why not say, I have an amazing memory? I can't sleep at night. Sleep comes to me. Changing the first bit the thought means that you change the feeling means that you change the behavior. And people say, no, it's amazing. I just thought a different thought, and everything changed on a dime. You know, there's a great song by Hot Chocolate called It started with a kiss, but nothing starts with a kiss.

It starts with a thought, I want to kiss that person. I'm going to kiss that person. People say, I don't know what I was thinking of. How did I end up in this mess? Well, but you were thinking, you were thinking, I'm not going to succeed. Everything's not going to work out. If I start that business, it will fail.

If I write the essay, it will get a bad mark. So I'm just going to procrastinate here and do nothing. And then I can't fail. And when you take people back to that, you know, procrastination and self-sabotage is nothing more than a reaction to a thought that I'm not enough. So many people are so scared of failing that they think, well, I'm not going to, I've written a book, but I'll never show it to anyone. I've got an idea, but what if it doesn't work?

And when they begin to see, oh, it all tracks back to a thought which I'm free to change. It's very liberating. It's very empowering. You know, when I was working with these children last week, a little girl of nine was saying, I'm not pretty enough. I'm not cool enough. I don't rule the school. I'm like, but why do you want to rule the school? Why don't you just rule you? Just rule your thoughts. You are perfectly pretty and engaging and gorgeous. That's not the most important thing. to see nine-year-old say, I'm not pretty enough. I'm not cute enough.

I'm not smart enough. I'm frustrated because I can't learn IT like other kids. And the amazement when they realized, oh, I can change that. And it could change my entire world. It's so lovely to see. That idea that our thoughts create feelings, feelings, create behaviors, which confirm the next thoughts. Yes, exactly.

You can see how that spirals in the wrong way. You can see how that become liberating, right? You can change that first thought. Because you change the loop. So when the kids were saying, my thought is I can't do math, my feeling is I'm so frustrated. My behavior is I'm so angry I act out in the classroom. But what if I thought, I'm really good at math.

And I'm learning this. And I got a brilliant brain. I'm picking it up. And now they run to a feeling I feel empowered. And the action is I'm studying more. I'm asking questions. I'm asking the teacher for help here because I'm good at this. And so for them to run, it's called it, I call it a ladder of looping thoughts,

but to get to kids to run the loop, think a thought, run to the next board, stick a post in it on the feeling run to the next board, run back. And now let's switch it because your mind doesn't know, and it really doesn't care if what you tell it is good or bad, helpful or useless, beneficial or not. it lets it in that the thing is what people don't get is that your mind must act on the thoughts you think and while you can choose the thoughts your mind can't if you think i know i'll get sick it's flu season i know i'm going to get cold because i touched a handrail i know i'm going to get fat because i ate

pie your mind has no choice the strongest force in all of us as we must act in a way that matches how we define ourselves. And every thought we think is a blueprint that our mind and body work to make real. So your mind's job is to make your thoughts real. The job of your mind is to listen to your thoughts and to start to make them real. And it doesn't have any choice in that, but you have a great choice. Your job is to think better thoughts, which makes your mind's job easier. So when you understand your mind's job and you understand your job, so let's imagine you're saying to your mind, if I get dumped one more time, it will kill me.

If one more person ghost me, that's it, it will ruin my life. If one more person rejects me, I'm just going to never go out again. Now your mind's job is to make you act in a way that avoids rejection, probably becoming very solitary, not asking for anything. but if you were to say to your mind, hey mind, you know, I love connecting. I'm finding love and love is finding me, your mind's going to do a different job. If you say to your mind, oh, what I would give for a week in bed, I just want to lie around doing nothing, your mind's like, well, I got to act on that.

You're thinking of thought, I need some time off, I need to lie around on the couch doing nothing. And now your mind can give you the flu or chronic diarrhea because it's listening. to a thought which it must start to make real. But if you would just think a better thought. So if I said to my mind, I want attention, I'm lacking in tension, I need to be noticed, I might get chronic diarrhea or explosive gas or a nervous twitch. I'll definitely get attention. But if I just say to my mind a better thought, I'm worthy of attention, good attention.

And I get good attention because I'm good at my job and my boss notices and people notice then everything changes on a dime because we have to remember something. The mind has no choice but to act on our thoughts, but we have an incredible choice to think better thoughts. And if you could look in your body and see the inflammation, the stress hormones, the cortisol you create from thinking negative thoughts, you would never do it again. So we got to remember our thoughts and not our thoughts.

They're a blueprint that our mind. body and psyche are trying to make real and if you could only think better thoughts you'd give your mind an easy job I think that's going to resonate with so many people I think about our channels and some of the the things that people are working through and just hearing it said so clearly your mind's job is to turn your thoughts into reality yeah and it's got no choice in that no choice but you've got the ability to change those thoughts that essentially feeds the machine yeah you know know, when people think icons, oftentimes they think, you know, Hall of Fame athlete, movie star, we think people who have transformed an industry, which is you. So, you know, after doing a bunch of research into your story, what you've done, I understand

the impact you've had on the world. How about your own story? Do you ever feel like your, the narrative in your head needs to be worked on? How does this impact you? You're a person just like all of us. Do you ever need to offer something? self-treatment to yourself? Yeah, you know, a couple of months ago I was lying on the sofa and heard myself so I'm chronically tired and I thought, but that's not true. You are tired and you need some rest and some water, but you're not chronically tired. So I'm still aware that occasionally you have to take, this is driving me crazy. What am I talking about here? I'm talking about being at the airport and my flight is delayed by seven hours, which happened recently, but hey, I've got a laptop,

I'm in the lounge, I can get lots of work done. And so I do occasionally have to change. And so I do occasionally have to check myself and take out the words chronic. This is chronic stress. Well, I don't say that. I said chronic tiredness. This is driving me and saying, what am I talking about? I'm talking about delay at an airport.

Does it really matter? I'm talking about I've got all this workload on, but I can just cancel it. It's really not that important. You know, I see you say that with you, my kid is driving me crazy, but they're not. They're an age-appropriate baby.

And in a blink of an eye, They'll be gone. It goes so fast. And then you'll think, oh, you know, all that time I spent getting stressed about, my kid doesn't put, do up lids. They get peanut butter smears on the fridge. They leave mess everywhere.

Now, here I am, well, I'd give anything to have those kids back smearing peanut butter on my lovely stainless steel fridge. So I think what helps me a lot and helps many of my clients is to do this. This challenge I have now, because I try not to say problem. Is it someone else's fantasy dream? Would they love a husband who leaves his underpants on the floor? A kid who never shuts the cat. I go in every cabinet door is open.

A kid who doesn't understand that laundry goes in the basket. Is there someone in the wood to go, I would love that problem? I'm just about to spend all my money on IVF. I've just mortgaged my home for IVF. I give anything for a messy husband or a messy wife. And so that really helps you to think, wow, Is my problem someone's fantasy dream come true? Would someone want to swap places?

There's always something goes, oh, I love you complaining about being on the 405 going to work and it's a hell, the freeway is hell, the commuter's hell, but it's not really hell because, A, you've got a car, B, you've got money to get gasning, and C, you're going to a job that pays you, and that's someone's fantasy. And so that really helps me a lot to always,

bring myself back to, wow, look at my camera. I'm flying here. I'm flying there. I'm flying there. You know, we were actually going to, we're going to India. Sorry, I'm going, I'm going to Germany. Then India, I'll say, you know what, I'm not going to go to India. I don't need to. I'll go to India in January. It's a lot of travel. So let's just take that one out. We always have a choice. You know, I don't have FOMO. I have DOMO, the absolute delight of missing out and staying home and watching Netflix. I have, you know, I have, I don't have FOMOO, I have, I have, I have, I'm Jomo, the joy of missing. I think I don't really want to go there.

But I think it's very important to really pay attention to how you dial. What kind of word? Do you use the words, hell, nightmare? What are you talking about? You're talking about a line in the store on Christmas Eve. It's hell. Look at all these people. But, you know, hell is going to a store maybe in somewhere like Zimbabwe

where there isn't any food to buy. And even if there was, you haven't got any money. to buy it. And when you get to go to places like, I should, I have to be careful not to offend people, but downtown Jamaica, parts of Cuba, certainly parts of Zimbabwe, you think, wow, I really have no problems at all. Parts of Mexico, when I was driving through Jamaica, I didn't want to say to my driver, are these people's homes, these little metal shouts? I shouldn't even ask, but I couldn't even imagine how we can moan about, oh, my heating bill or a house is a mess when other people don't even have a home. So I live on Venice Beach, which has got a lot of

homeless people. So every day I get to think, wow, you know, just having heat and light and water. So I think for me, and also I learned maybe 30 years ago to change my story. You know, my story was interesting. My mother when I was pregnant told me that when she was pregnant, she was having an affair with my father's best friend and that she really wanted me to be his baby. When I was born, she was so upset. She turned her face to the wall. She cried for a year because I was the wrong baby. She shouldn't tell me that till I was having my own baby because she was telling me, you know, she said, you cried for two years because you must have picked up my disappointment that you were the wrong baby. I wanted a piece of this guy. I couldn't marry him, but I want and you weren't

his and I was so upset. And for a while I felt this tremendous sense of shame I was the wrong baby. And my mother in the 60s was having an affair with someone else. Then later I thought, wow, I could reframe that because my mother told me that both men were in the maternity ward when I was being born. They both picked a name for me. He picked the name Candy. And for enough, I would never recognize that name. I hated that name. And Marissa was a kind of a weird. weird name when every kid at school is called Jana and Sarah and Claire and Pamela and here was I Marissa. But later I thought that's actually really cool. If two men wanted me when I was being born, I should have known that when I was 20. I wouldn't have dated all those ages. I thought, hey, no, no, no. When I was being

born, two guys wanted me. Two guys were waiting for me to be theirs and they both picked a name. So I switched the shame and the embarrassment. It's actually kind of cool. I was wanted by two men, even before I came out of the womb. And if I'd known that when I dated all those idiots, I would have had a stronger sense of who I was. But maybe I wouldn't. Maybe at 20 I'd still been into the shame. And even my husband didn't know that story until a year ago.

But that's the thing. You get to edit your story, upgrade your story, rewrite your story, change your story. People say, but I was abused when I was a kid. How can I edit that? That's horrible, horrible thing. So people might say to me, but that's easy for you. I was abused when I was a baby.

I was physically abused, sex, mentally abused. How can I reframe that? Well, I would never diminish how horrific that is, but you're an adult now. You don't live with those people. You have the power to make better choices. To say, no one's putting their hands on me. I will never do that again.

And one of the people I trained, if I was abused as a child, and I became a therapist to work with abused children. I thought I know what it's like, and I can use that knowledge to help kids have a voice. So it may sound a bit polyana, but actually whatever has gone on in your early childhood, you still can reframe it and say that will never happen again.

I would think of your life being like a clock, and if your life was a clock, then your childhood is only the first seven minutes, And it can be awful. And I mean, I have clients who tell me stories that are so horrendous, but we're not fragile. Human beings are actually incredibly resilient. And no matter how bad the first seven minutes is,

I mean, look at Oprah Winfrey's first seven minutes. You can still make the rest of the clock the next 53 minutes amazing. And sometimes you're more resilient. You know, I tell all my clients that bodybuilder will break a muscle down and then rest and then it grows back bigger. So that must mean a broken heart also grows back bigger. So broken hearts with the scars of the bigger, better hearts, people who've been through trauma and much more understanding.

And so you have to look at your story and go, well, here's my story. It's not a great story. I can't change the beginning, but could I change the middle? Could I change, can I edit that story? We rewrite that story and change my story. entire life. And one of my clients told me her story, which was that her parents tried to terminate her in the womb because they were very young and they didn't want a baby. And they told her this story. And they said, you know, you were so strong and so meant to be. And she said, every time I heard that

story, I thought, yes, against all the odds, I was meant to be here. I must be here for something amazing. And she is an amazing person with an amazing career. Very well known, but you'd never know who it was. Another client told me that same story. I found out my parents tried to terminate me and I survived their attempt. And so what point is there? How could I even be anything? If my own parents didn't want me, then I'm clearly not worth anything. But the other one said if my own parents didn't want me and I survived that, I must be worth everything. And so our job is to look at our story and think, well, if I retell this story every day, am I keeping it going? Why don't I change it?

Because you do have the power should you want to to edit your story, rewrite it, and change it. It's powerful. The ability to rewrite a story to change that perspective. I think, you know, a lot of people who feel like maybe they're stuck right now in their story, that's... I think those are the words that are really what unlocks the next step, right? It's that idea of the looping thoughts to the feeling.

to the actions to the thoughts. We work a lot... Are you familiar with Alan Watts? Yeah. We work a lot with his body of work. And I just recently heard an interview where he was talking about near the end of his life.

Some days I feel like I'm stuck together by wire and sticky bits of tape. And it makes me think, should I question what I'm doing? And he says, no, I shouldn't question what I'm doing. I'm a person like anyone else. And really, the show must go on. Like, this is...

Just because... I'm a person who feels these things too doesn't mean that the teaching needs to end. Do you ever find that when you're working with a client, there's a story that just really rocks you or puts you into a perspective that feels challenging to get out of? Have there been any stories that have really rocked you? I think the saddest stories I find are often when I work with teenage boys who never had a father in their life. Or I've had a few clients who said, you know, I was an IVF baby or my mother just found

someone and I don't even know who my dad is. And I worked with a kid a little while ago whose parents have gone to Brazil and adopted him. And they loved him very much and they brought him back. But he couldn't find his real family. They just found him somewhere. And he had no ability to trace that family. And so his story was, I can't find my birth mother or father. I can't find, I don't belong here. And I talked to him a bit and said, you know, darling, you have to celebrate being Brazilian. You know, you can go to Brazil, you can learn Brazilian. Brazil was actually in the World Cup at the time, and you can still find that. When he came back, the next time he died his hair, the kind of the Brazilian flag,

oh, he's really taken that on board. And he was a kid that was so lost and so angry with his parents because they hadn't understood that when they took him and gave him a better life, they took him away from what he thought mattered. But then, of course, he realized that he could go to Brazil, embrace his brain. He might never, and he probably would never find those parents, but he could find the Brazilianness in him. And even though he was only 14 and was such an angry kid, he suddenly realized, oh, you know, I still can be Brazilian. It's in me.

It's in my genes. If I never find those parents, I can find Brazilian people and I can hang out with them. And so sometimes you can't change a client story. When a kid comes to me, as they often do, and said, you know, I never had a dad. My dad never paid her. He never even saw me. I'd love to give you a great dad, but I can give you the next best thing. What would a great dad say? And they go, I don't know. But if you did know, whatever, no, if you didn't know. And then they'll say, oh, a great dad would say, I'm proud of you. A great dad would say, I'm glad you're here. A great dad would say you're an amazing kid. Because he's not rocket science. What a great dad would say. I'm glad you're here. I'm proud of you. You're an amazing kid. You've got some incredible talent. you're going to do something amazing.

And so I make them say it and say it and say it until it sinks in. And I would say them, look, if you put balm on your skin and your skin was dry, that balm would nourish you wherever it came from, whether it was free in an airplane or the most expensive balm in the world. But words are balm and the words will nourish you too. And so I get them to imagine what a great dad would say. And then to say those words. And it's incredible how that goes in and makes a profound difference.

And so I think that's been very impactful, seeing what I call the lost teenagers. No one loves me, so I'm not lovable. No one believes in me, so I'm not believable. And I say, but I believe in you. And actually, you believe in you. We've already got two people in the room who believe in you. And then sometimes we have to point out, maybe somebody like Eminem, who's a great reference for lost kids because nobody believed in him.

And nobody believed he could be a rapper, but here he is. and he put his anger into rapping. And then they go, oh, yeah. So he came from a messed up beginning. And then I was telling the truth, look, you're not broken, but she came from a broken home. You're not even flawed,

but you had flawed parenting. You're not even damaged, but the way you were raised was damaging. So that isn't you. Your parenting was flawed. Your parents' marriage was broken, but you're not broken. You're not even flawed.

And anyway, we're all flawed. I'm flawed, you're flawed. The best you can ever be in life is a flawed person, having a flawed relationship with a flawed person. I call it being flawsome. So you're florsome. Tell yourself a better lie. Stop saying nobody loved me and start to say,

but if they had, what would they say? And I can say that because, again, the mind doesn't know what, okay? When you start to go, hey, I'm amazing, it doesn't go, who's saying that? Where's that coming from? It just, it sinks in like butter on hot, your toast has to go where's the butter come from. It absorbs it.

And in the same way, if you can see words as nourishing, your body absorbing them, your mind absorbing them, then you understand your job. It's to think of what a great dad, or a great girlfriend, or a great boss would say, and don't give up your power going, well, who can I find out there to say those words? Because that just makes you needy, say them yourself.

Because if I said to someone, okay, I'm going to give you a power, you the job of making me feel good and you could do it but then what if you got sick or something happened now i've gone right back and so so often people give up their needs no one's going to love me or they give them the way you you got to do the job i i can't do it but when you think oh no there's a third way think of your unmet needs the emptiness in you is what you didn't get as a kid you didn't get love. He didn't get praise. You didn't get recognition. You didn't get celebrated. Didn't even get gifts. And that's horrible. But imagine if you could start to say those things, I matter. I'm significant. I'm lovable. I'm worthy. I'm enough. And then you'll start to fill up that emptiness.

The not enoughness becomes enoughness. And actually when you do it yourself, it's way more powerful anyway, because you have no agenda. So when kids begin to see, you. So when kids begin to see, oh, I can tell myself I'm cool, I'm smart, and people, yeah, people pick it up because it starts to resonate out from you and back to you, this kind of magnetic energy. So once you really buy into and tell yourself you're lovable, the world will meet you at that level, but when you go, I'm not lovable, I don't matter, I'm not enough, it's meeting you at that level. So it's empowering to make kids say, look, and adults do. Think of the words you want to hear what I call the missing bit. What have you been longing to hear? Well, don't give

that away and don't give that up. Start to say it yourself because it sinks in. Whoever saying it it sinks in. But when someone else says it, they might have an agenda. You agree. Could you let me some money? But when you say it, there is no agenda. Just because we are flawed doesn't mean we don't go on. That idea of I've got wire, I've got sticky things hold me together. I can still go on. And I think that's really empowering for people who, you know, they have had something challenging. We've had a setback. We've had something that feels like that could be my story or it could not be. Or it could be shaped into a different story.

I'm curious, Marissa, you've obviously had to work hard to get to this place. Who's been your inspiration? I think Wayne Dyer, who said something I never forgot. Don't die with your music still inside you. And of course, when Wayne did die, he'd shared his music with the whole world, and he's still here. You know, someone like Frank Sinatra, when you hear his music, he's still here. So I think Wayne Dyer was a massive influence. And Gil Boyne, Tony Robbins, David Viscott, so many people, but they're all men.

And of course, now we've got Mel Robbins, great Louise Hay. And some amazing women, Gabrielle Bernstein, are also coming up with that message. but when I became a speaker, there weren't really very many women apart from Louise Hay. And so I think I looked at other people who had a message and were delivering it very well. But of course, you can't be Tony Robbins. You've got to have your own message. And so I think it was understanding, you know, I have a message and I can share that. And it's a good thing to share it.

And to not get into, oh, what if nobody listens? What if somebody rejects me? What if someone hates my message? And some people do. But I have a choice every day. I don't have to let that in. And often one of the most amazing things you can do in your life, which is so simple, is do not let in destructive criticism.

Let him praise and praise yourself, but don't let in criticism and do not let in your own criticism because it's so diminishing. So again, you have a choice. You can diminish yourself or praise yourself. One of the things I tell people a lot is, look, you have a choice every day. Talk yourself into it.

it, talk yourself. Talk yourself into believing you're amazing and out of believing you're not amazing. The mind can't go into two lanes. I'm great, I'm amazing, I'm useless, I'm not good. You can't drive two lanes. The mind can't hold conflicting beliefs, you know, the mind wants to go to that belief or that. It can't go to both. And that's one of the rules of the mind, wherever you focus on, you get more of. And you can't be in two lanes. So pick a better lane, go into that better lane, keep telling yourself better things, think better thoughts, and whatever is the missing bit, the emptiness, the needs you didn't get met, take some time and think about what they are and think about what you wanted here and then tell

yourself those words, I can do it, I've got this, I'm good at this, because amazingly, there is nothing that will raise yourself esteem like praise, but your own praise is better. if you said to me, oh, you can speak and say, you can do that. I go, yeah, but you're just saying that. But if I say it, my mind believes that everything I tell it must be true, whether it's good or bad, helpful or very hurtful. So we've got to get into the excellent habit of saying, I can do this, I've got this, this has got my name all over it, no one can do this very mean. They could. I can still do it my way. And so it sounds very simple. It all comes back to how you dialogue. with you, but it does.

Or come back to how you dialogue with you. When you dialogue with you better, other people begin to dialogue with you better too. So your life can change like that if you just get into the excellent habit and keep going of dialoguing better with you. You can have a day off. But as long as you do it almost all the time, your life will be so different. Your life can change if you change your dialogue. Yeah, well, it does change.

your life can change immediately when you change your dialogue. There are many people who've told you that. You know, I just stopped saying that, and I started saying something different. Like when my little girl was little, she wasn't that little, she's probably nine or ten. And she'd leave the door, and she'd come back as she got to the gate. And I'd always say, what have you remembered? Because, Mommy, I've remembered my lunch. And I never said, what have you forgotten?

Oh, every time you get to the gate back, you come. Every time we get in the car, say, oh, Mommy, I've forgotten. And I say, no, you haven't. You remembered, because we get in the car, you remember. So every time I said, what have you remembered, she'd begin to think, oh, my mind is so cool. It reminds me before I leave the house, before my mum drive this reminded me of something. And just that little reframe, what have you remembered rather than what have you forgotten now? Oh, my God, your mind's like a Cid. It's like, well, your mind is really cool.

It reminds you. And, of course, her memory got better and better and better, because I'd always say, what have you remembered? So we all get a choice. Oh, I'm such an idiot. I forgot. I got that wrong. But then even when you get something wrong, what did you learn?

You know, a person who never made a mistake, never made anything, your mistakes teach you. So even when you make a mistake, well, I learned something. I learned I'll never do that again. You know, occasionally when I'm traveling, I go, okay, we've forgotten our flexors, so let's always keep them in our travel bag. We've forgotten our charges.

Let's always keep them there. When you make a mistake, it usually enhances you, enhances your education if you learn from it. Marissa, what do you think your legacy is? I hope my legacy is helping people who are good about themselves and making it easy. It's like that song, Make It Easy on Yourself. So I'd like my legacy to be, you can make it easy on yourself. Therapy doesn't have to be long or painful to make it easy on yourself. to make it easy on yourself, dialogue better with yourself.

You know, your body, your mind are just amazing. You've got probably the most amazing thing they've ever have in your whole life is your body and your mind. They're just, what it can do is mind boggling. So get into the habit of thinking, wow, you know, this is amazing. I'm living in this country with this amazing body and amazing mind. And when you think better thoughts, you really do live a better life. And what's next? So my book, Tell Yourself a Better Lie, I'm going to bring a version of that out for children, you know,

because Tell Yourself, Better Lie is 10 case studies of people with very extreme things, alcoholism, OCD, bulimia, all kinds of interesting things, suicidal thoughts. And in each story, it invites the reader to go, wow, you did that and that, but I could do that. It gives the readers and things they can do themselves. So I'm doing a version of that. for teenagers. And I've just created an thing called

dietless life. And I've always, I said at the beginning, looked at how abusive the weight loss industry is, how it makes people feel so bad. And I would tell all my clients, listen, the only way

you can have a body you love is to love the body you have so much that you treat it with care and respect instead of self-hatred and punishing and starvation. And so it's all about the psychology of why we eat badly,

why we punish ourselves, And I just did the first three months. It's been amazing people who have given me the most incredible feedback. So I'm going to carry on with dietless life and create a version of that for parents too. And putting my RTT method into schools. You know, we've got it in about 1,600 schools,

but we want it everywhere. And it's completely free. So I guess dietless life, the book for children, and getting more RTT into schools. It's a lot, but it's all working. It's all happening and it's amazing. Sound really powerful. I can imagine parents, people out there that are just looking for, what do I do next with these challenges that are going on?

That sounds like a really helpful roadmap. Marissa, where can people find you? So you can find me everywhere. I'm eternally grateful that I was called Marissa Pir because there's only one of me. So you can find me on YouTube. There's hundreds and hundreds of free videos. If you go to Marissapeer.com, we have a lot of free audios. We have completely free audios on love blocks, wealth blocks, health blocks, success blocks.

You can take as many as you like for other people. So marisapir.com, lots of free stuff. RTT.com, if you want to train with us and do what I do, because it is the best job in the whole world. And if you go to I'menough.com, we have lots of these bracelets and chapters of books that we give away. So Maristhepeer.com, RTTT.com, I'menough.com, and we're all over YouTube and Instagram too. Beautiful. Thank you for this conversation.

Thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes. Download the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes.