Ever since I read about Marisa Peer and RTT I wanted to try it for myself. I wanted to see the result first hand before enrolling into becoming an RTT practitioner
I had this habit of biting my nails ever since I remember. The tips of all ten of my fingernails would be sacrificed by the end of an India-Pakistan cricket match. This was one habit that I was wanting to get rid of for a long time. I secretly felt envious of people who had beautifully manicured nails and I was so looking forward to flaunting my beautiful nails. RTT is known to get rid of unwanted habits, fears and phobias in a single session and it was time to put it to the test.
The session was conducted on zoom as my therapist resides in the UK and that is the beauty of RTT. One can conduct a session on anyone in any part of the world and it can still be as successful as an in-person session.
I had a few inhibitions about hypnotherapy like anyone of you would. As a teenager, I was witness to a stage hypnotherapy session and I could still clearly remember seeing people behaving like monkeys, eating raw onions as if they were eating apples, and not reacting to saline injections given to them in a state of hypnosis. I didn’t want those things as a part of my session. But all my worries were laid to rest by my therapist when she assured me that the RTT session will be nothing like the stage hypnosis that I had witnessed. She assured me that I will always be in control and I will not do anything or say anything that I don’t wish to. She jokingly said that if she could get people to do as she says then she and other hypnotherapists would be multi-millionaires by asking people to sign blank cheques.
She told me that hypnosis will feel like a relaxed state and in fact if anything, I will be more aware. I was explained that we go into hypnosis-like states several times during the day without even realising it. When we drive on our daily route and don’t even realise how we reached our destination, when we are intensely watching a movie and someone rings the bell and we get startled, we are in a hypnosis-like state. This made me feel calm and I was ready for my session. So finally my session began and her soothing voice made me feel relaxed and took me to a happy cosy place. At first, I couldn’t visualise anything. All I saw was darkness but my therapist tactfully led the session to get to the root, the reason and the cause of why I was biting my nails and when it all started.
During one of those scenes, I saw myself as a 3-year-old entering school for the very first time in my life. Yes, I was in a scene of my first day at school. I saw myself nervously entering the class and I could feel that nervousness of the little me. My therapist calmed me down by letting me know that I was only reviewing the scene and not reliving it. I saw the other kids crying their hearts out but I was not crying. Even at that age, I didn’t want my mom to be embarrassed of me. So I kept all my emotions inside and kept quiet. I was missing my mum and I saw myself bite my nails for the first time. I felt a weird calmness when I bit my nails and I ended up biting all 10 of my fingernails by the end of the first day of school.
Whoa!! What a scene. No wonder I didn’t remember the time when I didn’t bite my nails. That is because I had been biting them since the first day of my preschool. My therapist made me realise that I’m no longer that three-year-old who needed to soothe herself by biting her nails.
That was my AHA moment!! My subconscious had registered that I am no longer that little girl who could not express herself. I felt light as if some weight had been lifted off me. She asked me to repeat “I am an adult now, I have a voice, I am independent, I can speak up and most importantly I am not that dependent, nervous, scared child anymore.”
I felt the change immediately. I was given the recording which I had to listen to for the next 21 days. The session helps to get rid of the issue whereas the recordings make sure that the issue doesn’t come back. It is a known fact that for any new habit to develop it can take up to 21 days (newer research suggests 60 days). I sincerely listened to the recording for the next 21 days and at the end of three weeks, I sent a picture of my beautiful long manicured nails to my therapist. I never felt the urge to bite my nails since the session. I felt as if that was never an issue at all. My therapist was ecstatic and so was I. I had finally gotten rid of my lifelong habit of nail-biting and that too in one single session!!