Marisa Peer on Healing, Beliefs, and The Power of Words

Your words shape your reality. Use better words, and guess what? You'll have a better reality. Healing is a fascinating thing because when I first became a therapist, I really had no idea that I could actually do healing. But people would come and say to me, oh, my God, you did something amazing. And when I was in Barcelona two years ago, there was a really nice girl here who actually got hit. Her hand got hit by a car. And I was in the middle of a workshop, and she called. She goes, my hand's just been hit by a car. I'm in a really bad way. So I went to meet her. I said, you got to go to hospital. She went, no, no, no. I know you can fix me. And I was looking at her, and she had the look in her eyes of what I call a terrified pony look. And so I was talking to her, and she said, oh, it's already happening. You know, every time you nudge me, you're obviously doing the healing. And I really wasn't, but she clearly thought I was. So I just carried on and said, okay, I'm commanding your left hand, which is hurt, to become exactly like your right hand. So I did a little bit of command therapy, a bit of healing vortex. And she said, I feel so much better, it doesn't even hurt. I feel great. And the next day, she did go to have an X ray, and they said, well, it's amazing your hands have been hit by a car because there's practically no damage, there's no inflammation, tiny bit of bruising, and it's all fine. And when I very, very first became a therapist, this gentleman came to see me. I never forgot him. He was quite titled. And he came in for being an alcoholic. And he sat in front of me, and I started to talk. He went, my dear, I can't speak. This is so powerful what you're doing that I'm unable to speak. And he put his head on my desk, and he thought he was in deep hypnosis. He really wasn't. I thought, well, you know, he thinks he's in deep hypnosis. He believes he's catatonic. So I continued the session and said, drinking no longer interest. You know, the opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference. From this moment on, you are indifferent to alcohol disinterest. Guess what? You love not drinking. You love it so much, you tell everyone. And I kind of carried on with his spiel, and at the end, he opened his eyes and went, that was marvelous. And I know it worked, because he must have sent Me, hundreds of people who said, well, you looked at him and he went so deep into a trance. You did something very odd to his mind, and he's never had a drop of alcohol since. But, you know, I really didn't do it. He did it. He came in with a belief. You're going to look at me and do some stuff and you're going to fix me. And really, that's what healing is. This is not to denigrate religion at all. When the preacher says, I put my hand on your head and the Holy Spirit is healing you, it's your belief that's healing you. When you go to countries like Lourdes, where people say, you know, the energy and the water and the holy water healed me, well, that's both true and not true. Your belief system can heal you. It can also make you very sick. If you say, you know, I always get sinus headaches in the winter. I always get headaches when it's cold. I get my tension headaches every Monday. The amount of people I work with who get sick on a Monday and better on a Friday is not that surprising because they hate their job. So healing is self healing. And I've been studying the mind for 33 years, studying something called neuroplasticity, which is the mind's ability to change. And eminent doctors and scientists now say, you know, the mind isn't static. It's very plastic. We can look inside the mind and see that thought thoughts change neurons. Good thoughts make good neurons, bad thoughts make bad neurons. So your mind is extremely gifted at talking to your body. It does it every day. I ate that cake. I know I'm going to get fat. You know, I knew it. Look, I've gained a pound. I knew if I looked at a cake, I would get fat. Well, actually, weirdly enough, if you look at a cake or a pizza or a hot dog, saying, that will make me fat. I can get fat just inhaling food. That belief creates so much tension, so much cortisol. And cortisol's job is to pack on weight. If you look at food and go, you know what? Whatever I eat, my metabolic rate burns it off. I prefer to eat healthy food. That's my choice. But you know what? A little bit of something every now and again, my body knows how to burn that off. And again, my clients have taught me everything. I didn't learn what I'm going to do with you today from a book or even from my own very eminent teachers. I learned it from my clients many, many years ago. I Was out with my best friend and my daughter and her husband who's terribly posh, and we all had mushrooms and we all got sick. Except maybe said, I never get sick. My body simply would not dare to reject any food I choose. But it wouldn't dare, wouldn't dare to do that. I thought, well, I'm going to have that belief too. My body would not dare to reject any food I put in it. My body would not dare to do anything except take the food I put in and combine it with light and build a perfect body for me. So you always have a choice. Your mind talks to your body all the time. That's its job. And your job is to tell your mind what you want. I want perfect health. I don't do illness. I do wellness. Everything I do is perfect. I was at a conference recently, someone around, oh my God, I'm so glad I listened to your audio. Your mind is extremely gifted at talking to your body. It does it every day. I ate that cake. I know I'm going to get fat. You know, I knew it. Look, I've gained a pound. I knew if I looked at a cake, I would get fat. Well, actually, weirdly enough, if you look at a cake or a pizza or a hot dog, saying, that will make me fat. I can get fat. Just inhaling food. That belief creates so much tension, so much cortisol. And cortisol's job is to pack on weight. If you look at food and go, you know what? Whatever I eat, my metabolic rate burns it off. I prefer to eat healthy food. That's my choice. But you know what? A little bit of something every now and again, my body knows how to burn that off. And again, my clients have taught me everything. I didn't learn what I'm going to do with you today from a book or even from my own very eminent teachers. I learned it from my clients many, many years ago. I was out with my best friend and my daughter and her husband, who's terribly posh, and we all had mushrooms and we all got sick except him. He said, I never get sick. My body simply would not dare to reject any food I choose. Wouldn't dare, wouldn't dare, dare to do that. I thought, well, I'm going to have that belief too. My body would not dare to reject any food I put in it. My body would not dare to do anything except take the food I put in and combine it with light and build a perfect body for me. So you always have a choice. Your mind talks to your body all the time. That's its job. And your job is to tell your mind what you want. I want perfect health. I don't do illness. I do wellness. Everything I do is perfect. I was at a conference recently. Someone, oh, my God, I'm so glad I listened to your audio, because, you know, I have four hours of sleep and I tell my mind I'm having eight, and I thought I should do that. I'm teaching people this. I forgot. I can do that, too. Tell my mind I've had eight hours sleep. Tell my mind I feel amazing. Tell my mind when I'm working out, my body loves this. My muscles love this. I can do a bit more. Rather than go, oh, it all aches and I hate doing this. I could be at home watching tv. So, just to be very clear, your mind's job is to do what you tell it. And your job, should you choose to accept, is to tell it great things, amazing things. I'm not aging. I'm saging. I'm embodying wellness. I have perfect balance. You can choose. Not only does the mind tell the body what to do, it also interrupts the signals coming back from the body. I've got this crippling, thumping headache and become, well, I've got a little niggle in my head, but I'm really too busy to notice it. I'm in agony. No, you've just had a little shot. That's not agony. This commute is hell. No, hell is not having a car or any gas and looking at people or taking three buses to do your commute, Being in this store is torture. No. When you go to Africa and you see they don't have any stores, and the ones they do have no food, and you'll never again stand in Ralph's and go, this is a nightmare. It's hell. Grocery shopping. If you have money in your wallet to buy food for people that love you, that is so far beyond hell. But people use these words. It's killing me. It's a disaster. It's a nightmare. I was on a plane recently, and this girl went to the bathroom and she screamed so loudly. What happened? She went, oh, my God. It's a disaster. My movie didn't pause when I went to the bathroom, and I don't know how to catch it up. It's like, wow. People use that word on a plane. They shout out, this is a disaster. But, you know, we don't even know we do that. And it's a very good idea to speak to your friends and go, hey, what are the words I use. I worked with this very famous model who, her favorite word was terrifying. Men talk to me. Terrifying. I've got off with this great l' Oreal advert. Terrifying. I'm going to go to act now. Terrifying. I'm like, darling, it's not terrifying. It's your fantasy dream come true. What would you have given 20 years ago for this? Terry, Your baby keeps you up all night. Swap places with someone who's selling their house for ivf. And stop saying this is terrifying. This is a nightmare. This is a disaster. Because you are telling your body to react as if it is indeed a nightmare disaster. Your words shape your reality. Use better words. And guess what? You'll have a better reality. It really is as simple as that. You know, I've had a lot of challenges in my life. All kinds of stuff. I was told I could never have a baby. It was impossible. And I just thought, I'm not letting that in. I've twice had very interesting illnesses. And I thought, you know, I'm not doing this. I'm doing wellness. And I say to my body, you are a wellness creating machine. Your job is to do wellness, only wellness, nothing but wellness. And my body understands because I tell it very clearly not. Oh, it's okay. It's not bad. It's okay. You are a wellness producing machine 24 hours a day. And when I'm tired, I just say, well, my body's like a battery. It needs some recharge. I never become exhausted. I'm shattered. I'm dying of tiredness. I'm dying of starvation. Anyone in this room ever been dying of starvation? I don't think so. Anyone actually ever eaten a horse? I could eat a horse. Who could ever do that? Even that much of a horse? This is killing me. This stress is driving me insane. My kid is making me go mad. Anyone ever said that? Anyone ever noticed they actually have gone mad? Of course not. I do something called ppp. If it's not permanent and it's not personal and it's not all pervasive, it's not coming together. Your kid hates you. Well, when they're 15, they hate everyone. That's not personal. It's what they do. Your boss is difficult. That's not all pervasive. He's not in your life when you're having sex with your partner or having a long bath or having a nice dinner. So it's not permanent. It can't get you if it's not personal. Meaning it's not just about you. It can't get you. And if it's not all pervasive, it doesn't go on all the time, it can't get you. So we're going to do a lot of healing today. And I'm going to just tell you one more thing about the mind. Listening. When you prefix any illness with mine. I've got my migraine, I've got my indigenous. I've got my irritable stomach. I've got my tension headache. When you call something mine, that's an ownership word. And the mind does not want to give up anything you fix with mine. My fat legs. If only I didn't have these fat legs. My big butt, my greed, my hunger. I need my McDonald's. I gotta have my latte with my muffin. You know, when we call something mine, it's like, well, this is my child, and here's my lovely husband. And this is my gift to you. We're very proud of it. We own it. When you call it. The people say, here's the wife. Nobody likes that. Here's the husband. We don't like that. The means you don't own it. So just a little heads up, if you have anything you want to fix, physical, mental, emotional, my temper. Never prefix something you want to be free with my. Call it the. And the mind understands, oh, you're not invested in this, therefore it can go away.