Moment 78 - World Leading Therapist: A Simple Habit That Will Change Your Life: Marisa Peer

00:03I 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, I mean, 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. So 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.

00:35And I, you know, yeah. But then you have to ask them, 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 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 that expectation yeah and it's a little bit more than the thought because if you imagine a snack 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 So imagine you thought a thought, which is I'm not enough.

01:26The 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, maybe bitter. So I've thought a thought. I've got some feelings that come with thinking the thought. But then what actions come from thinking that thought and feeling those feelings?

01:54Often 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 knot 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?

02:23Well, 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, 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, so let's change the behaviour.

03:05Stop drinking, stop smoking, stop sabotaging, stop procrastinating, stop acting out. But the behaviour 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 yeah tell them all the reasons why we should not be together um 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 for my childhood honestly from writing and doing this podcast

04:10finally dawned on me where I'd learned what love 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. Yeah 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 require 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.

05:09You 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. You're 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, mummy 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 no 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 or 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 it. 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.

06:16And 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 second-hand clothes and mum 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 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 that that imprisonment belief that i had that relationships were prison i 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 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

07:32flee 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.

07:59The 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.

08:48and 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.

09:25I know that to be true because I've got many anti-bullying programs in schools. And they all say the same thing. All the kids say that every time I'm 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 bullied 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?

09:54I'm having a great time, I think I 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 um 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 if we're in this culture of just the flippancy of words where we say i can't that's not me yeah i'm not that person i am this these kind of like binary definitive statements are they dangerous yeah when you say so how do they go not bad i'm all right how was your weekend not bad so that they 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 in came the sweet little

11:11old lady and she kept talking about her husband saying he's a good husband 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've 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 got a pension I got a house I got friends I 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 just 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

12:23way 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.

12:56And that's horrible for you, 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.

13:29if 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.

14:02They 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 realise they can. 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.

14:31You think, oh, I tried that. I didn't like it. I never want to do that again.