Sometimes my clients will contact me after a few days of listening to their RTT recording and tell me that it’s not working. I can hear the despair in their voices. Often clients come to me after trying everything else, and when nothing else has worked. So, there’s a lot of expectation and hope invested in RTT being the “thing” that finally fixes their issue.
When this happens, I do what I always do. I reassure them and tell them to persevere and keep listening to their recording for the full 21 days.
21 is not a magic number. Research shows that, on average, it takes 21 days to form new habits. (Incidentally, there's also new research that shows 66 days as the average time it takes to form a new habit. But as RTT works with the subconscious, results are often faster – and that’s why it’s called Rapid.)
This was definitely the case with *Sophie, an attractive successful business-woman in her 50s, who came to see me to help beat her addiction to drinking wine and eating junk food. She told me she would often drink a whole bottle of wine after work and eat bags of crisps while she cooked dinner. She had gained weight and her eating and drinking felt out of control.
Her RTT session uncovered deep-rooted beliefs about her own self-worth and attractiveness, about being lovable and deserving of happiness and love. Over decades she had buried these feelings of not being good enough, in food and drink. She was eating her emotions.
For women especially, so much of our self-worth and self-esteem is tied up with how we look and feel about our bodies. True self care is about understanding that we are all fundamentally lovable and about having a whole new mindset, where food is nourishment not punishment.
In the session we worked to change Sophie's subconscious beliefs about herself. For her recording I focused on the messaging that she would no longer have any cravings for wine or crisps, and that she would be able to look at a bottle of wine and feel completely indifferent.
A few days after her session, Sophie texted to say she didn’t feel the RTT was working. She was still drinking after work, still eating crisps. Christmas was coming up and she felt she was too stressed to carry on. I could hear the despondency in her voice. She had previously told me that RTT was her last resort and she was desperate for help.
I told her not to worry, but to keep listening to her recording anyway, and that I would wait to hear from her when she was ready to book in her follow-up session with me.
Christmas came and went. I thought about her, as I often think about my clients, and hoped all was well.
And then, yesterday, I received this.
“Hi Dawn, sorry it’s been so long. I had a bad run up to Christmas and I didn’t think the therapy had worked. But I’ve now not had a drink or any crisps for 23 days and I’m feeling pretty focused.
It has worked! It has been as you said it would be. No cravings!”
I tell all my clients:
Change with RTT happens in one of three ways:
Change happens once mindset is set to a new direction – and sometimes this can happen in an instant, sometimes over a period of time. But it can and does happen.
