I studied Marisa Peer’s methodology for clinical hypnotherapy, “Rapid Transformational Therapy”, during a week-long live practicum course in Los Angeles, California. I applied and was accepted to the program months before, but honestly had no idea what to expect because I didn’t complete any of the online courses before my trip. The night before, I crammed in as much information about her hypnosis techniques that I could and hoped for the best. Within one week of intensive practical training, the old me had been broken down, dissolved into goo, and I emerged from my cocoon an enlightened, new woman.

As an avid self-learner of neuropsychology, somatic healing, subconscious reprogramming and the effects of childhood trauma on cognitive development, I thought I would be pretty prepared for all the hands-on knowledge we’d be submerged in. And truthfully, I was. But I wasn’t prepared for how deeply the integration of my prior learnings with Marisa Peer’s profoundly impactful clinical techniques would beat me down and rebuild my psyche and soul. After years of wading through my own shadow work alone, the seismic shift I experienced thanks to the unconditional support emanating from the brave, smart, kind and beautiful group of likeminded humans I trained alongside was nothing short of evolutionary.

As I continue the online portion of my Rapid Transformational Therapy studies and conducting one-to-one clinical hypnotherapy sessions with my loved ones, I’ll write more in depth about the underlying science and theory of how hypnosis rewires our subconscious mind and how I’ve been able to assist this process through my hypnotherapy practice. For now, here are five overarching lessons that solidified for me during my live Rapid Transformational Therapy training with Marisa Peer.

1 —

We can not merely think our way into healing.

It does not matter how badly you want to change your behaviour, or how much you believe you know better, because knowing something is not the same thing as believing it. Scientists now know that over 90% of our brains have developed by the age of 5, so our subconscious belief systems will be programmed according to what we learned about life, ourselves and others during our most formative years in early childhood. Our caregivers engrained certain “truths” into our subconscious minds through their behaviour towards us and our environments during crucial moments in our cognitive and emotional development. By the age of 7, we develop what researchers call “the critical veil” in our cognitive processes, which essentially filters the information we receive through these subconscious belief systems in order to determine their validity and to categorize them, accordingly.

So, if you rationally understand that a certain behaviour is self-destructive, but subconsciously you associate it with providing a sense of “safety” or “stability” because similar behaviours or their elicited emotional responses were normalized in your childhood, it will be impossible for you to fully disconnect from the underlying logic driving your self-sabotaging behaviours.

2 —

Our subconscious mind only wants to keep us safe.

From the moment we are born, our bodies are learning how to human. We learn how to human by deciphering all the clues in our environment that we can perceive with our senses and establishing a baseline of “safety” or normalcy, accordingly. As our bodies, limbic systems, nervous systems and minds are developing, they are constantly assessing our surroundings, seeking what feels “normal” and associating that state with a feeling of peace or safety. Eventually, if what feels “normal” causes a fear-based response, that source of stimuli and emotional response becomes our baseline for safety, and as adults we will subconsciously recreate these conditions in order to feel a biochemically-perceived sense of stability. Because that is what our minds and bodies have been trained to believe is “safe”. Unfortunately, to varying degrees, we will reflect this misguided, self-destructive inner “truth” back into our realities like a mirror for the rest of our lives if we do not break the hold it has on our subconscious.

3 —

Fundamentally, we all just want to feel worthy of love.

We need people, but as adults, we do not need our parents. At least, not like we did as children. In order to develop healthily, with secure self esteems and strong senses of self, all children need a safe, stable and consistent home environment filled with unconditional love. If we did not receive unconditional love from our caregivers, we will spend the rest of our lives trying to earn it from others. If we grew up in an unstable home, our nervous system learned that these conditions were “normal” and therefore deemed them “safe”. Ultimately, we will spend the rest of our lives recreating the dynamics of that unstable environment to maintain a sense of “safety” in our bodies and stability in our unconscious minds.

Basically, if our developing nervous systems learned that love was conditional in our childhood, we will behave according to whatever got us protection, affection and attention from our caregivers into adulthood. We will operate according to the same subconscious beliefs we developed as a consequence. Even if childhood behavioural patterns do not seem to play out identically into adulthood, the underlying logic of protecting, prioritizing or punishing us so that we will receive more love and attention does not change. So, in order to heal, we must determine which key moments in our development spurred the self-limiting beliefs we hold that subconsciously make us think, feel and act as though we are unworthy of unconditional love, and re-conceptualize our baseline for safety.

4 —

Working with the inner child is essential to healing.

Working with our inner child means re-parenting ourselves by giving ourselves the unconditional love, stability and security we did not receive consistently as children. Since our subconscious beliefs and nervous systems were programmed primarily before the age of 7, our subconscious mind still thinks and operates as though we are children, so we must learn to meet ourselves on this level. We do this by imagining ourselves around this age and telling them everything they needed and deserved to hear from our caregivers, listening to and validating all of their feelings, and finally reassuring them that we will never abandon them.

The key to healing is learning to view ourselves with the same deep empathy that we would for any wounded child, and consistently show up for them when we feel like their wounds have been triggered. We need the parts of ourselves that live in our subconscious to be able to trust us, to believe that we can take over control of our lives and decision-making without forgetting their needs, too.

5 —

Healing is not meant to be done alone.

Convincing your inner child that you will love them and take care of them, unconditionally, and that they no longer need to cry or lash out for attention, affection or for their needs to be met requires opening doors in our memories we’d locked away long ago. Shadow work of this depth is never an easy task, but having a clinically trained, trusted hypnotherapy practitioner to illuminate the path and guide you through the journey makes it a whole lot more manageable.

The astronomically expedited progress made by Rapid Transformational Therapy clients, who tend to see major breakthroughs in just one or two sessions, compared to conventional talk therapy clients who’ve been seeing their therapists for years with little to no lasting improvement, is proof. Actually, it’s more than proof. It’s magic.