Tell Yourself a Better Lie

Tell Yourself a Better Lie Plot Summary

Introduction

Sarah sat alone in her therapist's waiting room, hands trembling slightly as she rehearsed what she would say. For years, she had battled anxiety that kept her from speaking in meetings, pursuing promotions, and fully enjoying time with friends. Traditional therapy had helped somewhat, but the progress felt painfully slow. Today would be different—she was trying Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT), a method she'd heard could identify and rewrite the subconscious narratives holding her back. "What stories am I telling myself that aren't even true?" she wondered. This question lies at the heart of human transformation. The narratives we construct about ourselves—often formed during childhood or difficult experiences—create the framework through which we interpret everything. These stories become so familiar that we mistake them for reality itself. Yet what if these narratives are merely lies we've told ourselves for so long they feel like truth? Through powerful techniques like hypnotherapy, dialogue with past selves, and reimagining core beliefs, RTT offers a pathway to identify these limiting stories and replace them with empowering alternatives. The transformations described in the following chapters demonstrate how quickly and profoundly lives can change when we access the root causes of our struggles and rewrite the narratives that have kept us small.

Chapter 1: The Power of Changing Your Inner Story

Carrie walked into the therapy room with a burden that had controlled her for decades: obsessive-compulsive behaviors centered around hygiene. She described how she brushed her teeth multiple times daily following a specific protocol that, if interrupted, required starting over. Her showers had to last at least thirty minutes, and any deviation from these rituals triggered intense anxiety. These behaviors had started when she was just five years old—unusually early for such patterns to develop. As Carrie entered hypnosis, the origin of her behaviors emerged with startling clarity. At age four, she had been molested by the neighborhood milkman. Around the same time, she experienced profound family trauma when two of her siblings died—one choking as an infant while her mother briefly left to make breakfast, and another drowning in a canal during a family outing. Carrie's young mind had drawn a devastating conclusion: she was responsible for these tragedies, and she wasn't worthy of protection or love. Through RTT's Role, Function, Purpose, and Intention technique, Carrie discovered her obsessive cleaning rituals served as a way to protect herself. "My only intention in not letting her feel joy is to keep her safe," her subconscious revealed. The excessive hygiene rituals were her mind's attempt to create control in a world where she had experienced none. By keeping herself obsessively clean, she was symbolically washing away guilt and creating a false sense of safety. The breakthrough came when Carrie addressed her younger self directly, becoming the loving parent she had needed: "I'm becoming a loving parent to you now. No one in the whole world can play this role like I can. I love you exactly the way you are." This powerful exchange allowed her to move her younger self from the past trauma into her present-day reality—a safer, more loving environment she had created as an adult. Nearly two years after her session, Carrie reported her obsessive cleaning habits had disappeared completely. More remarkably, she hadn't replaced them with other compulsive behaviors, despite facing significant life stressors. The key insight from Carrie's transformation reveals a universal truth: when we identify and meet our unmet childhood needs ourselves as adults, the behaviors we developed to cope with those needs become unnecessary. By rewriting her inner narrative from "I'm unlovable and must control everything" to "I am enough and safe," Carrie freed herself from patterns that had controlled her life for decades.

Chapter 2: Finding Freedom from Childhood Trauma

Ryan entered therapy with a complex web of issues including addiction to alcohol, marijuana, junk food, pornography, anxiety, depression, and a deep-seated fear of success. Rather than spending weeks trying to untangle these interconnected problems, RTT focused on finding the single originating belief driving all these behaviors. During hypnosis, Ryan's mind took him back to age six, where he recalled being in a women's locker room, feeling uncomfortable and out of place. In another memory, he was five years old, lost in a shopping mall. When his parents finally found him, instead of relief and comfort, they yelled at him—making him feel it was his fault, though he hadn't wandered off. These early experiences fed Ryan's growing sense that he was different, forgotten, and somehow to blame. The most revealing scene emerged when Ryan, at thirteen, was discovered with a pornographic magazine. His father erupted, screaming that Ryan was gay and would "have a miserable little life." This devastating moment crystallized Ryan's core belief: he wasn't lovable. As an adult, his addictions served a specific purpose revealed through the RFPI technique: "My job for Ryan is to protect him...from loneliness...to keep him alive by making him not kill himself." Ryan's breakthrough came through dialogue with his internalized father. When asked why he couldn't accept Ryan's sexuality, his father's part answered, "Because nobody ever loved me." This powerful realization showed Ryan that his father's rejection wasn't about Ryan's worth but about his father's own unresolved pain. Ryan could finally see that he wasn't unlovable—he had simply been raised by someone incapable of loving him properly. Nearly three years after his session, Ryan remains sober and free from depression. The most profound change has been in his relationship with himself. "I know now that I can control my feelings with my thoughts," he explains. "It was kind of like I was alive but not awake, but now I'm more awake and more in tune with myself." Ryan's story illuminates how our deepest wounds often stem from one of three fundamental beliefs: we're not enough, we're different and can't connect, or what we want isn't available to us. By recognizing these core beliefs and replacing them with more compassionate narratives, we free ourselves from destructive patterns that have run our lives. The transformation comes not from changing our past, but from changing the story we tell about it.

Chapter 3: Breaking Emotional Patterns and Addictions

Gemma sought therapy for a persistent sadness that had shadowed her for years. A highly educated scientist with a PhD in biochemistry, she appeared successful on the surface yet struggled with depression, anxiety, and weight issues. During the intake, she mentioned losing her mother to cancer several years earlier—a loss that had motivated her to pursue cancer research, the very field she now worked in. When asked if she felt guilty for failing to save her mother despite her professional expertise, Gemma became emotional, revealing that guilt indeed lay beneath her sadness. As hypnosis began, Gemma quickly accessed formative memories from early childhood. At age two, she recalled trying to climb over a baby gate to reach her mother, feeling deeply alone when she couldn't. Later, at age three, she remembered feeling "second best" when a new sibling arrived. The most revealing scene came when Gemma was fourteen, comforting her mother who was upset because her husband had threatened to leave. "I'm feeling angry because my dad is thinking of leaving for someone else. And my mom's so sad, and I can't help her," Gemma recalled. When asked where her anger was, Gemma pointed to her abdomen and admitted, "I pushed it down." This was the breakthrough moment—Gemma's depression wasn't primarily about sadness but about unexpressed anger. "I have so much anger in my body. I never let it come out," she acknowledged. Her persistent sadness masked deep anger toward her father for threatening the family's stability and toward her mother for burdening her with adult problems at a young age. The healing transformation came when Gemma realized she didn't need to carry this responsibility anymore. Using the "That's Not Me" technique, she separated her adult self from the child who felt responsible for her parents' happiness: "I will always miss my mother, but I don't need her like I needed her when I was two." She recognized that continuing to live in depression was actually harming her own children: "I lost my mother too early, and if I stay this sad, my children will lose me." Two years later, Gemma reports her depression has lifted substantially. "I've never been happier, and I appreciate every single day that I've got," she says. As an RTT therapist herself now, she shares a profound insight: "Some people have trauma with a very capital T, and other people have a small t. And it doesn't seem to matter if you have the big T or the small t. The way you feel about things can be just as devastating because the beliefs end up being the same." Gemma's story demonstrates a core principle of emotional healing: it's never what happened that affects your life most deeply—it's how you feel about what happened. By identifying the anger beneath her sadness and releasing herself from childhood roles that no longer served her, Gemma rewrote her narrative from "I must fix everyone else's pain" to "I deserve to experience joy in my own life."

Chapter 4: Healing Physical Conditions Through Mental Transformation

Terry came to therapy with an unusual request: "I wish I could feel emotions again." For fifteen years, she had been emotionally numb, unable to experience life's highs or lows. This numbness began after she lost her second baby, who died in hospital at two weeks old due to a severe heart condition. A year later, she lost another baby to the same condition at seven months of pregnancy. During this devastating period, her husband, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, left the family. Terry found herself homeless, jobless, and raising two teenagers alone. Her mind, determined to keep her functioning through these traumas, had effectively shut down her ability to feel anything. "I had no choice not to cope," Terry explained. "No one else was coping." While this numbness initially helped her survive, fifteen years later it had become a prison, preventing her from fully connecting with her children and experiencing joy. During hypnosis, Terry initially resisted exploring the source of her numbness. "I won't allow myself to feel stressed because I have to be strong," she explained. This resistance itself provided valuable insight—Terry was exhausted from being strong for so long. Using the RFPI technique, we discovered her numbness served a specific purpose: "My intention in stopping her feeling is to stop her from being sad. If she feels, she'll feel alone." The breakthrough came when Terry realized her emotional shutdown was no longer serving its purpose. "I've felt so alone for so long," she acknowledged, seeing that avoiding feelings hadn't protected her from loneliness—it had ensured it. She began to understand that her heart wasn't permanently broken by her losses; it was simply doing what hearts do: continuing to work despite the cracks. Like the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold, making it more beautiful and valuable, Terry's heart was stronger because of what it had endured. Using the "That's Not Me" technique, Terry declared: "The part that thought if I mended my heart it would just break again—that's not me. Because I've got a great heart. It's been through so much, and it works perfectly and always will." As she said these words, Terry began to cry deeply for the first time in fifteen years—a sign her healing had begun. Over a year later, Terry describes 2020—a year most people found challenging—as "enlightening." Though she experienced emotional ups and downs in the weeks following her session, she embraced them using the "Triple A's" technique: Awareness, Acceptance, and Articulation. Now practicing RTT full-time, Terry describes her former self as "functional but dead...a zombie" and her current self as a "happy hippie," according to her sons. Terry's transformation illuminates a powerful truth about emotional healing: feelings are meant to be felt. When we suppress them, they don't disappear—they regroup and return in more destructive forms. By becoming aware of our feelings, accepting them as valid, and articulating them clearly, we allow them to move through us rather than becoming stuck. The path to emotional freedom lies not in avoiding pain but in developing the courage to feel everything life brings us, knowing that no feeling lasts forever unless we trap it inside.

Chapter 5: Self-Compassion as the Foundation of Change

Lucy came to therapy with a heartbreaking request: she hoped to resist the urge to take her own life, something she had attempted three times already. Despite medication, talk therapy, and a deep love for her children, Lucy struggled to want to live. When asked what might be at the root of her depression, she mentioned her mother had cried for the first six months of her pregnancy, saying she "didn't think she could cope" with having Lucy. In hypnosis, Lucy quickly accessed three formative scenes. At six, she recalled being alone while her law enforcement parents worked. At twelve, she experienced inappropriate touching from her father during a game of hide-and-seek. Most fundamentally, she remembered being in the womb and sensing her mother's distress. From these experiences, Lucy formed a core belief: "If my own mother didn't want me to be here, maybe I don't deserve to be." To cope with this devastating conclusion, Lucy became "the perfect child," believing she had to earn her right to exist through flawless behavior. Using RFPI, we discovered the role her suicidal thoughts served: "My job in making Lucy think about suicide was to remove her from pain. If I didn't, she wouldn't feel worthy." Lucy's depression masked a deeper truth—her lifelong attempt to be "good" hadn't brought her the love and belonging she craved. Instead, it had caused her to lose herself entirely. The breakthrough came when Lucy realized her perfectionism was literally killing her. "I've had forty-one years of being good. I'd like to try something new," she declared. When encouraged to rebel against her lifelong pattern of perfectionism with the words "Fuck off!" Lucy enthusiastically embraced this release, laughing that her husband would be thrilled by this new side of her. Lucy's transformation hinged on a radical shift in her self-narrative: "I'm not interested in being good. I'm interested in being happy." By giving herself permission to be imperfect, to feel anger, to prioritize joy over others' approval, Lucy freed herself from the exhausting burden of perfectionism. Two years later, she reports that RTT "has done more for me in such a short time than any other therapy couldn't do for me for years, if not decades." The core of Lucy's healing was recognizing that she was enough exactly as she was—not because of her goodness or achievements, but simply because she existed. This fundamental truth—"I am enough"—is perhaps the most powerful antidote to depression, anxiety, and the various forms of self-punishment we inflict upon ourselves. When we truly believe we are inherently worthy of love and belonging, the need to earn our place in the world through perfect behavior dissolves. Lucy now helps others as an RTT practitioner herself, describing the method as "lifesaving, whereas other therapies are life-holding. Instead of just holding you above water, this one is actually giving you the ring and saving you." Her story demonstrates that the most profound healing comes not from changing our behaviors but from changing the belief that drives them—the story we tell ourselves about our fundamental worth and deservingness.

Chapter 6: The Science Behind RTT and Neuroplasticity

Justin, a 51-year-old man with polycystic kidney disease (PKD), sought therapy not just for his medical condition but for a pattern of self-sabotage that affected all areas of his life. Despite knowing that alcohol and certain foods worsened his kidney condition, he consistently made choices that undermined his health. He had also repeatedly started and abandoned efforts to launch a coaching business. During hypnosis, Justin recalled being a confused school-aged child who struggled to learn to read. "The teachers tell me I can't do it," he remembered. "When the teacher doesn't help me, and all those kids laugh, it makes me feel sad because I'm different." He also recalled having to repeat a grade while his twin brother advanced, reinforcing his belief that he was "the stupid one." Using the RFPI technique, Justin discovered his self-sabotage served a specific purpose: "By not even trying to achieve what I want, I don't feel like the failure. If I don't do it, I can't fail because I've never tried in the first place." His mother had once told him she wasn't good at school either—intended as comfort but actually reinforcing his belief that his perceived inadequacies were fixed and genetic. The breakthrough came when Justin realized he wasn't destined to fail—he had simply been protecting himself from anticipated disappointment based on childhood experiences. Through dialogue with his internalized mother, he asked, "Did you think I was stupid?" and heard her reply, "No. I thought you were smart." This exchange revealed that the limiting belief he'd carried his entire life wasn't even true—it was a misinterpretation formed by a child's limited understanding. Two years after his session, Justin reports significant improvements in his mindset and health management. "My internal dialogue is obviously the number one thing that's changed," he explains. "My dialogue to myself is a lot kinder. I use different language with myself now." Though his kidney condition remains, he manages it well and has made substantial progress toward his coaching career dreams. Justin's story demonstrates how neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections—enables lasting transformation. Every thought we think and belief we hold creates neural pathways in our brain. When we repeat these thoughts, the pathways strengthen, making them our "default" way of thinking. But through techniques like RTT, we can identify these pathways, understand their origins, and create new, more beneficial ones. This science explains why the dialogue we have with ourselves matters so profoundly. As Justin put it, "the most devastating war anyone can fight internally is the war with the self." By changing his inner dialogue from self-criticism to compassion, Justin not only improved his kidney condition but transformed his entire approach to life. His story illustrates that while we may not be able to change all aspects of our physical health, we can change our relationship with ourselves—and that alone can dramatically improve our quality of life.

Chapter 7: Techniques to Rewrite Your Personal Narrative

Jasmeen had struggled with eating disorders for over twenty years, cycling between anorexia and bulimia despite extensive treatment. At thirty-seven, she still found herself bingeing on candy in secret, followed by purging—a cycle she couldn't seem to break no matter how many specialists she consulted. During hypnosis, Jasmeen recalled being five years old and hiding sweets her father had given her after her parents' divorce. These secret treats made her feel "special and loved" when she felt forgotten. In another scene at age seven, her mother bought her favorite candy, which she again hid away. "Hiding these things made me feel special," she explained. The connection to her present-day behavior became clear—her adult bingeing maintained the same secrecy and ritual as her childhood comfort mechanism. The RFPI technique revealed the emotional purpose her eating disorder served: "My only role in Jasmeen's life is to keep her locked in. I must keep her locked in because I don't want her to get above her station." This belief stemmed from a humiliating incident with her stepmother, who had mocked her for pretending to be a model. Jasmeen also discovered her bingeing was an attempt to show herself love—"by soothing her and making it like a secret that no one else has to know." The breakthrough came when Jasmeen realized this coping mechanism, while helpful to a five-year-old child of divorce, was destroying her adult life. Using the "That's Not Me" technique, she declared: "That's not me. I'm never doing that again. It just doesn't interest me anymore." Rather than creating an aversion to sugar, the goal was indifference—recognizing that candy was for children, not a thirty-seven-year-old woman seeking love and connection. A powerful visualization sealed this transformation. Jasmeen imagined her father giving her trunk after trunk of candy as a present—a grotesque image that broke the emotional connection between sweets and love. "I remember going into the shop and seeing the big confectionery stand, and I just laughed, and thought 'Bless me that I thought that was love,'" she recalls. Today, Jasmeen reports being much kinder to herself. When urges to restrict or binge occasionally arise, she gets curious: "What's going on for me that I'm thinking about acting out with food?" This compassionate inquiry helps her address the underlying emotional need without turning to food. She keeps a childhood photo on her dressing table as a reminder: "How am I going to look after her today? I don't want to stuff her with chocolate or candy. I want her to thrive." Jasmeen's transformation demonstrates several powerful techniques for rewriting your personal narrative: 1. The "That's Not Me" technique separates your adult self from outdated childhood coping mechanisms. 2. Visualization can break emotional associations that fuel destructive behaviors. 3. Self-compassion serves as a foundation for lasting change. 4. Upgrading Your Child brings your younger self into your present reality, where you can provide what was once missing. These techniques work by addressing the emotional purpose behind problematic behaviors rather than focusing on the behaviors themselves. By meeting unmet needs directly, the behaviors that once served as substitutes become unnecessary. This approach recognizes that transformation doesn't come from willpower or behavior modification—it comes from rewriting the story that drives the behavior in the first place.

Summary

Throughout these transformative stories, one truth emerges consistently: we are not our past, our childhood, or our trauma—we are the stories we tell ourselves about these experiences. From Carrie's liberation from OCD to Jasmeen's freedom from bulimia, each narrative demonstrates how limiting beliefs formed in childhood become the invisible architecture of our adult lives. The power of RTT lies in its ability to quickly identify these foundational stories, understand their emotional purpose, and replace them with narratives that serve rather than sabotage our wellbeing. The most profound insight these stories offer is that we don't need to spend years untangling our past to create meaningful change. What we need is to recognize that the stories we've told ourselves—"I'm not enough," "I'm different and can't connect," "What I want isn't available to me"—are merely interpretations, not immutable truths. By engaging our innate capacity for neuroplasticity through techniques like dialogue with our younger selves, becoming our own loving parent, and reframing our core beliefs, we can create lasting transformation in days or weeks rather than years. These methods work because they address the emotional truth beneath our struggles rather than merely managing symptoms. Whether you're facing anxiety, addiction, relationship difficulties, or physical health challenges, the invitation is the same: examine the stories you tell yourself, understand the emotional purpose they serve, and craft new narratives that liberate rather than limit you. In doing so, you access your birthright of joy, connection, and wholeness—not by becoming someone new, but by remembering who you've always been beneath the stories that convinced you otherwise.

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Marisa Peer

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