- I'm Marisa Peer and today I'm going to show you
how you can naturally beat depression.
(upbeat music)
If you wanna cure depression
you really need to understand
what the depression is all about.
In my experience, I've worked with depressed people
for more than 30 years, I found there are three big things
that cause depression.
And if you know what they are that will help you
to get over depression.
Here's number one, and this is huge.
In my opinion and in the opinion of
many, many people I've trained,
depression is caused by harsh, hurtful, critical words
that you say to yourself on a daily basis.
When you are harsh, hurtful and critical about yourself
it will make you depressed.
Imagine you had a roommate who everyday
was hurtful, harsh and critical to you.
You try to get them out of your life
but when you're the critic,
when you're harsh, hurtful and critical
you can't get out of your own life.
So I want you to stop criticising yourself.
I want you to remember this,
criticism withers people's soul,
whereas praise builds it up.
So just be alert to how often you go,
"I'm a loser."
"I can't get that right."
"I'm no good at that."
"I'm just no good at confrontation."
"I can't talk," or "I'm no good under pressure."
"I don't have any talents."
When you do that you're withering your own soul.
So I want you to make a commitment today
to stop being your own worst critic.
Critical people are unhappy people, and most critical people
reflect out their own dissatisfaction.
But when you are critical of yourself,
you're hurting yourself.
You are allowed to make mistakes,
many, many, many mistakes.
But you are not allowed to punish
and beat up your own body for being human.
So that's the first cause of depression.
The second cause of depression
is failing to follow your heart's desire.
I couldn't even tell you the number of people
who come to see me who say, "I always wanted to be a vet."
"I always wanted to be an actor."
"Always wanted to be a lawyer, but I just couldn't do it."
You know, "I got married at 22, I already had two children.
"I never followed my heart's desire.
"And here I am in my 50s, chronically depressed."
They don't know why they're chronically depressed.
They don't even know why they're depressed,
but I have done a lot of unpicking with my clients
and I'll tell you some stories.
I had a client who wanted to be a vet.
And she was asked to leave vet school twice,
she just didn't have the intellectual ability
to study to be a vet.
And when I told her she could be something else
she got very cross and went,
"I'm not gonna be a dog walker."
I said, "No, it's not black or white."
"It isn't about I can't be a vet, so I'm gonna walk dogs.
"There's many things you could do."
Happen to have a great friend
who used to be in the Boomtown Rats,
who is a dog behavioural expert,
in fact, an animal behavioural expert.
Introduced them.
And she realised that she could become
a animal behavioural expert.
And not only did she do that,
she actually got her own television show.
She made more money than she would of made as a vet.
She had a phenomenal life because she realised
her heart's desire was, "I must work with animals.
"I have to work with animals."
"But that doesn't mean I've got to be a vet or a dog walker,
"there's a middle way."
I had another client who always wanted to be a doctor,
but she didn't have the money to go to medical school.
She just didn't have the privilege
to do seven years of medical school.
And so all her life she worked as a waitress.
And all her life she was depressed
'cause she had a calling to be a doctor.
And I said, "Well, why do you wanna be a doctor?
"Tell me why?"
She says, "Well, I want to help people."
I'm like, "Well, there are other ways."
She realised that she could work in a hospice.
She could have been a healer,
she could have been an aromatherapist,
but she actually, that's what she did.
She worked in a hospice, putting her hands on people,
helping them, the end of their life,
and she got everything would have got being a doctor.
She didn't save lives but she made lives better.
And that's what happens when people
do not follow their hearts desire.
Frank McCourt who wrote "Angela's Ashes",
was a teacher all his life.
At 62 he realised he wanted to write,
and he wrote a worldwide bestseller.
One of many, many, many people who did that.
Many writers write at 60.
Many people find success in their 40s and 50s.
It's a myth if you haven't made it by 35, you never will.
Some of our most eminent writers, performers, artists,
find success later in life because they realise,
"I've got a calling, I must follow my passion,"
and they do.
My grandmother always wanted to work in the theatre,
she didn't, but she was a dresser.
She loved dressing actors, helping get ready to go on stage,
'cause she was in the theatre,
surrounded by the excitement, the drama of the theatre.
You don't have to be a famous actor to be on set.
You don't have to be a famous artist to be in the art world,
but you do have to take a minute and think,
"What is my passion?
"What is my heart's desire?
"Why have I failed to follow it?"
Often that's financial.
"Could I follow it now?
"Is there some way I could follow my heart's desire?"
The answer is yes, absolutely.
It's never ever, ever too late
to follow your heart's desire.
The man who played Martin and "Frasier", Frasier's dad.
He wanted to be an actor all his life,
but at 50 he decided to do it.
And he was just working in a local community theatre
and he got cast as Martin, changed his life.
And he said, "I was so depressed
"just before that happened because that was my calling."
You have a calling, you have a heart's desire,
you need to follow it.
I work with many people said,
"I left it too late to have a child
"and now I'm so depressed."
I'm like, "Well, you can still have a child in your life."
Of course it's not the same.
But you can mentor children,
you can sponsor children orphanages.
There's always a way to get into your life.
Maybe you've always wanted animals but you can't have them
because your apartment doesn't allow it.
You can still look after other people's animals,
walk older people's animals.
It's not black or white, look outside the box.
Please follow your heart's desire,
'cause it will stop depression in its tracks.
Here is a third major cause of depression,
and it's another biggie, being disconnected.
It is wired into our DNA, we need people.
We are tribal people living in modern bodies.
In a tribe you were part of a community.
You are never alone.
And now we live in our apartment,
we go on Facebook, we have everything delivered,
we don't need to ever speak to anyone or see people.
And that is making people sick.
I go to Africa a lot and there's intense poverty there,
but, strange enough, very little depression
because they have communities.
The more of a community you have
the less depression you have.
One of the things I found with depressed people,
which is immensely sad, is they have a belief,
"There's no cure for depression
"and even if there was, I don't deserve it."
You do deserve it, and there is the cure.
So let me tell you the three things, again,
that will cure your depression.
Stop criticising yourself.
Stop those harsh, hurtful, critical words.
Cut them out of your life.
Make that a dim, distant memory.
Find a way, anyway at all, of following your heart's desire.
Maybe you want to write a book, you can still write a book.
You can write for a local paper.
It doesn't matter if it's not published,
it just matters that you follow your calling.
And finally, remember connection is vital to your soul.
People need people.
You need a community, you need a tribe.
And you can find a tribe.
And you can actually start finding a tribe here.
I want you to go into the comments and talk about
how you avoid stuff.
I want you to talk about the things you find it
the hardest to do.
Because you have to do what you don't want to do.
When you don't want to exercise, exercise.
You don't wanna eat healthy food, make healthy food.
You don't want to go out and talk to someone
or even have people around
'cause they expect something from you,
you've got to do that anyway.
So help other people who are depressed
and help you find your tribe.
Go into the comments and talk about the things
that you find hardest to do.
Talk about the things you're not doing.
Talk about how critical you have been about yourself.
Talk about the hearts desire, the calling
that you haven't followed.
And talk about the community, the disconnection,
the epidemic of disconnection we live in now
that is making people depressed.
You don't need a pill to feel better,
you need to wire and fire those actions into your life,
and I know you can do it.
I've worked with people who is suicidal,
whose life has changed immensely.
And that doesn't mean, of course, that some people
aren't helped by medication,
it just means that there is more to life than medication.
This is your life, in your hands,
you don't need to give that to someone else.
But I do need to add one thing, it's very important,
if you're on medication do not come off it.
Don't think, "Oh, I'll just do that
"and throw away my pills."
The side effects of coming off antidepressant medication
are something that you need to go through
with a physician, with a doctor.
So if you're on medication, please don't give it up.
You can give it up over time but there's a way to do that.
So in the comments section
I want you to share your heart's desire.
Share your calling.
Share the thing you haven't found by sharing it
probably you're going to find it.
You can do these three things, they will change your life,
I promise.
Thanks for tuning in.
(gentle music)