It was exactly 11:11 am when Marisa Peer walked into the living room of her gorgeous, artsy home for our interview. She looked at the time and immediately said, “It’s 11:11, let’s make a wish.”
We were coincidentally twinning that morning, both dressed in black and white. Before we sat down to talk, I caught a glimpse of Marisa’s hat collection, beautifully displayed on a gold-tinted shelf. She mentioned it was only a fraction of her collection. She then introduced me to her adorable rescue cats, Tinkerbell and Velvet.
I couldn’t resist spending a moment playing with them while we talked about her daughter’s art pieces hanging around the room. The ambience and her overall aura were incredibly warm and inviting and Marisa’s energy was infectious. As fantastic as the surroundings were, we quickly shifted gears and dove right into the intriguing workings of the human mind. It was quite a captivating conversation.
I opened by asking her about the phrase she’s built so much of her work around: I’m worth it, I’m enough. Why that sentence?
“Having been a therapist my entire adult life, I realised very quickly that all my clients would come in with different problems. I can’t stop drinking, I can’t stop eating, I can’t stop sabotaging my career or my relationships, or I keep buying so much stuff.
Underneath all of their presenting problems is the singular truth: I’m not enough or worthy, so I need more, a persistent feeling of not being enough. When you don’t feel worthy, you look for more. More attention, more approval, more success, more things. You believe once you have them, you’ll finally feel better.
In reality, when those people finally had it all, they felt even less worthy because then they had nothing else to aspire to. So the common issue that most clients show up with in any therapist’s office is a feeling of I’m not worthy, I don’t deserve it, I’m not good enough.”
What struck me most was her insistence that this belief isn’t something we’re born with. No baby is born into the world feeling undeserving of love or care. You never see a baby who doesn’t cry, scream or wake up in the middle of the night and demand attention. These self-limiting beliefs creep in as you grow older and you don’t even realise it and then one day you just wake up with them.
To illustrate this, Marisa mentioned whenever she has asked a room of five-year-olds if they like themselves, every hand goes up. By the time those children are ten, that confidence often erodes because of the school system that rewards achievement over effort and a culture that demands constant comparison.
“Since we’re not born with this feeling, I wanted to centre my work on asking people, where did you get this belief? Find the pattern, understand it and then change it back to the confidence and self-esteem that we were born with.”
When I asked her why knowing you’re worthy doesn’t always translate into acting like it, she explained it has all to do with our thoughts. Thoughts come first. Thoughts create feelings. Feelings drive behaviour. Low self-worth means you lack unshakeable self-belief. If the thought underneath everything you do is “I’m not worthy,” avoidance becomes your default response. You avoid opportunities, relationships and being seen. You’ll tell yourself, I’m inadequate, I’m insecure, I’m anxious, I’m nervous, I don’t really want to talk to people or I’m scared of presenting my ideas.
“Our thoughts create feelings, which then create behaviour but if you can just flip that to, I am worthy, I’m a nice person, I’m educated, I’ve got something to offer the world and I must be here for a reason, then you automatically change how you feel and behave. Trying to change your actions without addressing your thoughts is exhausting and ineffective.”
I asked her how someone who logically knows they are enough can start actually acting like it. She told me self-worth is essentially a daily dialogue you have with yourself. You don’t need anything expensive or complicated to change your life, you just need to think differently and put different images in your head. She suggested a 30-day window to flip the “ladder of looping thoughts intentionally”, changing the thought first so that the feelings and behaviours naturally follow.
“I talk to myself every day. I think thoughts every day and I have beliefs running through my head every day. All I need to do is think different , better more positive thoughts.
It takes a little time, but you’re doing what you do anyway. You don’t have to do anything new, or hard, or expensive. It’s just a question of whether you could dialogue with yourself better. It may take up to 30 days to see a difference. Even if you’ve had a problem for 20 years, you have 30 days to do what you already do anyway, but just do it a lot better.”
When the conversation turned to relationships, Marisa was firm in the belief, it is not your partner’s job to make you feel lovable. Before going on a date, she suggests shifting the focus from “I hope they like me” to “I hope I like them”. You have to resonate with the frequency of being worthy before love can truly find you.
We also discussed criticism and what happens when others reinforce that feeling of not being enough. She was quick to point out how successful individuals share one key trait, they don’t internalise destructive opinions. They question them. Is this true? Do I need to let this in? Most of the time, the answer is no. She also pointed out something that felt oddly comforting. Happy people rarely go out of their way to criticise others. Praise comes from contentment. Criticism often comes from dissatisfaction. Which means more often than not someone’s negative criticism of you is a reflection of their inner thought process.
She acknowledged that affirmations can feel uncomfortable at first. Saying “I’m worthy” might feel unnatural, even ridiculous. But unfamiliarity doesn’t mean something is wrong. It just means the brain hasn’t practised it yet.
“The brain likes what’s familiar but you can make self-worth familiar.”
When I asked her what self-worth looks like in everyday life, her answer was, it’s valuing your time. Your energy. Your work. It’s believing you deserve to be paid well, are capable of being loved and treated with respect. It’s recognising that everyone has different strengths and that you only need one meaningful gift to contribute to the world.
The mind operates by rules, whether we’re aware of them or not. The thoughts we repeatedly tell ourselves become the instructions we follow. She gave me a very relatable example of how dreading a task often leads to distraction or even physical discomfort the moment you approach it while anticipating enjoyment makes the same task feel exciting.
As our time came to a close, she shared a philosophy she calls “The Triangle”. To truly thrive in life, you need three things. Someone to love, something to do and somewhere to go.
“If you have someone to love and share your life with, something to do that you’re good at and somewhere to go that you look forward that is a truly fulfilling feeling and a great philosophy to live by.”
We also discussed her upcoming book, Your Mind, Your Rules, which focuses on understanding the “blueprints” we give our brains. If you tell your mind you are “dreading” a meeting, it will try to protect you, sometimes even by making you physically sick. But, as she pointed out, using the example of those who fast during Ramadan and go hours without eating and not feeling ill, if you get your mind on board with a powerful belief, the body will follow.
Marisa’s message for cultivating unshakeable self-worth is clear, your worth is not up for debate by others. It is a gift you give yourself by deciding that you are and always have been enough.
