Sharmaine: Hey everybody, welcome to looking through the glass. Today is another beautiful day here. And we have our guest, Craig Mayweather. Merryweather, right?
Craig Meriwether: Very well. Yeah.
Sharmaine: Yes, okay, make sure I got it right. Well, I do that every time. he is a hypnotherapist. He also is an author, Depression w 180, correct? And also
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Depression one eighty, yeah.
Sharmaine: and also there was another one I cannot read it brain injury.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, my mind mastery blueprint.
Sharmaine: There we go. Mind Mastery Blueprint. There we go. Today we're gonna talk about hypnotherapy and he's just we're gonna talk about a little bit on the misconceptions and all of those other beautiful things that we don't know about, but Craig absolutely does.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm happy to answer whatever questions you might have. I know there's a lot of misconceptions and myths about hypnosis and hypnotherapy, which is really unfortunate because it's a really great set of techniques and tools to use to help create healing, to help create change. And it's not that we're, you know, doing anything different, it's not magic or mysticism, it's literally just What you're doing anyway, to a certain extent, we've all hypnotized ourselves to certain beliefs and certain patterns in life. Somebody is struggling with anxiety or or depression or anger, they weren't probably born feeling that anger. Probably weren't born dealing with that sadness. But over time learn, maybe through trauma, maybe through hurt and pain they've experienced, maybe just being punched down on at at school in terms of parents who tell you, well, you're never going to amount to anything. To a certain extent, we are hypnotized throughout life in terms of how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about the world, life. Is life fair or unfair? Is money easy or hard to get? And you're allowed to change those beliefs. You're allowed to change those patterns. You're allowed to heal. You're allowed to create resolution around old hurt and pain, even if it happened 60 years ago. And these tools and techniques under the umbrella term of of hypnotherapy is is you know something the the more modern day practice of therapeutic hypnosis probably been going on for the last hundred and fifty years or so, if you know when you start counting, but you know, r around the early to mid-eighteen hundreds. And since then it's grown to encompass a lot of different tools and techniques that have now been verified through research. and in fact if anybody's interested in even going deeper into this, one of one cool little tool that Google has, if you go to Google search and just a regular search bar, if you type in Google Scholar, and that'll take you to scholar.google.com and all that searches is research papers that have been published in peer reviewed scientific and medical journals. So you can look up hypnotherapy and anxiety and just instead of getting blog posts and videos and people's opinions, this is the research around it that's been going on. and so it's really that's the end, you know
Sharmaine: Yeah, that is some good information to have.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, or just put in hyp hypnosis or whatever it is you're interested in looking on that that has any sort of Yeah.
Sharmaine: Yeah, yeah. 'Cause I'm looking I look up different studies all the time with brain injuries and and
Craig Meriwether: Mm.
Sharmaine: and stuff like that. I'm looking up cause I'm dealing with a lot of neck issues where I'm gonna have to have surgery and stuff. So I'm doing
Craig Meriwether: Mm. Yeah, okay.
Sharmaine: I'm I don't wanna hear what the medicines have to say about it. I wanna hear what actually's going on. So I go too
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah.
Sharmaine: straight to the actual papers and studies and stuff and it's hard to find those. It's not easy.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so but
Jeselle: Thank you.
Sharmaine: So that was great information. Thank you for that. Sorry to interrupt.
Craig Meriwether: in in and of itself, again, this isn't magic, it isn't mysticism, it's not mind control. It's it's not
Sharmaine: Mm mm.
Craig Meriwether: you know, it's it's not brainwashing, it's not turning people into zombies or manchurian candidates to go assassinate prime minister. That's that's not what this work is. It's changing your beliefs that you have installed, maybe unconsciously, maybe through traumatic experiences in life. But you're the one who installed them. And it's not to say it's your fault or to say it should have happened or that it's fair. But somewhere those instructions got installed, which means you're allowed to change them. If you're the one who installed them, yeah, maybe by accident or maybe through trauma or and probably unconsciously, maybe as a child. But if you're the one who installed them, that means you're the one who can change them. And that's where this work becomes very empowering.
Sharmaine: Yeah, absolutely.
Jeselle: Thank
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Becomes very empowering. Because really we're not doing anything different. We're kind of de hypnotizing people. I mean, one of the main things that hypnotherapy is famous for is to help people stop smoking. Quit smoking. Smoking sensation.
Jeselle: Yeah.
Sharmaine: I as an ex smoker I actually looked into
Craig Meriwether: Well nobody's nobody's born. Yeah.
Sharmaine: it. I just could never afford it white back then. But yeah, as an ex smoker I was like I looked into it 'cause I wanted
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: to quit smoking.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, because in and of you know, no one's born smoking. You know, it y that usually happens somewhere between
Sharmaine: No. That's a learned habit.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, some some happens somewhere between twelve and twenty-five. The socialization period of our lives. no one never starts smoking when they're fifty or fifty five or sixty two. They start when they're it's fourteen or they're twenty I wanna look cooler with a friend or look older or just has a something to do or you're
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm. I was twelve. I was
Craig Meriwether: like grandfather smoked or whatever.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: And they may quit and then come back to it in their thirties or forties, but usually there's something pretty life altering, bankruptcy or you know, health issue within the family or divorce or something. And it that smoking reminds them of maybe simpler times or maybe more friendly times. And it's you know, it's a nice ritual to do with your hands and and and it allows you to give yourself a break. I gotta go take a smoke break. And for some reason you'll give yourself permission to, you know, take a break and smoke a cigarette, but not just to take a break and you know, stand in the sunlight for two minutes and recharge. But Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
Sharmaine: That's it didn't take a breath. Yeah, you're so correct on that though. You are so correct on that.
Jeselle: Yeah, that is true.
Craig Meriwether: and and oftentimes you you find when you work with people who want to quit smoking, they've quit in the past. You say, well, you've ever quit before, yeah, I quit for two weeks here, or quit for four days there, or I quit for two years and then this or that. And so you can quit. Quitting's not the problem. It's the starting up again. That's the problem. And oftentimes it's not so much looking at fixing the habit because, well, if you fix the habit, then the issue, the core issue of why they're smoking is still there. And so if you find the issue of why why they're smoking,
Sharmaine: Thank you.
Craig Meriwether: or they started again, because again, it's like even if you quit for two weeks. Okay, the nicotine's out of your body at that point. The toxins have been cleansed from your body. So why
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: did you start again? And so it's not quitting. You can quit. You've quit many
Sharmaine: Why did you go back to the old habit?
Craig Meriwether: times. Yeah. Your your core nature is a non-smoker. It's hard to smoke. It's really easy to be a non-smoker. All you have to do is nothing. Whereas a smoker,
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: you gotta find some cigarettes, you gotta find a lighter, you gotta find a place where you can smoke, you gotta maybe hide it from certain people who may look down upon you because you're smoking. So it's really difficult to smoke. So you must be putting a lot of effort into smoking. So why are you doing that? What's the belief that this cigarette will help maybe release some stress, maybe some tension, maybe again, just give yourself a break.
Sharmaine: Well, it's a perfect the perfect like for addicts. They go it's
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: an addiction. So it's literally we're speaking addiction here, you know, and that and it is not just w the drug. You can quit doing the drug and still have an addict mindset or at the think like an addict, you know. they call dry drunks or whatever. So a lot of it does it it is one hundred percent you. You that's gotta do it.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so it's sort of like just wearing a you know, uncomfortable, ill fitting scratchy coat with heavy rocks in the pockets. Take it off. Take off the coat. It's not you. And you know, you're gripping a a a pencil in your hand really tight. here you go. Gripping a pin in your hand really tightly. And after a while, maybe we're doing it for protection, maybe we're doing it for safety. After a while we think, well it starts getting comfortable. comfortably miserable, but it's comfortable. And then we start thinking that this is who we are and it's a part of us. And it's not. Just open up your fist and drop the with the big bang in my microphone. Drop the drop the pen. You know, not not to make it sound so simple and easy, but sometimes it's that simple and easy. If you weren't born with that, and oftentimes these traumas and this hurt and pains happen fairly instantaneously, a a cruel word, physical abuse or something. These changes within how we believe about our safety can happen fairly instantaneously. So why why can't you heal instantaneously? Why wouldn't you be able to change that? Not to say to to create amnesia. Never want to do that. Never want to quite create forgetfulness or wipe memory. but create resolution and healing around that. And so, you know, just like if somebody breaks their leg doing some stupid stunt while skiing in Alaska, you don't want to erase memory of that because then they'll just do that again. They won't
Sharmaine: Do it again.
Craig Meriwether: remember that that's a dangerous stunt to do and they're they they don't have the skill to pull it off. You want to cur you know heal the leg. You want to deal with any residual grief or pain or hurt or anger around it, resentment around yourself or even trying it. But you don't want to remember you don't want to forget that that's a dangerous stunt. You know, that's wisdom. remembering a hot pot on a stove will burn your hand is that's wisdom. You don't want to forget that. Otherwise you just keep touching the hot pot. But you can, you know, heal from the pain of touching the hot pot. You know? And and that's what a law this work is. Again, it's not that we're trying to you know turn you into any sort of Manchurian candidate or brainwash or anything. I'm well, I guess maybe there's something that we're doing some mind washing of of old of thoughts and beliefs about yourself.
Sharmaine: Yeah, mindwashing of bad beliefs
Craig Meriwether: You know, if if you want to be kinda Yeah.
Sharmaine: bad beliefs and traumas and things that we were that have been portrayed on us or pr projected upon us. Like you said, things that we carry around that aren't ours. I mean we're we're all doing it.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I not and not to point point out, you know, and we're always constantly influencing ourselves. And and that's the thing. Okay,
Sharmaine: Const Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: I I just can't make somebody quit smoking. If they don't want to quit smoking, they're not going to quit smoking. You know, I just can't go to Yeah.
Sharmaine: They Yeah, there has to be the the absolute want.
Craig Meriwether: I can't go to Las Vegas and go to some, you the casinos or go to the bars or whatever in Las Vegas and just make people quit smoking. More than likely they don't want You if like somebody's wife like makes an appointment, it's like, well,
Sharmaine: Or there's something keeping them there.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, they're tired of the health issues and the stink and the money and like you're gonna go quit smoking. I made an appointment for you next Thursday at two o'clock. And they'll show up, but they're like, I don't want to quit. So I'm just gonna negotiate smoking in the garage. That happened to a friend of mine, a colleague who hippotherapy paid money to quit smoking but didn't really want to, 'cause of his wife made the appointment. And so, you know, didn't quit because he didn't want to. You just wanted to smoke in the garage. You know, and
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: so I you can't make people do any things you're owned about. You can influence if it resonates with them. And not to bring politics or anything like that into this, but just I think we all can see what's been going on for the last ten years, if not longer. But really in our face the last ten years, that like a left leaning political person will not be influenced by right leaning political news, and right leaning political people will not be influenced by left leaning political news. However
Sharmaine: Because they're so deemed evil on the other side, but
Craig Meriwether: A left-leaning political person will be influenced by left-leaning news, right person right you know, leading political person, right leaning news, because it resonates with their beliefs about themselves and the world and life. And so they will be influenced by that. And so that's that's hip hypnosis. That's that's the hypnotherapy. If you're if you resonate wanting to heal, wanting to drop the hurt and pain and resolve it, then we can work with that and healing can happen. b if you want to hold on to it for some reason, the secondary gains around it or just not ready to heal, then no it's not gonna happen. I can't make people just do stuff. And that's where, you know, y the movies get it all wrong and and T V shows. All right. And even people see those shows in in Las Vegas or comedy clubs, where there's like twelve, fifteen people up on stage all doing silly stuff and singing like Elvis Presley and dancing like Michael Jackson and Or they're doing quacking like ducks. Every single person that got up there volunteered to be up on that stage. They wanted to be up there. They to be part of the show. They're exhibitionists. They're ex extroverts. They want
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: to be star of the show and they want to have a good time and have, you know, somebody film it and put it on YouTube or TikTok or something. And who's that, you know, hypnotist as they come out to do this big show in the sparkly jacket? And they say, hey everyone, we're here to have a good time. Who who are they gonna pick to come up on stage? The introvert in the back of the room who's hiding in the shadows, sinking down on their chair? Or are they gonna pick the extrovert who got there early, sitting in the front row and and jumping up and down saying, Pick me, pick me? You know, one of them
Jeselle: Thank
Craig Meriwether: is gonna do a a you know, a better job, if you want, give a better
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: show because they want to do it. And what's fascinating about this is they resonate with you know having a having that kind of fun. You know, people wanting to do improv or be a stand-up comic. You know, so a lot of us don't want to get up on stage and get heckled or, you know, do be in the spotlight like that. But other people do. Because it resonates with them and they want to do it. You know, and even if they lost a bet during the day and then say, okay, well you have to get up on stage tonight when we go to the show, it's you know, they're gonna be excused because they're gonna be tense and they're gonna their body language will tell the hypnotist, it's like, this person's not gonna do it. Their jaw's gonna tighten,
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: they're they're they'll see through their entire body the little cues that they're trained to read that they're not gonna do it. You know, there's hundred people with their phones out and all filming this with bright lights on. They don't want to be there. So they're gonna be excused from the stage. You know, you can watch videos up on YouTube of these kind of shows and there's usually one or two people at the very beginning that get excused because they can't do it.
Jeselle: Thank
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. So you can't make people do anything they wanna do. And in fact this even the word hypnosis has really interesting creation of the word hypnosis. It comes from Greek mythology and the Greek gods hypnos, who is the Greek god of sleep. And back in the early 1800s, Dr. James Esdale, who's was a surgeon working in India, and back then just even just around the world, there weren't fancy hospitals or fancy anesthesia. If you're having your leg amputated, you're biting down on stick or blow to the head or something. Yeah. And so Yeah. And
Sharmaine: Yeah, you're biting down on some leather or stick or yeah. That's what you get.
Craig Meriwether: He learned this deep trance state, how to put people in a deep, deep trance state, so far deep into trance that look like they're in a coma. Took them like around an hour to get people into the state. Then he could do amputations. He could cut people open and take out tumors and and do all that kind of work, more wounds and injuries and things. So he goes back to England, he starts showing other doctors how to do this kind of stuff. Another doctor, Dr. James Bard, using this technique, fascinated by it. wanting to write about it and and discuss it with his colleagues, decide to name it hypnosis, after the Greek god hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, because this coma-like state looked like sleep. And since then this word hypnosis has grown to encompass all sorts of these altered states of consciousness. And by that all I mean is when your mind drifts off all the way down to deep rim sleep. So what we're really dealing with here is brainwave state. And the famous ones we learned about back in school was beta, alpha, theta, and delta brainwave states. And basically, it's just how fast your brain is processing information. And if we've ever seen those documentaries or YouTube videos about the brain, and you see that electrical storm going off in your brain,
Jeselle: Yep.
Craig Meriwether: all the neurons, brain cells firing a little electrical pulses to each other. How fast that lightning storm happened, that electrical storm happens, determines what brainwave state you are. Now we're here having a conversation, we're having a discussion, having fun, you know, learning about all this stuff. And we're in this present moment, focused on the task at hand. We're firing about 18, 20 cycles per second in the beta brainwave state. But when the mind starts to drift off and float away, like remember back in high school, maybe there was a class, maybe high school math class, your your mind starts to drift away and it starts staring out the window because it's boring to you, or boring meeting at work, or you're driving somewhere, you're driving home, you're driving to the store, you're driving to your friend's house, you're driving to work. And since you've lived where you've lived for maybe several years, you've driven to the store, to home, to work hundreds of times, if not thousands of times, depending on how long you've lived there, you know how to drive to that location. And all
Sharmaine: pilot.
Craig Meriwether: of a sudden the last minute or two you you drop out and you just find
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: yourself at the store or you miss your exit or you
Jeselle: How did you get you?
Craig Meriwether: find yourself in your driveway. And it's not that you're driving unsafely because your subconscious mind took over, just like it knows how to walk. It knows how to tie your shoes, knows how to zip your jacket. You these things you don't have to think about. Lock the front door, you know what to do. So it knows how to drive too. And so it just took over and your conscious mind just floated away. You started thinking about tomorrow, started thinking about next week, the pro the project that's due, vacation you're going on, that trip you took a couple of years ago. You start thinking about other stuff. Well, now you just slowed down how fast your brain is processing, because it's no longer processing the outside world. And it's moved down to the alpha brainwave state. You just altered your state of consciousness, being bored at a meeting at work or back in high school math class or driving down the street. Watching TV puts you in the alpha brainwave state, let alone being bored watching your TV show that's no good no more. And so there's some English for you, no good no more. But we all yeah, we all we alter
Sharmaine: It fits right in.
Craig Meriwether: our states of consciousness all the time, all day long. You can't be in the beta brainwave state focused on this present moment. sixteen, seventeen hours a day. It's just not how the brain works. It moves, you know, in and out as a wave. Moves in and out, up and down. And so we may move into that theta brain wave state where you're just kinda you're not really asleep, but you're not really concentrating on anything, let alone delta sleep. So we we just slow down from eighteen cycles per second down to twelve into alpha, down to six into theta, maybe then back up to You know, and then somebody in the meeting says, Okay, hey Craig, now it's your turn to do the presentation. You're like, wait, I forgot where I am, I don't know what I'm doing. now I'm in a high high beta brainwave state. I'm in cycling at 30, around 30, and I'm stressed. I've just altered my state of consciousness being bored in a meeting at work, you know, like three or four times. All we do in hypotherapy is take advantage of that. And that's that whole trope, I don't have a pocket watch with me, but if like I was to swing a pocket watch.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: The whole trope like back in the movies of the nineteen forties or whatever. somebody
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: swinging a pocket watch, you are getting sleepy. There's being a a boring math teacher at school. You know, just like Ferris Bueller Ferris Bueller's day off. The old thing with the
Sharmaine: That's
Jeselle: make sense.
Craig Meriwether: the swinging a little pendulum or a pocket watch or pen or wash my finger, you know. It's just after a while you get bored of watching that thing because it's not doing anything except swinging. And so your mind just like
Jeselle: I'm sorry. I'm going
Craig Meriwether: And so
Jeselle: back in time from when I was in high school and I'm sitting in those boring classes
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Jeselle: drifting off to sleep and my head just drops or falls
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: back. I'm sorry, just take me back. Yeah, and you're like, yeah, right.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, and then you wake right way back up and your friends are all like, What the what's wrong with you? Let alone if the teacher sees you. Hey
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Craig, why don't you come up here and do the problem on the board? And it's like just think of how
Sharmaine: crap.
Craig Meriwether: fast you went from beta, you're
Sharmaine: Z
Craig Meriwether: paying attention, you're you're talking with your friends, then all of a sudden it's like, this again. And you're like, It's like you move down and then you're jolt to wake, and now you're paying attention, now you're stressed because you're like, what did I miss? Did anybody see me? Am I drooling? You gotta do this. As Yeah.
Jeselle: I remember that whole feeling through the body though. I
Sharmaine: No.
Jeselle: like that whole stress throughout the whole nervous system. You're going, whoa. I'm like, I'm remembering that. Like I don't quite remember in that moment, but now looking back, I remember having that stress and going, whoa.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. And it's just it's just a normal
Sharmaine: And feeling the body freak out.
Craig Meriwether: human reaction if you're if you start to get bored with stuff, your mind drifts off. That's just the
Jeselle: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: way the brain works. Everybody can do this. I I know there's like especially speaking of research and studies, I know there's universities and studies and things that say, 20% of the people can't be hypnotized. No. They can be. It's just that when they go into your research office and the white lab coats and you're sticking electrodes all over their head, they couldn't be hypnotized in that environment. They felt uncomfortable with you, with the situation.
Sharmaine: The Phil D yeah.
Craig Meriwether: You know, somebody, I went to a session with somebody and I just I couldn't be hypnotized. I just, I'm one of those people who can't be. No, you didn't feel comfortable with that person on the Zoom call. I do most of my sessions over Zoom now. as many of us do, no, you know, talk therapy and hypnotherapy
Sharmaine: Yeah, there's a lot of yeah.
Craig Meriwether: and doctor's appointments. and the reason why is because it works so well. People feel comfortable, relaxed in their homes, they don't have to go across town. And it works really well. And so
Sharmaine: I have to say as somebody that does therapy through Zoom and stuff like that, it d has made a huge difference in how much I've opened up. Like
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: compared to being going in sitting in the aw waiting room and waiting and and sitting there thinking, okay, well what am I gonna talk about or this and that? It's I just go onto the Zoom and we just go right in and we flow so natural because I'm sitting right where I'm doing my podcasting.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. You're comfortable where you are.
Sharmaine: Right where
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: I'm you know, where I do a lot of different things. I'm sitting right in my office and I do have to say that I that I never thought of that and I'm a lot of people probably don't, is the the comfortability
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Well that
Sharmaine: and the safe the safeness that you feel.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, and just the time saved. I mean you look at your watchers like, five minutes before my appointment, or an hour before my appointment I need to leave, or half an hour, I gotta go. You know,
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: and and so Zoom session works for me, of course this all came about about six years ago. They were doing it before, but in terms of it really going into the wider consciousness of everybody that this is a thing you can do and it works. You know, it happened during the whole COVID thing. And
Sharmaine: Mm.
Craig Meriwether: you know, and what's nice about it is I can work with people around the country around the world. I've like, you know, just just to show how crazy this can be. I've worked with people in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico and Iceland and you know Bulgaria. Switzerland, Australia. It's
Sharmaine: Lot of places.
Craig Meriwether: just like and and it's it's and oftentimes they're Americans on vacation or they work there, they're going to school there, and they heard somebody who w you know, some word of mouth kind of thing, and they just happened to be going to school at the American university there or worked there, or he worked with a professional basketball player in the European League and was his team was in Iceland, then he got traded to Spain, then he got traded to to France. And so it's just You know, I got to work with him in Iceland and Spain and France. And now he's actually a coach in the United States. You know, we've never never met in person, but it's like you know, it's extraordinary. You know, the Tahiti thing just American on vacation, but needed to work on some stuff and
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: we had a good signal, so why not?
Sharmaine: Yeah. Yeah, it's kinda yeah, it's it's amazing what what Zoom can do and how the comfortability th is actually there. 'Cause like at first I was like, I don't know about doing it over Zoom. I I was
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah this
Sharmaine: like, I don't know and then I I discussed it, 'cause we're doing marriage counseling and we're do I'm doing independent, both my husband and I. And the the amount of work and healing that we have been able to do through that Zoom i to is been like to me, just absolutely a shocker because I was like the I w I'm I'm it's gonna be better in person, you know, and that's what I really thought. And but it actually no, did she was like, you'd be surprised at what what we're able to pick up on through the just the screen. Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: yeah. Yeah, and you want the video on so you can have that you know, something like fifty six percent of communication is body language, so you wanna wanna see people. And I I get one doing it in person. I certainly enjoy seeing people in person, but I mean just think of all the time saved, you
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: know, just driving back and forth from an appointment, you know.
Sharmaine: I was gonna say and the stress that's involved with getting ready, going driving there, driving back. So you might have like this wonderful session and then you have this horrible drive home. Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeselle: Yeah, like I can't like, I love being in your home. Like I have become an introvert.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Jeselle: But
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Jeselle: no, like get it just having the stress of okay, gotta drop the baby off and then I have to go do this and then and for trying to make sure I have the vehicle for that day and you have to go through all these like loopholes for a lot of people who have all these loopholes to just go to what their recession and Like me, I'm forgetful. think for hypnosis session,
Sharmaine: Or hypnosis session.
Jeselle: you know, for anything of that sort, just, makes it very convenient. And I think it does allow people to open up a whole lot more.
Craig Meriwether: yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And especially with with hypnotherapy, there's a lot of emotional release. And
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: I think people feel a lot more comfortable in their own homes to be that vulnerable with somewhat of
Jeselle: Yes.
Sharmaine: Yes.
Craig Meriwether: a stranger, even though maybe our second or third appointment is still yeah, it's not like we really know each other.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: and so to be that vulnerable and be able to release I'm like feel a lot more comfortable and safe in their own homes. And the convenience of like once you're all done with the appointment, you're still you're back at home, you know. You're already at home. Yeah, turn off the computer, you're at home. yeah.
Sharmaine: You just turn off the computer. And and and you can stay in that relaxed state. You can stay in that in that in that the state that you le were left in. You know, you can stay in that released moment. that's really awesome.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause some people, you know, once they do this deep, deep healing work, you know, some people want to go outside and just bask in the sunlight and maybe go on a walk or
Sharmaine: Yes.
Craig Meriwether: a hike or go r run around the block ten times or go dancing. Other people want to take a five hour nap, you know. It's it's like there's so their system reboots.
Sharmaine: Yeah. 'Cause sometimes it's exhausting.
Jeselle: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. And so it's like while you're at home, you you get to choose what you want to do. You wanna put on some music and dance around the house or do you wanna go outside and and walk around the neighborhood or the park or do you wanna just breast, close your eyes and reset your nervous system
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: through a nap, you know? It's like you d y you get to choose.
Jeselle: I have a really curious question. You may not be able to answer this because how do they do an emotional release through hypnosis?
Craig Meriwether: So what's fascinating about the mind, and it's a great question, is
Sharmaine: That's a really really good question.
Craig Meriwether: what was fascinating about mind is mind speaks to us, the subconscious mind, in symbolism, metaphor, dreams, imagination. Sigmund Freud said that, Carl Young, Milton Erickson, Laura Pearls, who helped develop Gestalt therapy. For the last, you know, whatever, 100 years or so. well, we've hear from psychotherapy and the research and and the books and people talking about and working with people, subconscious mind will speak to us in symbolism, metaphor, imagination, dreams. But we can also speak back to the subconscious mind with symbolism, metaphor, storytelling, imagination. And that's why a lot of this work is imagine walking down a beautiful place in nature. Maybe it's a beautiful garden, a beautiful field, a beautiful forest, a beautiful beach. And as you're walking along this beautiful trail, hearing the sounds of nature around you, smelling the sweet scents of the flowers. You come to a clearing, there's a a waterfall, a beautiful gentle waterfall, and a little pool of water in the stream. But this isn't just a a regular waterfall, it's a waterfall of blue healing energy, blue healing light. And you stand there in it like you're taking a shower and wa washing off the sweat and dirt and mud of working out in the garden all day. But instead you're rinsing off the stress and the tension and it flows through you as well, is washing through your brain and pushing down all the stress. I mean Obviously, there is no waterfall of blue healing energy anywhere in the world. But you can imagine that. And the body will follow to what you're thinking and and imagining. And a great example of this is like having a nightmare in the middle of the night. Of you know, somebody safe and cozy and comfortable in bed, and yet let's say, you know, let's say something super realistic, like you know, a a war veteran having a PTSD dream about being back in combat, about being on the front lines. even though their war was forty years ago. Or maybe it's something super ridiculous, like a cheeseburger is chasing down the street throwing coconuts at your head. It's like it's dumb. It's never gonna happen. Neither one of those scenarios is actually real. They're just dreaming it. And yet the body will react because the mind thinks you're under attack. Because it has to shoot first, ask questions later. It's like, we're under attack by a cheeseburger. And so I'll turn on the stress response even in deep sleep. And the brain will start creating adrenaline cortisol, duping your bloodstream, your heart starts racing to get a bit of muscle, your arms and legs, and train down the power of your immune system, your digestive system, get all that power to fight off this this attack. Maybe so much cortisol in your brain it wakes you up, you know, with a scream looking for the danger. All because the cheeseburger is chasing down the street. So you can imagine what's happening in your waking world. And so we know this happens, we know this is just a part of being a human being, so we Take you know, use that to our advantage. And so instead of a cheeseburger chasing down the street attacking you with coconuts, how about you stand under a waterfall blue healing energy? You know? But what in terms of your question of an emotional release, we all feel that emotion somewhere in our body. The reason we can identify that emotion is because we feel it in the body. Anger feels different than sadness, which feels different than grief, which feels different than depression, which feels d different than despair. It's different than sorrow, it's different than overwhelm and worry and fear, anxiety, stress. These are all feelings that we can identify because of the of the feelings, the the emotion. We identify these emotions by the feeling in the body. And when we're working with with emotions like this, and they say, Well, I've been just dealing with so much depression and anxiety over the last few years, it's like, okay, well, where do you feel that your body? Like maybe your chest or your heart or your abdomen or your stomach or maybe the back of your neck or your throat gets tight or in your head or something. And so I'll when we move down to that deeper relaxed state, maybe even with a countdown of ten, nine, eight, and now I'll be in this beautiful, wonderful state of hypnosis. And now I want you to when think back to a time when you felt that depression and anxiety, maybe earlier today or yesterday, or maybe a point last week. Where do you feel in your body? Actually, point to it. And so they're pointing. So we're having communication. Not like somebody goes so deep into this trance state or go down deep into the sleep of hypnosis. We're having a conversation. I want them to point to where they feel it in their bodies. And I say, okay, well, now that you've identified where you feel that depression and anxiety in your body, what color is it? And now we're not only is the brain sending the signals of that feeling state, of that emotion into the body so you can feel it. It's now turning on the visual component of your brain. So now we're going to operate in different parts of the brain. And that color, maybe it's red, maybe it's a dark a blue or a black or a something else. And how does it feel? Is it sharp or achy or dull or heavy or light? And they'll start describing this color as a as a with more sensation. And then you know, add into does it have a shape? Does it look like a cloud or a mist, or smoke, or a gunk, or tar, or a a ball, or a box, or something else. What does it look like? And then may you describe a shape. And is it big, is a medium, is it small? And so now their subconscious mind, even if they really don't know where the depression anxiety came from, even though don't consciously know what it's about or its meaning, They just know it as this feeling state. They've not identified it as an object with various parts of the brain. And because the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined, we're now going to take it out and pull it out. And that's where the deep healing work happens. The mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. So that's the first part of this work is the kind of cleansing of the body of that emotional overwhelm. Because the subconscious mind is showing you what needs to go, you
Sharmaine: Mm.
Craig Meriwether: know, through symbolism, through metaphor. through allegory, through storytelling. This big s red spiky ball in your heart. Okay, I want you to take it out. And that's where emotions may flow, including tears. Certainly we're gonna work on use breath to help regulate the nervous system. And people pull for five minutes, ten minutes, I had I was working with a woman in her seventies. In fact all all she wrote on her intake form 'Cause you we've set up an appointment. We'll talk over the phone, we may have a consultation call, at least at the very least, send emails back and forth about any answer any questions and what you know, what it is you want to work on. And I'll send an in the intake form once the appointment is set to get more information. And she just wrote she was about s seventy two or seventy three, she wrote anxiety. That's all she wrote on her intake form. But she knows what that means. She knows the entirety of that. And some people write eight Very detailed paragraphs. She just wrote anxiety. And so that's what we worked on. Where where do you feel that anxiety in your body? She felt it in her head. It's like this red kind of goop. And so I said, I want you to start pulling that stuff out. And one question I asked her before we started was how long have you been experiencing this anxiety? You know, is it something recent, last few months, last few years, maybe longer? She said, since I was 19. So for some fifty years, she's has been experienced this chronic anxiety. And so she had it as a red kind of goop in her head. She pulled for like I timed it because it was I thought it was so extraordinary the healing work she was doing. She pulled for forty seven minutes. And that you know, she was pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. And then when she was like pulled it all out, she just opened her eyes and goes, Okay, that's done. I was like, all right. Well, we're gonna close our eyes once again because there's a part two, 'cause, you know Once you pull all that stuff out, you want to fill yourself up with the joy and the happiness. And and what does that look like? Is that blue? If the hurt and pain where it's red, maybe the the the joy and the freedom and the confidence and the courage that you want to install is gold or blue or green or some other color and looks like something. So you put that in your body, you fill yourself up with this. And in and of itself, and this is why this is different than talk therapy, which is very extraordinarily important, as you just pointed out. This is different work. And it's like a resetting of the nervous system. And since the subconscious mind, the communication of this to the to and from the subconscious mind is symbolism and metaphor, we can use storytelling. And we can use these more abstract ways of communicating to, well, show me what it is that needs to go. The body keeps the score, according to the famous book. So where in the body is it?
Sharmaine: Yeah. I I that that that w that book comes up mo so
Jeselle: more often.
Sharmaine: often with me but because I have a hid severe head injury and I've also been in very abusive relationships that gave me other head injuries. also grew up raising mustangs that gave me more head injuries.
Craig Meriwether: Okay.
Sharmaine: So I'm a I'm a head injury person, but also, you know, the th I grew up in a very toxic life. I had a very toxic upbringing, you know, very toxic marriages and and all of that. And I forgot what I was gonna say. I just totally lost what I was gonna say. Right in the middle of it. There you
Craig Meriwether: Mm, yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, and and that's obviously a a a huge issue and that can change, you know, the feeling states and moods and things having concussions
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: and all that kind of stuff. It's a big problem. And I think there's so much more now they've they've learned about that just even within football and and other military things. Yeah.
Sharmaine: They're learning, they're getting there. They're getting there. When you when we talked about it with several different TBIs people and stuff, and we've all pretty much had pretty close some similar experiences when it comes to to it. And we ain't gonna go into that. This is completely different. I have I have a different question for you.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Sure.
Sharmaine: You have a why is why you do this, correct?
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. yeah, yeah. I mean and with a lot of people
Sharmaine: So can we you can you can you give our listeners your why you do this?
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, I'll do a kind of a brief bio. yeah, I I struggled a lot with depression and anxiety, you know, starting around the teenage years, thirteen, fourteen. And this is nineteen eighties. I graduated high school in nineteen eighty five and so, you know, there's no internet and there's no Prozac or Zolof. there's just whatever talk therapists you could find in the yellow pages in the phone
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: book or the you know, whatever book you could find at the library or the the bookstore. But you you're thirteen or fourteen, you don't know any better. Yeah.
Sharmaine: And that's if you can find anything back then because therapy really wasn't a big like it was it No.
Craig Meriwether: No, you didn't talk about It's it's it was you kept it to yourself. And it was also that thing is like, well, you see ever other other people having fun and enjoying life and you don't understand why you're not. And you don't get it. There's no one to talk to about it. And you know, as we moved into the nineteen nineties, it's getting older, it's really was top of the my to do list is to figure this out and be rid of it. 'Cause I didn't want to feel like that anymore. But the 1990s was kind of the second wave or maybe third wave of the personal development movement. Tony Robbins became super duper popular. Oprah kind of switched her show and became a more positive influence in people's lives. Prozac came out in the the early 1990s. I mean it was on the cover of Newsweek back when we read magazines. And and so the conversation opened up. Oprah was talking about it. Tony Robbins would talk about it. And then the internet started coming out in you know, ninety-six, ninety-seven, with our fourteen point four modems over our phone lines. And there was these new things called blog posts and and then articles about it and then there's forums where you can talk to people. But you also like go to parties and it was talk about it, talk about it with your doctor. And so the conversation opened up and one of the things that people were mentioning in their blog posts or in forums or in articles in book chapters was hypnotherapy. It was one thing that people kept mentioning and like there'd be five things. Here's the five things to do to change your life and to reprogram your subconscious mind. It'd always be hypnotherapy. And so since so many people were mentioning it, I started looking into it. And it was, you know, now early two thousands when I found somebody. It's kind of the birth of my son, where it's like, Okay, I really gotta get my life together now. And if you're you're doing the math, that's Yeah, yeah.
Sharmaine: Yeah, so understands that.
Craig Meriwether: And so if you're doing the math, that's some sixteen, seventeen years af you know, after the fact. And so that's been struggling with this for that long and finally thought, okay, well maybe hypnotherapy is the way up. It's not that I wasn't doing that, it's like I was trying the Tony Robbins stuff. I was trying whatever Oprah recommended or the articles or or whatever. I didn't necessarily do medication.
Sharmaine: They just didn't happen to work with for you.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. I didn't necessarily do medication. There was still a lot of there was still a lot of hesitancy out there in the world. back then, I guess maybe still today. And so I was
Sharmaine: Still did I
Craig Meriwether: nervous about that, but and I never went that route. But you know, looked into it, did all the research, trying to find a way out. And finally, since so many people were mentioning hypnotherapy and r recommending it, I decided to go that route and found somebody I could work with and did some deep healing work. And I was so fascinated by it. Consciousness and healing and really the placebo effect. Mind healing.
Sharmaine: no.
Craig Meriwether: And and we'll talk about p placebo effect in a second, but 'cause I think that's important to really understand how the mind works. But in terms of my story, it came in about, you know, maybe like two thousand ten or so, me and a couple of friends that we met at my son's school and their kids' school, were hanging we're like, what are we gonna do to change the world? How are we gonna make life better for our kids and things? And what can we do to change the world? So we started a little mastermind group and every week we met and we kinda each had a f focus, a different focus. And I said, Well I know a lot about depression 'cause I've done like just twenty years worth of research about it. And maybe I'll write a book. And so I long story around that, but there's I entered a writing contest with Hay House when I was Hierophont actually and I got really closely in. I came in like you know, I according to one judge he said I came a close second. And so this are like five hundred people and like each month we had to submit a chapter. And so I started with five hundred people, then the next month was two hundred people, then the next month was a hundred people, and then it just all the way down. And so I just wrote and wrote and wrote 'cause I didn't have the book. Most people probably had their book written already. And I was just writing and researching and while I didn't actually get the first place prize of a publishing contract. I did was a asked to submit a chapter for this book, Pearls of Wisdom, with Jack Canfield and Marcy Scheimoff and and Janet Adwitt and a bunch of other cool people. And but it led me to you know doing the self publishing route and getting Depression 180 out there. That's the book. And then the next year I kind of wrote kind of the sequel to it, Mind Mastery Blueprint. And One thing about both those books, they have a chapter in there about hypnotherapy. And so I did a lot of research around, okay, well, this chapter is hypnotherapy. I need to do all my research. So I did a ton of research about hypnotherapy, and the more it I researched, the more fascinated I was by it, and eventually led to kind of pivoting in midlife and did some great training, 500 hours at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, just focusing on clinical hypnotherapy and and medical hypnosis. and led me to meet, you know, talking to you today. So it was just been this life, you know, huge slow drip, from
Sharmaine: So you have a so that this is a personal thing that kinda help this this started out as a very personal thing. Yeah. Okay.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's been my life of of looking for change. Yeah. It's it's been my life of looking for change just mainly from to create healing in my own life. And and one you know, one of the things I was fascinated by was the placebo effect. That just fascinated me to no end, be mind healing the body, but being tricked into doing it. And
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: what's what's fascinating is that like let's say pharmaceutical companies. They have to account for their accidentally healing people just through their influence of the potential for healing. And so they have, let's say, they're doing a study on high blood pressure medication. Well, they know they're going to accidentally influence people to heal themselves, the brochure, the colors on the brochure about the new research, the website you go to to find out more information, to sign up. the the research office you go to and the the look of the research office, the magazines they have, the clipboard you use to sign the waiver, the white lab coats, the smell, that cleanliness smell of a a lab office or medical office, that's all influencing people to heal themselves. And so they have to account for that. And so that's why people get the sugar pill. And so half the group is going to get the sugar pill 'cause they need to know how many people they're potentially influencing to heal themselves. So let's say for this example, thirty percent of the people in the sugar pill group get the control group, thirty percent get better. Let's say the people taking the real medication, let's say fifty percent get better with the real medication. they have to have actually subtract thirty percent because maybe they've accidentally influenced them to heal themselves. twenty percent got better. Well that's good enough and we'll put it on the market. At 80 bucks a pill. but you can't patent somebody's subconscious mind. So there's no big money in showing people how to tap into their own healing power. And really
Sharmaine: Not exactly.
Craig Meriwether: what we're doing is the placebo effect. All we're doing is doing it on purpose. We're not tricking people into it. We're not faking people out. Like you you can heal. Yeah. It's like, what do you want
Sharmaine: No lying to him about it. You're telling him I'm doing it.
Craig Meriwether: to fix? Okay, then let's fix it. You know you
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: can do it. I I can trick you into it. But that's a lot more work. So let's just do it the easy way. Cause this is what you want. There just may need maybe some walls and blocks and the foot may be on the brake. Okay, well let's why let's figure out why the foot's on the brake. Let's rema and literally the imagery might be, I want you to imagine yourself removing your foot from the brake and now pressing the accelerator in a safe and gentle way. You know, the subconscious mind speaks to us in symbolism, a metaphor, and we can speak back to it. And so if the subconscious mind The reason they whole yeah, I just feel like my foot's on the brake. Okay, well that's a very symbolic and metaphoric way way way of Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and
Sharmaine: Well take it off. Yeah, you just said your problem is.
Craig Meriwether: and in and of itself, they're just meaning it, you know, as a way of describing their problems. Like, yeah, but there's a lot of ways to
Sharmaine: But that with
Craig Meriwether: have described that problem. So that's a great metaphor we can use to help re you
Sharmaine: Yeah, absolutely.
Craig Meriwether: know, change the situation that and not to again not to blame them or say it's their fault, but it's like you are creating this situation. So uncreated. And create something new, you know?
Sharmaine: Yeah. The reframe. The reframe. Yeah, that
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, yeah, recently.
Sharmaine: That's what th in all honesty, that's where that's where I'm kind of a really big time at in my in my own personal healing journey is trying is not trying to, but am reframing a lot of the ways I look at things and just d the reframe. The exact like I said,
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, the way you you talk to yourself. I mean and and and
Jeselle: Yeah.
Sharmaine: I just stopped myself from saying trying in the middle of it. I was like, No, I'm not trying. I am. I am doing. There's no such thing.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, and and not to not to put you on blast, but the you started off you sort of kind of mispronounced my name. And to cover up for that you said I do that every time. Yeah, you're hypnotizing yourself. What are the chances that you're gonna do it again if you're telling yourself every time you make a mistake that I do that every time? And that and that's the thing. That's that's hypnosis. We do
Sharmaine: Yeah, you're right. Yeah, no. huh.
Craig Meriwether: it all and not just you, all of us do that. That's just a kind
Sharmaine: Well yeah.
Craig Meriwether: of a human trait of trying to
Sharmaine: Don't worry, my feelings aren't hurt about being
Craig Meriwether: Cover up for a mistake we make, but
Sharmaine: called out 'cause now I'm like, Ooh, you're right.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's that that language. What are we telling ourselves? We're hypnotizing ourselves or we're influencing ourselves. If you're influencing yourself that, well, I make these mistakes all the time, it's like, well then what are the chances that you're gonna make mistakes all the time? You know, and so
Jeselle: No.
Sharmaine: Pretty much all the time. You just tell yourself. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: what if you you know what if you started talking to yourself in a different way? And it's it's that awareness, of course. You know, and you're on the spot and you're, you know, being recorded and we're on the Zoom call and it gets, you know, Sometimes it can be intense, but it's like it's that awareness of like, okay, well this is just the learning and growing as a human being. It's like, I
Sharmaine: Mm.
Craig Meriwether: d yeah, I guess I do do that, huh? Now that I'm aware of it. And that's the thing. Now that you're aware of it, you can start changing that. And that's hi and that's hypnosis I just did with you.
Sharmaine: Yeah, no, one hundred percent, 'cause I'm I'm gonna be like, Nope, I'm not gonna allow myself to say that anymore
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Well that's the thing, and that's and that's hypnotherapy what I just did with you. Melton Erickson style conversational hypnosis. Now that you are aware of it, you can start changing it. That's hypnosis.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: And now that thought is within your subconscious mind, it's like, yeah, now that I am aware of it, I can change it. Because you can. And
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: I keep doing it because, you know, if you like replay this, you can hear me saying these things that are suggestions into your subconscious mind to c start changing behavior.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, wonder how you're gonna find new ways of talking to yourself. Well now your mind's like, yeah, I wonder how am I gonna start changing myself. And even though we're our eyes are open and we're doing this recording and having a conversation, we're probably getting to the end of it and we're trying to you know figure out how we're gonna wrap it up. It's like all that's still being implanted in your subconscious mind, even though we're focusing on other stuff. Because I'm not talking to your conscious level of mind. That's where recording equipment and dials and switches and timing and and how it's gonna get wrapped up and and By the way, I wonder how you're gonna start talking to yourself in a more healthy and positive way. Hm, yeah, I wonder how I'm gonna start doing that.
Jeselle: Yeah.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: And I don't know if that's later on today, tomorrow or later in the week. just did it again. Yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: And that goes for everybody. That just goes for everybody. And that's
Sharmaine: that's already started. Yeah.
Jeselle: not just for us, but that goes for everybody that listens and everybody that, that's the point of looking through the glass is to shift on how we look at ourselves and how we talk to ourselves and be more positive towards ourselves.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah. And you just did it. You just helped influence people. We can all do that. can we? Yeah, I guess we could. And now that I'm pointing it out, it's gonna work even even better. See, I just did it again. How
Jeselle: I'm trying.
Craig Meriwether: about that? See how simple this is? It's not it's not hard. It's not difficult.
Jeselle: I just love the way you do it.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: It's not difficult. Yeah. It's just it's just influence. Yeah, and Milton Erickson was great at this. He was he was he was around and fifties, sixties, seventies passed away, and I think in the early eighties or so. but is a great communicator, healing communicator, if that if that's a a term, a hypnotherapist and and psychotherapist, and but he'd use language to help create transformation, such as, yeah, I wonder how you're gonna create that healing change in your life, and that was it. Then he would walk, you know, you'd have a party. Somebody's talking about, yeah, this is going on, this is going on. It's like, yeah, I wonder how you're you're gonna change your life to make it even better than it is today. Huh. And then now subconscious mind, yeah, I wonder how
Sharmaine: It's like literally just planting that little seed.
Craig Meriwether: I am gonna do that. And yeah, I'm doing the crazy symbol. But you know, your mind starts the gears start working. It's like, yeah, I wonder how I am gonna make my life even better than it was today. You know,
Jeselle: You know?
Craig Meriwether: that's the thing with asking yourself questions in the morning, you know, and how am I gonna you wanna learn something. You wanna learn Spanish or math or someth I don't know, whatever you wanna learn. you're gonna learn the piano, but let's say Spanish, it's like I wonder how I'm gonna learn Spanish in a way that's fun and easy. Yeah. And now your subconscious mind has the instruction of like,
Sharmaine: Yeah, then get opens your
Craig Meriwether: let's find a fun, fun, easy way to learn Spanish. Maybe it's an app, maybe it's a class, maybe it's
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: a class that meets up at a coffee shop, you know. I I don't know, you know. And all of a sudden you start seeing the flyers, you start seeing the your phone's listening to you, of course, so you're you know, you
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: know all the ads start popping up on Instagram or something. So yeah, just speak
Sharmaine: Yeah. It
Craig Meriwether: loudly near your phone when you want something. I wonder how I'm gonna make a million dollars.
Sharmaine: Well you wanna know yeah, right? What is it?
Jeselle: What was your reminder?
Craig Meriwether: Or do or do that do that to your friend's phone and see see what starts popping up.
Jeselle: You know, we didn't get to where people can find your books. And if they want
Craig Meriwether: yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: to work with you and come to you and get a consultation, also how they get a hold you.
Craig Meriwether: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. yeah, the best way is is through the website and I can send you all this information, but release
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: the past dot com and that'll get you to me. It's basic craigmarywether dot com, but release the past dot com will get you there. You find the Depression one eighty in the mind mastery blueprint on Amazon. I d do some social media, but it's not I've kind of taken a break from that. And
Jeselle: No blame you.
Craig Meriwether: min mental, yeah, mental health break from social media. So I'm not so so much on that anymore. Yeah.
Sharmaine: You're right. We understand that one.
Craig Meriwether: And so best way is the website, release the past dot com. And yeah, happy to talk with people, answer any more questions they might have and set up a consultation call. Again, most of my work I do over Zoom, so it's as long as we can figure out the time zone issues, yeah, we're good to go.
Jeselle: And as always, we put all those in the show notes for those who are driving and listening to us. Absolutely.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, I'll put that in the show notes. Yeah. All right. And you'll put that in the show notes. I'll send it to you so you can put it in the show notes, yeah.
Jeselle: Craig, it was amazing talking to you.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. thank you. I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you inviting me. I know it took us a few tries with all life, my life, your lives. we can get
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: three people to try to talk, you know, in different time zones. But yeah,
Jeselle: No.
Craig Meriwether: I appreciate the invitation. It's it's fun talking with you.
Jeselle: Absolutely, and...
Sharmaine: It was it's been a I love your w hummingbird in the background, by the way.
Craig Meriwether: thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too. That's my I don't know, spirit animal since I was a little kid. I grew up in San Diego. We'd go to San Diego Zoo and you know, my while my brother and my dad wandered around looking at whatever elephants and tigers and polar bears and whatever my mom and I had to sit in the hummingbird enclosure for like an hour.
Sharmaine: Th that's cool.
Jeselle: I really don't blame you, they're so fun to watch, they're fun to be around. Mine was the-
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. god. Yeah. Yeah. In fact I
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: have have a hummingbird feeder right outside my window and so they could be working, talking and they're flying around. Yeah.
Sharmaine: And watching yeah. Yes. Love it.
Jeselle: That's wonderful. See, mine was the red pandas at the San Diego Zoo. That was
Craig Meriwether: yeah. Nice.
Jeselle: my fascination.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, everybody it was so fast we had pandas at San Diego Zilla. There was like like every week there was a story about the pandas. 'Cause it's a big deal 'cause they came from China and they were on
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: loan and all this stuff and they were gonna get pregnant and all this stuff. But yeah, pandas are amazing. Yeah. yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: Mine's the red pandas. But the red pandas are amazing. They're
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Jeselle: not even a panda. They look like a raccoon.
Sharmaine: Ha ha
Jeselle: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, those are those are wild. Yeah. Very cool. yeah.
Jeselle: Yeah, but yeah, it was amazing talking to you. I love your perspective and definitely had me thinking. Yeah.
Sharmaine: Learned a lot today. We've learned a lot today.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. I'm good.
Jeselle: But for all of our listeners, we'll have everything in the show notes. As always, thank you for listening. Can find us on social media, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. Subscribe on YouTube if you want. Yeah, thank you everybody and don't forget our website as well.
Sharmaine: L L I T G at Riverside dot com there.
Jeselle: you
Sharmaine: I remembered that one.
Jeselle: Once again, everything will be in the show notes. Barlink tree.
Sharmaine: Thanks everybody. Thank you, Craig.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, you're welcome.
Craig Meriwether: Very well. Yeah.
Sharmaine: Yes, okay, make sure I got it right. Well, I do that every time. he is a hypnotherapist. He also is an author, Depression w 180, correct? And also
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Depression one eighty, yeah.
Sharmaine: and also there was another one I cannot read it brain injury.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, my mind mastery blueprint.
Sharmaine: There we go. Mind Mastery Blueprint. There we go. Today we're gonna talk about hypnotherapy and he's just we're gonna talk about a little bit on the misconceptions and all of those other beautiful things that we don't know about, but Craig absolutely does.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm happy to answer whatever questions you might have. I know there's a lot of misconceptions and myths about hypnosis and hypnotherapy, which is really unfortunate because it's a really great set of techniques and tools to use to help create healing, to help create change. And it's not that we're, you know, doing anything different, it's not magic or mysticism, it's literally just What you're doing anyway, to a certain extent, we've all hypnotized ourselves to certain beliefs and certain patterns in life. Somebody is struggling with anxiety or or depression or anger, they weren't probably born feeling that anger. Probably weren't born dealing with that sadness. But over time learn, maybe through trauma, maybe through hurt and pain they've experienced, maybe just being punched down on at at school in terms of parents who tell you, well, you're never going to amount to anything. To a certain extent, we are hypnotized throughout life in terms of how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about the world, life. Is life fair or unfair? Is money easy or hard to get? And you're allowed to change those beliefs. You're allowed to change those patterns. You're allowed to heal. You're allowed to create resolution around old hurt and pain, even if it happened 60 years ago. And these tools and techniques under the umbrella term of of hypnotherapy is is you know something the the more modern day practice of therapeutic hypnosis probably been going on for the last hundred and fifty years or so, if you know when you start counting, but you know, r around the early to mid-eighteen hundreds. And since then it's grown to encompass a lot of different tools and techniques that have now been verified through research. and in fact if anybody's interested in even going deeper into this, one of one cool little tool that Google has, if you go to Google search and just a regular search bar, if you type in Google Scholar, and that'll take you to scholar.google.com and all that searches is research papers that have been published in peer reviewed scientific and medical journals. So you can look up hypnotherapy and anxiety and just instead of getting blog posts and videos and people's opinions, this is the research around it that's been going on. and so it's really that's the end, you know
Sharmaine: Yeah, that is some good information to have.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, or just put in hyp hypnosis or whatever it is you're interested in looking on that that has any sort of Yeah.
Sharmaine: Yeah, yeah. 'Cause I'm looking I look up different studies all the time with brain injuries and and
Craig Meriwether: Mm.
Sharmaine: and stuff like that. I'm looking up cause I'm dealing with a lot of neck issues where I'm gonna have to have surgery and stuff. So I'm doing
Craig Meriwether: Mm. Yeah, okay.
Sharmaine: I'm I don't wanna hear what the medicines have to say about it. I wanna hear what actually's going on. So I go too
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah.
Sharmaine: straight to the actual papers and studies and stuff and it's hard to find those. It's not easy.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so but
Jeselle: Thank you.
Sharmaine: So that was great information. Thank you for that. Sorry to interrupt.
Craig Meriwether: in in and of itself, again, this isn't magic, it isn't mysticism, it's not mind control. It's it's not
Sharmaine: Mm mm.
Craig Meriwether: you know, it's it's not brainwashing, it's not turning people into zombies or manchurian candidates to go assassinate prime minister. That's that's not what this work is. It's changing your beliefs that you have installed, maybe unconsciously, maybe through traumatic experiences in life. But you're the one who installed them. And it's not to say it's your fault or to say it should have happened or that it's fair. But somewhere those instructions got installed, which means you're allowed to change them. If you're the one who installed them, yeah, maybe by accident or maybe through trauma or and probably unconsciously, maybe as a child. But if you're the one who installed them, that means you're the one who can change them. And that's where this work becomes very empowering.
Sharmaine: Yeah, absolutely.
Jeselle: Thank
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Becomes very empowering. Because really we're not doing anything different. We're kind of de hypnotizing people. I mean, one of the main things that hypnotherapy is famous for is to help people stop smoking. Quit smoking. Smoking sensation.
Jeselle: Yeah.
Sharmaine: I as an ex smoker I actually looked into
Craig Meriwether: Well nobody's nobody's born. Yeah.
Sharmaine: it. I just could never afford it white back then. But yeah, as an ex smoker I was like I looked into it 'cause I wanted
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: to quit smoking.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, because in and of you know, no one's born smoking. You know, it y that usually happens somewhere between
Sharmaine: No. That's a learned habit.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, some some happens somewhere between twelve and twenty-five. The socialization period of our lives. no one never starts smoking when they're fifty or fifty five or sixty two. They start when they're it's fourteen or they're twenty I wanna look cooler with a friend or look older or just has a something to do or you're
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm. I was twelve. I was
Craig Meriwether: like grandfather smoked or whatever.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: And they may quit and then come back to it in their thirties or forties, but usually there's something pretty life altering, bankruptcy or you know, health issue within the family or divorce or something. And it that smoking reminds them of maybe simpler times or maybe more friendly times. And it's you know, it's a nice ritual to do with your hands and and and it allows you to give yourself a break. I gotta go take a smoke break. And for some reason you'll give yourself permission to, you know, take a break and smoke a cigarette, but not just to take a break and you know, stand in the sunlight for two minutes and recharge. But Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
Sharmaine: That's it didn't take a breath. Yeah, you're so correct on that though. You are so correct on that.
Jeselle: Yeah, that is true.
Craig Meriwether: and and oftentimes you you find when you work with people who want to quit smoking, they've quit in the past. You say, well, you've ever quit before, yeah, I quit for two weeks here, or quit for four days there, or I quit for two years and then this or that. And so you can quit. Quitting's not the problem. It's the starting up again. That's the problem. And oftentimes it's not so much looking at fixing the habit because, well, if you fix the habit, then the issue, the core issue of why they're smoking is still there. And so if you find the issue of why why they're smoking,
Sharmaine: Thank you.
Craig Meriwether: or they started again, because again, it's like even if you quit for two weeks. Okay, the nicotine's out of your body at that point. The toxins have been cleansed from your body. So why
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: did you start again? And so it's not quitting. You can quit. You've quit many
Sharmaine: Why did you go back to the old habit?
Craig Meriwether: times. Yeah. Your your core nature is a non-smoker. It's hard to smoke. It's really easy to be a non-smoker. All you have to do is nothing. Whereas a smoker,
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: you gotta find some cigarettes, you gotta find a lighter, you gotta find a place where you can smoke, you gotta maybe hide it from certain people who may look down upon you because you're smoking. So it's really difficult to smoke. So you must be putting a lot of effort into smoking. So why are you doing that? What's the belief that this cigarette will help maybe release some stress, maybe some tension, maybe again, just give yourself a break.
Sharmaine: Well, it's a perfect the perfect like for addicts. They go it's
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: an addiction. So it's literally we're speaking addiction here, you know, and that and it is not just w the drug. You can quit doing the drug and still have an addict mindset or at the think like an addict, you know. they call dry drunks or whatever. So a lot of it does it it is one hundred percent you. You that's gotta do it.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so it's sort of like just wearing a you know, uncomfortable, ill fitting scratchy coat with heavy rocks in the pockets. Take it off. Take off the coat. It's not you. And you know, you're gripping a a a pencil in your hand really tight. here you go. Gripping a pin in your hand really tightly. And after a while, maybe we're doing it for protection, maybe we're doing it for safety. After a while we think, well it starts getting comfortable. comfortably miserable, but it's comfortable. And then we start thinking that this is who we are and it's a part of us. And it's not. Just open up your fist and drop the with the big bang in my microphone. Drop the drop the pen. You know, not not to make it sound so simple and easy, but sometimes it's that simple and easy. If you weren't born with that, and oftentimes these traumas and this hurt and pains happen fairly instantaneously, a a cruel word, physical abuse or something. These changes within how we believe about our safety can happen fairly instantaneously. So why why can't you heal instantaneously? Why wouldn't you be able to change that? Not to say to to create amnesia. Never want to do that. Never want to quite create forgetfulness or wipe memory. but create resolution and healing around that. And so, you know, just like if somebody breaks their leg doing some stupid stunt while skiing in Alaska, you don't want to erase memory of that because then they'll just do that again. They won't
Sharmaine: Do it again.
Craig Meriwether: remember that that's a dangerous stunt to do and they're they they don't have the skill to pull it off. You want to cur you know heal the leg. You want to deal with any residual grief or pain or hurt or anger around it, resentment around yourself or even trying it. But you don't want to remember you don't want to forget that that's a dangerous stunt. You know, that's wisdom. remembering a hot pot on a stove will burn your hand is that's wisdom. You don't want to forget that. Otherwise you just keep touching the hot pot. But you can, you know, heal from the pain of touching the hot pot. You know? And and that's what a law this work is. Again, it's not that we're trying to you know turn you into any sort of Manchurian candidate or brainwash or anything. I'm well, I guess maybe there's something that we're doing some mind washing of of old of thoughts and beliefs about yourself.
Sharmaine: Yeah, mindwashing of bad beliefs
Craig Meriwether: You know, if if you want to be kinda Yeah.
Sharmaine: bad beliefs and traumas and things that we were that have been portrayed on us or pr projected upon us. Like you said, things that we carry around that aren't ours. I mean we're we're all doing it.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I not and not to point point out, you know, and we're always constantly influencing ourselves. And and that's the thing. Okay,
Sharmaine: Const Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: I I just can't make somebody quit smoking. If they don't want to quit smoking, they're not going to quit smoking. You know, I just can't go to Yeah.
Sharmaine: They Yeah, there has to be the the absolute want.
Craig Meriwether: I can't go to Las Vegas and go to some, you the casinos or go to the bars or whatever in Las Vegas and just make people quit smoking. More than likely they don't want You if like somebody's wife like makes an appointment, it's like, well,
Sharmaine: Or there's something keeping them there.
Craig Meriwether: yeah, they're tired of the health issues and the stink and the money and like you're gonna go quit smoking. I made an appointment for you next Thursday at two o'clock. And they'll show up, but they're like, I don't want to quit. So I'm just gonna negotiate smoking in the garage. That happened to a friend of mine, a colleague who hippotherapy paid money to quit smoking but didn't really want to, 'cause of his wife made the appointment. And so, you know, didn't quit because he didn't want to. You just wanted to smoke in the garage. You know, and
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: so I you can't make people do any things you're owned about. You can influence if it resonates with them. And not to bring politics or anything like that into this, but just I think we all can see what's been going on for the last ten years, if not longer. But really in our face the last ten years, that like a left leaning political person will not be influenced by right leaning political news, and right leaning political people will not be influenced by left leaning political news. However
Sharmaine: Because they're so deemed evil on the other side, but
Craig Meriwether: A left-leaning political person will be influenced by left-leaning news, right person right you know, leading political person, right leaning news, because it resonates with their beliefs about themselves and the world and life. And so they will be influenced by that. And so that's that's hip hypnosis. That's that's the hypnotherapy. If you're if you resonate wanting to heal, wanting to drop the hurt and pain and resolve it, then we can work with that and healing can happen. b if you want to hold on to it for some reason, the secondary gains around it or just not ready to heal, then no it's not gonna happen. I can't make people just do stuff. And that's where, you know, y the movies get it all wrong and and T V shows. All right. And even people see those shows in in Las Vegas or comedy clubs, where there's like twelve, fifteen people up on stage all doing silly stuff and singing like Elvis Presley and dancing like Michael Jackson and Or they're doing quacking like ducks. Every single person that got up there volunteered to be up on that stage. They wanted to be up there. They to be part of the show. They're exhibitionists. They're ex extroverts. They want
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: to be star of the show and they want to have a good time and have, you know, somebody film it and put it on YouTube or TikTok or something. And who's that, you know, hypnotist as they come out to do this big show in the sparkly jacket? And they say, hey everyone, we're here to have a good time. Who who are they gonna pick to come up on stage? The introvert in the back of the room who's hiding in the shadows, sinking down on their chair? Or are they gonna pick the extrovert who got there early, sitting in the front row and and jumping up and down saying, Pick me, pick me? You know, one of them
Jeselle: Thank
Craig Meriwether: is gonna do a a you know, a better job, if you want, give a better
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: show because they want to do it. And what's fascinating about this is they resonate with you know having a having that kind of fun. You know, people wanting to do improv or be a stand-up comic. You know, so a lot of us don't want to get up on stage and get heckled or, you know, do be in the spotlight like that. But other people do. Because it resonates with them and they want to do it. You know, and even if they lost a bet during the day and then say, okay, well you have to get up on stage tonight when we go to the show, it's you know, they're gonna be excused because they're gonna be tense and they're gonna their body language will tell the hypnotist, it's like, this person's not gonna do it. Their jaw's gonna tighten,
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: they're they're they'll see through their entire body the little cues that they're trained to read that they're not gonna do it. You know, there's hundred people with their phones out and all filming this with bright lights on. They don't want to be there. So they're gonna be excused from the stage. You know, you can watch videos up on YouTube of these kind of shows and there's usually one or two people at the very beginning that get excused because they can't do it.
Jeselle: Thank
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. So you can't make people do anything they wanna do. And in fact this even the word hypnosis has really interesting creation of the word hypnosis. It comes from Greek mythology and the Greek gods hypnos, who is the Greek god of sleep. And back in the early 1800s, Dr. James Esdale, who's was a surgeon working in India, and back then just even just around the world, there weren't fancy hospitals or fancy anesthesia. If you're having your leg amputated, you're biting down on stick or blow to the head or something. Yeah. And so Yeah. And
Sharmaine: Yeah, you're biting down on some leather or stick or yeah. That's what you get.
Craig Meriwether: He learned this deep trance state, how to put people in a deep, deep trance state, so far deep into trance that look like they're in a coma. Took them like around an hour to get people into the state. Then he could do amputations. He could cut people open and take out tumors and and do all that kind of work, more wounds and injuries and things. So he goes back to England, he starts showing other doctors how to do this kind of stuff. Another doctor, Dr. James Bard, using this technique, fascinated by it. wanting to write about it and and discuss it with his colleagues, decide to name it hypnosis, after the Greek god hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, because this coma-like state looked like sleep. And since then this word hypnosis has grown to encompass all sorts of these altered states of consciousness. And by that all I mean is when your mind drifts off all the way down to deep rim sleep. So what we're really dealing with here is brainwave state. And the famous ones we learned about back in school was beta, alpha, theta, and delta brainwave states. And basically, it's just how fast your brain is processing information. And if we've ever seen those documentaries or YouTube videos about the brain, and you see that electrical storm going off in your brain,
Jeselle: Yep.
Craig Meriwether: all the neurons, brain cells firing a little electrical pulses to each other. How fast that lightning storm happened, that electrical storm happens, determines what brainwave state you are. Now we're here having a conversation, we're having a discussion, having fun, you know, learning about all this stuff. And we're in this present moment, focused on the task at hand. We're firing about 18, 20 cycles per second in the beta brainwave state. But when the mind starts to drift off and float away, like remember back in high school, maybe there was a class, maybe high school math class, your your mind starts to drift away and it starts staring out the window because it's boring to you, or boring meeting at work, or you're driving somewhere, you're driving home, you're driving to the store, you're driving to your friend's house, you're driving to work. And since you've lived where you've lived for maybe several years, you've driven to the store, to home, to work hundreds of times, if not thousands of times, depending on how long you've lived there, you know how to drive to that location. And all
Sharmaine: pilot.
Craig Meriwether: of a sudden the last minute or two you you drop out and you just find
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: yourself at the store or you miss your exit or you
Jeselle: How did you get you?
Craig Meriwether: find yourself in your driveway. And it's not that you're driving unsafely because your subconscious mind took over, just like it knows how to walk. It knows how to tie your shoes, knows how to zip your jacket. You these things you don't have to think about. Lock the front door, you know what to do. So it knows how to drive too. And so it just took over and your conscious mind just floated away. You started thinking about tomorrow, started thinking about next week, the pro the project that's due, vacation you're going on, that trip you took a couple of years ago. You start thinking about other stuff. Well, now you just slowed down how fast your brain is processing, because it's no longer processing the outside world. And it's moved down to the alpha brainwave state. You just altered your state of consciousness, being bored at a meeting at work or back in high school math class or driving down the street. Watching TV puts you in the alpha brainwave state, let alone being bored watching your TV show that's no good no more. And so there's some English for you, no good no more. But we all yeah, we all we alter
Sharmaine: It fits right in.
Craig Meriwether: our states of consciousness all the time, all day long. You can't be in the beta brainwave state focused on this present moment. sixteen, seventeen hours a day. It's just not how the brain works. It moves, you know, in and out as a wave. Moves in and out, up and down. And so we may move into that theta brain wave state where you're just kinda you're not really asleep, but you're not really concentrating on anything, let alone delta sleep. So we we just slow down from eighteen cycles per second down to twelve into alpha, down to six into theta, maybe then back up to You know, and then somebody in the meeting says, Okay, hey Craig, now it's your turn to do the presentation. You're like, wait, I forgot where I am, I don't know what I'm doing. now I'm in a high high beta brainwave state. I'm in cycling at 30, around 30, and I'm stressed. I've just altered my state of consciousness being bored in a meeting at work, you know, like three or four times. All we do in hypotherapy is take advantage of that. And that's that whole trope, I don't have a pocket watch with me, but if like I was to swing a pocket watch.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: The whole trope like back in the movies of the nineteen forties or whatever. somebody
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: swinging a pocket watch, you are getting sleepy. There's being a a boring math teacher at school. You know, just like Ferris Bueller Ferris Bueller's day off. The old thing with the
Sharmaine: That's
Jeselle: make sense.
Craig Meriwether: the swinging a little pendulum or a pocket watch or pen or wash my finger, you know. It's just after a while you get bored of watching that thing because it's not doing anything except swinging. And so your mind just like
Jeselle: I'm sorry. I'm going
Craig Meriwether: And so
Jeselle: back in time from when I was in high school and I'm sitting in those boring classes
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Jeselle: drifting off to sleep and my head just drops or falls
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: back. I'm sorry, just take me back. Yeah, and you're like, yeah, right.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, and then you wake right way back up and your friends are all like, What the what's wrong with you? Let alone if the teacher sees you. Hey
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Craig, why don't you come up here and do the problem on the board? And it's like just think of how
Sharmaine: crap.
Craig Meriwether: fast you went from beta, you're
Sharmaine: Z
Craig Meriwether: paying attention, you're you're talking with your friends, then all of a sudden it's like, this again. And you're like, It's like you move down and then you're jolt to wake, and now you're paying attention, now you're stressed because you're like, what did I miss? Did anybody see me? Am I drooling? You gotta do this. As Yeah.
Jeselle: I remember that whole feeling through the body though. I
Sharmaine: No.
Jeselle: like that whole stress throughout the whole nervous system. You're going, whoa. I'm like, I'm remembering that. Like I don't quite remember in that moment, but now looking back, I remember having that stress and going, whoa.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. And it's just it's just a normal
Sharmaine: And feeling the body freak out.
Craig Meriwether: human reaction if you're if you start to get bored with stuff, your mind drifts off. That's just the
Jeselle: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: way the brain works. Everybody can do this. I I know there's like especially speaking of research and studies, I know there's universities and studies and things that say, 20% of the people can't be hypnotized. No. They can be. It's just that when they go into your research office and the white lab coats and you're sticking electrodes all over their head, they couldn't be hypnotized in that environment. They felt uncomfortable with you, with the situation.
Sharmaine: The Phil D yeah.
Craig Meriwether: You know, somebody, I went to a session with somebody and I just I couldn't be hypnotized. I just, I'm one of those people who can't be. No, you didn't feel comfortable with that person on the Zoom call. I do most of my sessions over Zoom now. as many of us do, no, you know, talk therapy and hypnotherapy
Sharmaine: Yeah, there's a lot of yeah.
Craig Meriwether: and doctor's appointments. and the reason why is because it works so well. People feel comfortable, relaxed in their homes, they don't have to go across town. And it works really well. And so
Sharmaine: I have to say as somebody that does therapy through Zoom and stuff like that, it d has made a huge difference in how much I've opened up. Like
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: compared to being going in sitting in the aw waiting room and waiting and and sitting there thinking, okay, well what am I gonna talk about or this and that? It's I just go onto the Zoom and we just go right in and we flow so natural because I'm sitting right where I'm doing my podcasting.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. You're comfortable where you are.
Sharmaine: Right where
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Sharmaine: I'm you know, where I do a lot of different things. I'm sitting right in my office and I do have to say that I that I never thought of that and I'm a lot of people probably don't, is the the comfortability
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Well that
Sharmaine: and the safe the safeness that you feel.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, and just the time saved. I mean you look at your watchers like, five minutes before my appointment, or an hour before my appointment I need to leave, or half an hour, I gotta go. You know,
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: and and so Zoom session works for me, of course this all came about about six years ago. They were doing it before, but in terms of it really going into the wider consciousness of everybody that this is a thing you can do and it works. You know, it happened during the whole COVID thing. And
Sharmaine: Mm.
Craig Meriwether: you know, and what's nice about it is I can work with people around the country around the world. I've like, you know, just just to show how crazy this can be. I've worked with people in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico and Iceland and you know Bulgaria. Switzerland, Australia. It's
Sharmaine: Lot of places.
Craig Meriwether: just like and and it's it's and oftentimes they're Americans on vacation or they work there, they're going to school there, and they heard somebody who w you know, some word of mouth kind of thing, and they just happened to be going to school at the American university there or worked there, or he worked with a professional basketball player in the European League and was his team was in Iceland, then he got traded to Spain, then he got traded to to France. And so it's just You know, I got to work with him in Iceland and Spain and France. And now he's actually a coach in the United States. You know, we've never never met in person, but it's like you know, it's extraordinary. You know, the Tahiti thing just American on vacation, but needed to work on some stuff and
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: we had a good signal, so why not?
Sharmaine: Yeah. Yeah, it's kinda yeah, it's it's amazing what what Zoom can do and how the comfortability th is actually there. 'Cause like at first I was like, I don't know about doing it over Zoom. I I was
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah this
Sharmaine: like, I don't know and then I I discussed it, 'cause we're doing marriage counseling and we're do I'm doing independent, both my husband and I. And the the amount of work and healing that we have been able to do through that Zoom i to is been like to me, just absolutely a shocker because I was like the I w I'm I'm it's gonna be better in person, you know, and that's what I really thought. And but it actually no, did she was like, you'd be surprised at what what we're able to pick up on through the just the screen. Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: yeah. Yeah, and you want the video on so you can have that you know, something like fifty six percent of communication is body language, so you wanna wanna see people. And I I get one doing it in person. I certainly enjoy seeing people in person, but I mean just think of all the time saved, you
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: know, just driving back and forth from an appointment, you know.
Sharmaine: I was gonna say and the stress that's involved with getting ready, going driving there, driving back. So you might have like this wonderful session and then you have this horrible drive home. Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeselle: Yeah, like I can't like, I love being in your home. Like I have become an introvert.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
Jeselle: But
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Jeselle: no, like get it just having the stress of okay, gotta drop the baby off and then I have to go do this and then and for trying to make sure I have the vehicle for that day and you have to go through all these like loopholes for a lot of people who have all these loopholes to just go to what their recession and Like me, I'm forgetful. think for hypnosis session,
Sharmaine: Or hypnosis session.
Jeselle: you know, for anything of that sort, just, makes it very convenient. And I think it does allow people to open up a whole lot more.
Craig Meriwether: yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And especially with with hypnotherapy, there's a lot of emotional release. And
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: I think people feel a lot more comfortable in their own homes to be that vulnerable with somewhat of
Jeselle: Yes.
Sharmaine: Yes.
Craig Meriwether: a stranger, even though maybe our second or third appointment is still yeah, it's not like we really know each other.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: and so to be that vulnerable and be able to release I'm like feel a lot more comfortable and safe in their own homes. And the convenience of like once you're all done with the appointment, you're still you're back at home, you know. You're already at home. Yeah, turn off the computer, you're at home. yeah.
Sharmaine: You just turn off the computer. And and and you can stay in that relaxed state. You can stay in that in that in that the state that you le were left in. You know, you can stay in that released moment. that's really awesome.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, 'cause some people, you know, once they do this deep, deep healing work, you know, some people want to go outside and just bask in the sunlight and maybe go on a walk or
Sharmaine: Yes.
Craig Meriwether: a hike or go r run around the block ten times or go dancing. Other people want to take a five hour nap, you know. It's it's like there's so their system reboots.
Sharmaine: Yeah. 'Cause sometimes it's exhausting.
Jeselle: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. And so it's like while you're at home, you you get to choose what you want to do. You wanna put on some music and dance around the house or do you wanna go outside and and walk around the neighborhood or the park or do you wanna just breast, close your eyes and reset your nervous system
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: through a nap, you know? It's like you d y you get to choose.
Jeselle: I have a really curious question. You may not be able to answer this because how do they do an emotional release through hypnosis?
Craig Meriwether: So what's fascinating about the mind, and it's a great question, is
Sharmaine: That's a really really good question.
Craig Meriwether: what was fascinating about mind is mind speaks to us, the subconscious mind, in symbolism, metaphor, dreams, imagination. Sigmund Freud said that, Carl Young, Milton Erickson, Laura Pearls, who helped develop Gestalt therapy. For the last, you know, whatever, 100 years or so. well, we've hear from psychotherapy and the research and and the books and people talking about and working with people, subconscious mind will speak to us in symbolism, metaphor, imagination, dreams. But we can also speak back to the subconscious mind with symbolism, metaphor, storytelling, imagination. And that's why a lot of this work is imagine walking down a beautiful place in nature. Maybe it's a beautiful garden, a beautiful field, a beautiful forest, a beautiful beach. And as you're walking along this beautiful trail, hearing the sounds of nature around you, smelling the sweet scents of the flowers. You come to a clearing, there's a a waterfall, a beautiful gentle waterfall, and a little pool of water in the stream. But this isn't just a a regular waterfall, it's a waterfall of blue healing energy, blue healing light. And you stand there in it like you're taking a shower and wa washing off the sweat and dirt and mud of working out in the garden all day. But instead you're rinsing off the stress and the tension and it flows through you as well, is washing through your brain and pushing down all the stress. I mean Obviously, there is no waterfall of blue healing energy anywhere in the world. But you can imagine that. And the body will follow to what you're thinking and and imagining. And a great example of this is like having a nightmare in the middle of the night. Of you know, somebody safe and cozy and comfortable in bed, and yet let's say, you know, let's say something super realistic, like you know, a a war veteran having a PTSD dream about being back in combat, about being on the front lines. even though their war was forty years ago. Or maybe it's something super ridiculous, like a cheeseburger is chasing down the street throwing coconuts at your head. It's like it's dumb. It's never gonna happen. Neither one of those scenarios is actually real. They're just dreaming it. And yet the body will react because the mind thinks you're under attack. Because it has to shoot first, ask questions later. It's like, we're under attack by a cheeseburger. And so I'll turn on the stress response even in deep sleep. And the brain will start creating adrenaline cortisol, duping your bloodstream, your heart starts racing to get a bit of muscle, your arms and legs, and train down the power of your immune system, your digestive system, get all that power to fight off this this attack. Maybe so much cortisol in your brain it wakes you up, you know, with a scream looking for the danger. All because the cheeseburger is chasing down the street. So you can imagine what's happening in your waking world. And so we know this happens, we know this is just a part of being a human being, so we Take you know, use that to our advantage. And so instead of a cheeseburger chasing down the street attacking you with coconuts, how about you stand under a waterfall blue healing energy? You know? But what in terms of your question of an emotional release, we all feel that emotion somewhere in our body. The reason we can identify that emotion is because we feel it in the body. Anger feels different than sadness, which feels different than grief, which feels different than depression, which feels d different than despair. It's different than sorrow, it's different than overwhelm and worry and fear, anxiety, stress. These are all feelings that we can identify because of the of the feelings, the the emotion. We identify these emotions by the feeling in the body. And when we're working with with emotions like this, and they say, Well, I've been just dealing with so much depression and anxiety over the last few years, it's like, okay, well, where do you feel that your body? Like maybe your chest or your heart or your abdomen or your stomach or maybe the back of your neck or your throat gets tight or in your head or something. And so I'll when we move down to that deeper relaxed state, maybe even with a countdown of ten, nine, eight, and now I'll be in this beautiful, wonderful state of hypnosis. And now I want you to when think back to a time when you felt that depression and anxiety, maybe earlier today or yesterday, or maybe a point last week. Where do you feel in your body? Actually, point to it. And so they're pointing. So we're having communication. Not like somebody goes so deep into this trance state or go down deep into the sleep of hypnosis. We're having a conversation. I want them to point to where they feel it in their bodies. And I say, okay, well, now that you've identified where you feel that depression and anxiety in your body, what color is it? And now we're not only is the brain sending the signals of that feeling state, of that emotion into the body so you can feel it. It's now turning on the visual component of your brain. So now we're going to operate in different parts of the brain. And that color, maybe it's red, maybe it's a dark a blue or a black or a something else. And how does it feel? Is it sharp or achy or dull or heavy or light? And they'll start describing this color as a as a with more sensation. And then you know, add into does it have a shape? Does it look like a cloud or a mist, or smoke, or a gunk, or tar, or a a ball, or a box, or something else. What does it look like? And then may you describe a shape. And is it big, is a medium, is it small? And so now their subconscious mind, even if they really don't know where the depression anxiety came from, even though don't consciously know what it's about or its meaning, They just know it as this feeling state. They've not identified it as an object with various parts of the brain. And because the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined, we're now going to take it out and pull it out. And that's where the deep healing work happens. The mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. So that's the first part of this work is the kind of cleansing of the body of that emotional overwhelm. Because the subconscious mind is showing you what needs to go, you
Sharmaine: Mm.
Craig Meriwether: know, through symbolism, through metaphor. through allegory, through storytelling. This big s red spiky ball in your heart. Okay, I want you to take it out. And that's where emotions may flow, including tears. Certainly we're gonna work on use breath to help regulate the nervous system. And people pull for five minutes, ten minutes, I had I was working with a woman in her seventies. In fact all all she wrote on her intake form 'Cause you we've set up an appointment. We'll talk over the phone, we may have a consultation call, at least at the very least, send emails back and forth about any answer any questions and what you know, what it is you want to work on. And I'll send an in the intake form once the appointment is set to get more information. And she just wrote she was about s seventy two or seventy three, she wrote anxiety. That's all she wrote on her intake form. But she knows what that means. She knows the entirety of that. And some people write eight Very detailed paragraphs. She just wrote anxiety. And so that's what we worked on. Where where do you feel that anxiety in your body? She felt it in her head. It's like this red kind of goop. And so I said, I want you to start pulling that stuff out. And one question I asked her before we started was how long have you been experiencing this anxiety? You know, is it something recent, last few months, last few years, maybe longer? She said, since I was 19. So for some fifty years, she's has been experienced this chronic anxiety. And so she had it as a red kind of goop in her head. She pulled for like I timed it because it was I thought it was so extraordinary the healing work she was doing. She pulled for forty seven minutes. And that you know, she was pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. And then when she was like pulled it all out, she just opened her eyes and goes, Okay, that's done. I was like, all right. Well, we're gonna close our eyes once again because there's a part two, 'cause, you know Once you pull all that stuff out, you want to fill yourself up with the joy and the happiness. And and what does that look like? Is that blue? If the hurt and pain where it's red, maybe the the the joy and the freedom and the confidence and the courage that you want to install is gold or blue or green or some other color and looks like something. So you put that in your body, you fill yourself up with this. And in and of itself, and this is why this is different than talk therapy, which is very extraordinarily important, as you just pointed out. This is different work. And it's like a resetting of the nervous system. And since the subconscious mind, the communication of this to the to and from the subconscious mind is symbolism and metaphor, we can use storytelling. And we can use these more abstract ways of communicating to, well, show me what it is that needs to go. The body keeps the score, according to the famous book. So where in the body is it?
Sharmaine: Yeah. I I that that that w that book comes up mo so
Jeselle: more often.
Sharmaine: often with me but because I have a hid severe head injury and I've also been in very abusive relationships that gave me other head injuries. also grew up raising mustangs that gave me more head injuries.
Craig Meriwether: Okay.
Sharmaine: So I'm a I'm a head injury person, but also, you know, the th I grew up in a very toxic life. I had a very toxic upbringing, you know, very toxic marriages and and all of that. And I forgot what I was gonna say. I just totally lost what I was gonna say. Right in the middle of it. There you
Craig Meriwether: Mm, yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, and and that's obviously a a a huge issue and that can change, you know, the feeling states and moods and things having concussions
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: and all that kind of stuff. It's a big problem. And I think there's so much more now they've they've learned about that just even within football and and other military things. Yeah.
Sharmaine: They're learning, they're getting there. They're getting there. When you when we talked about it with several different TBIs people and stuff, and we've all pretty much had pretty close some similar experiences when it comes to to it. And we ain't gonna go into that. This is completely different. I have I have a different question for you.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Sure.
Sharmaine: You have a why is why you do this, correct?
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. yeah, yeah. I mean and with a lot of people
Sharmaine: So can we you can you can you give our listeners your why you do this?
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, I'll do a kind of a brief bio. yeah, I I struggled a lot with depression and anxiety, you know, starting around the teenage years, thirteen, fourteen. And this is nineteen eighties. I graduated high school in nineteen eighty five and so, you know, there's no internet and there's no Prozac or Zolof. there's just whatever talk therapists you could find in the yellow pages in the phone
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: book or the you know, whatever book you could find at the library or the the bookstore. But you you're thirteen or fourteen, you don't know any better. Yeah.
Sharmaine: And that's if you can find anything back then because therapy really wasn't a big like it was it No.
Craig Meriwether: No, you didn't talk about It's it's it was you kept it to yourself. And it was also that thing is like, well, you see ever other other people having fun and enjoying life and you don't understand why you're not. And you don't get it. There's no one to talk to about it. And you know, as we moved into the nineteen nineties, it's getting older, it's really was top of the my to do list is to figure this out and be rid of it. 'Cause I didn't want to feel like that anymore. But the 1990s was kind of the second wave or maybe third wave of the personal development movement. Tony Robbins became super duper popular. Oprah kind of switched her show and became a more positive influence in people's lives. Prozac came out in the the early 1990s. I mean it was on the cover of Newsweek back when we read magazines. And and so the conversation opened up. Oprah was talking about it. Tony Robbins would talk about it. And then the internet started coming out in you know, ninety-six, ninety-seven, with our fourteen point four modems over our phone lines. And there was these new things called blog posts and and then articles about it and then there's forums where you can talk to people. But you also like go to parties and it was talk about it, talk about it with your doctor. And so the conversation opened up and one of the things that people were mentioning in their blog posts or in forums or in articles in book chapters was hypnotherapy. It was one thing that people kept mentioning and like there'd be five things. Here's the five things to do to change your life and to reprogram your subconscious mind. It'd always be hypnotherapy. And so since so many people were mentioning it, I started looking into it. And it was, you know, now early two thousands when I found somebody. It's kind of the birth of my son, where it's like, Okay, I really gotta get my life together now. And if you're you're doing the math, that's Yeah, yeah.
Sharmaine: Yeah, so understands that.
Craig Meriwether: And so if you're doing the math, that's some sixteen, seventeen years af you know, after the fact. And so that's been struggling with this for that long and finally thought, okay, well maybe hypnotherapy is the way up. It's not that I wasn't doing that, it's like I was trying the Tony Robbins stuff. I was trying whatever Oprah recommended or the articles or or whatever. I didn't necessarily do medication.
Sharmaine: They just didn't happen to work with for you.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. I didn't necessarily do medication. There was still a lot of there was still a lot of hesitancy out there in the world. back then, I guess maybe still today. And so I was
Sharmaine: Still did I
Craig Meriwether: nervous about that, but and I never went that route. But you know, looked into it, did all the research, trying to find a way out. And finally, since so many people were mentioning hypnotherapy and r recommending it, I decided to go that route and found somebody I could work with and did some deep healing work. And I was so fascinated by it. Consciousness and healing and really the placebo effect. Mind healing.
Sharmaine: no.
Craig Meriwether: And and we'll talk about p placebo effect in a second, but 'cause I think that's important to really understand how the mind works. But in terms of my story, it came in about, you know, maybe like two thousand ten or so, me and a couple of friends that we met at my son's school and their kids' school, were hanging we're like, what are we gonna do to change the world? How are we gonna make life better for our kids and things? And what can we do to change the world? So we started a little mastermind group and every week we met and we kinda each had a f focus, a different focus. And I said, Well I know a lot about depression 'cause I've done like just twenty years worth of research about it. And maybe I'll write a book. And so I long story around that, but there's I entered a writing contest with Hay House when I was Hierophont actually and I got really closely in. I came in like you know, I according to one judge he said I came a close second. And so this are like five hundred people and like each month we had to submit a chapter. And so I started with five hundred people, then the next month was two hundred people, then the next month was a hundred people, and then it just all the way down. And so I just wrote and wrote and wrote 'cause I didn't have the book. Most people probably had their book written already. And I was just writing and researching and while I didn't actually get the first place prize of a publishing contract. I did was a asked to submit a chapter for this book, Pearls of Wisdom, with Jack Canfield and Marcy Scheimoff and and Janet Adwitt and a bunch of other cool people. And but it led me to you know doing the self publishing route and getting Depression 180 out there. That's the book. And then the next year I kind of wrote kind of the sequel to it, Mind Mastery Blueprint. And One thing about both those books, they have a chapter in there about hypnotherapy. And so I did a lot of research around, okay, well, this chapter is hypnotherapy. I need to do all my research. So I did a ton of research about hypnotherapy, and the more it I researched, the more fascinated I was by it, and eventually led to kind of pivoting in midlife and did some great training, 500 hours at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, just focusing on clinical hypnotherapy and and medical hypnosis. and led me to meet, you know, talking to you today. So it was just been this life, you know, huge slow drip, from
Sharmaine: So you have a so that this is a personal thing that kinda help this this started out as a very personal thing. Yeah. Okay.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's been my life of of looking for change. Yeah. It's it's been my life of looking for change just mainly from to create healing in my own life. And and one you know, one of the things I was fascinated by was the placebo effect. That just fascinated me to no end, be mind healing the body, but being tricked into doing it. And
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: what's what's fascinating is that like let's say pharmaceutical companies. They have to account for their accidentally healing people just through their influence of the potential for healing. And so they have, let's say, they're doing a study on high blood pressure medication. Well, they know they're going to accidentally influence people to heal themselves, the brochure, the colors on the brochure about the new research, the website you go to to find out more information, to sign up. the the research office you go to and the the look of the research office, the magazines they have, the clipboard you use to sign the waiver, the white lab coats, the smell, that cleanliness smell of a a lab office or medical office, that's all influencing people to heal themselves. And so they have to account for that. And so that's why people get the sugar pill. And so half the group is going to get the sugar pill 'cause they need to know how many people they're potentially influencing to heal themselves. So let's say for this example, thirty percent of the people in the sugar pill group get the control group, thirty percent get better. Let's say the people taking the real medication, let's say fifty percent get better with the real medication. they have to have actually subtract thirty percent because maybe they've accidentally influenced them to heal themselves. twenty percent got better. Well that's good enough and we'll put it on the market. At 80 bucks a pill. but you can't patent somebody's subconscious mind. So there's no big money in showing people how to tap into their own healing power. And really
Sharmaine: Not exactly.
Craig Meriwether: what we're doing is the placebo effect. All we're doing is doing it on purpose. We're not tricking people into it. We're not faking people out. Like you you can heal. Yeah. It's like, what do you want
Sharmaine: No lying to him about it. You're telling him I'm doing it.
Craig Meriwether: to fix? Okay, then let's fix it. You know you
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: can do it. I I can trick you into it. But that's a lot more work. So let's just do it the easy way. Cause this is what you want. There just may need maybe some walls and blocks and the foot may be on the brake. Okay, well let's why let's figure out why the foot's on the brake. Let's rema and literally the imagery might be, I want you to imagine yourself removing your foot from the brake and now pressing the accelerator in a safe and gentle way. You know, the subconscious mind speaks to us in symbolism, a metaphor, and we can speak back to it. And so if the subconscious mind The reason they whole yeah, I just feel like my foot's on the brake. Okay, well that's a very symbolic and metaphoric way way way of Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and
Sharmaine: Well take it off. Yeah, you just said your problem is.
Craig Meriwether: and in and of itself, they're just meaning it, you know, as a way of describing their problems. Like, yeah, but there's a lot of ways to
Sharmaine: But that with
Craig Meriwether: have described that problem. So that's a great metaphor we can use to help re you
Sharmaine: Yeah, absolutely.
Craig Meriwether: know, change the situation that and not to again not to blame them or say it's their fault, but it's like you are creating this situation. So uncreated. And create something new, you know?
Sharmaine: Yeah. The reframe. The reframe. Yeah, that
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, yeah, recently.
Sharmaine: That's what th in all honesty, that's where that's where I'm kind of a really big time at in my in my own personal healing journey is trying is not trying to, but am reframing a lot of the ways I look at things and just d the reframe. The exact like I said,
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, the way you you talk to yourself. I mean and and and
Jeselle: Yeah.
Sharmaine: I just stopped myself from saying trying in the middle of it. I was like, No, I'm not trying. I am. I am doing. There's no such thing.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah, and and not to not to put you on blast, but the you started off you sort of kind of mispronounced my name. And to cover up for that you said I do that every time. Yeah, you're hypnotizing yourself. What are the chances that you're gonna do it again if you're telling yourself every time you make a mistake that I do that every time? And that and that's the thing. That's that's hypnosis. We do
Sharmaine: Yeah, you're right. Yeah, no. huh.
Craig Meriwether: it all and not just you, all of us do that. That's just a kind
Sharmaine: Well yeah.
Craig Meriwether: of a human trait of trying to
Sharmaine: Don't worry, my feelings aren't hurt about being
Craig Meriwether: Cover up for a mistake we make, but
Sharmaine: called out 'cause now I'm like, Ooh, you're right.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's that that language. What are we telling ourselves? We're hypnotizing ourselves or we're influencing ourselves. If you're influencing yourself that, well, I make these mistakes all the time, it's like, well then what are the chances that you're gonna make mistakes all the time? You know, and so
Jeselle: No.
Sharmaine: Pretty much all the time. You just tell yourself. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: what if you you know what if you started talking to yourself in a different way? And it's it's that awareness, of course. You know, and you're on the spot and you're, you know, being recorded and we're on the Zoom call and it gets, you know, Sometimes it can be intense, but it's like it's that awareness of like, okay, well this is just the learning and growing as a human being. It's like, I
Sharmaine: Mm.
Craig Meriwether: d yeah, I guess I do do that, huh? Now that I'm aware of it. And that's the thing. Now that you're aware of it, you can start changing that. And that's hi and that's hypnosis I just did with you.
Sharmaine: Yeah, no, one hundred percent, 'cause I'm I'm gonna be like, Nope, I'm not gonna allow myself to say that anymore
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Well that's the thing, and that's and that's hypnotherapy what I just did with you. Melton Erickson style conversational hypnosis. Now that you are aware of it, you can start changing it. That's hypnosis.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: And now that thought is within your subconscious mind, it's like, yeah, now that I am aware of it, I can change it. Because you can. And
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: I keep doing it because, you know, if you like replay this, you can hear me saying these things that are suggestions into your subconscious mind to c start changing behavior.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, wonder how you're gonna find new ways of talking to yourself. Well now your mind's like, yeah, I wonder how am I gonna start changing myself. And even though we're our eyes are open and we're doing this recording and having a conversation, we're probably getting to the end of it and we're trying to you know figure out how we're gonna wrap it up. It's like all that's still being implanted in your subconscious mind, even though we're focusing on other stuff. Because I'm not talking to your conscious level of mind. That's where recording equipment and dials and switches and timing and and how it's gonna get wrapped up and and By the way, I wonder how you're gonna start talking to yourself in a more healthy and positive way. Hm, yeah, I wonder how I'm gonna start doing that.
Jeselle: Yeah.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: And I don't know if that's later on today, tomorrow or later in the week. just did it again. Yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: And that goes for everybody. That just goes for everybody. And that's
Sharmaine: that's already started. Yeah.
Jeselle: not just for us, but that goes for everybody that listens and everybody that, that's the point of looking through the glass is to shift on how we look at ourselves and how we talk to ourselves and be more positive towards ourselves.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah. And you just did it. You just helped influence people. We can all do that. can we? Yeah, I guess we could. And now that I'm pointing it out, it's gonna work even even better. See, I just did it again. How
Jeselle: I'm trying.
Craig Meriwether: about that? See how simple this is? It's not it's not hard. It's not difficult.
Jeselle: I just love the way you do it.
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: It's not difficult. Yeah. It's just it's just influence. Yeah, and Milton Erickson was great at this. He was he was he was around and fifties, sixties, seventies passed away, and I think in the early eighties or so. but is a great communicator, healing communicator, if that if that's a a term, a hypnotherapist and and psychotherapist, and but he'd use language to help create transformation, such as, yeah, I wonder how you're gonna create that healing change in your life, and that was it. Then he would walk, you know, you'd have a party. Somebody's talking about, yeah, this is going on, this is going on. It's like, yeah, I wonder how you're you're gonna change your life to make it even better than it is today. Huh. And then now subconscious mind, yeah, I wonder how
Sharmaine: It's like literally just planting that little seed.
Craig Meriwether: I am gonna do that. And yeah, I'm doing the crazy symbol. But you know, your mind starts the gears start working. It's like, yeah, I wonder how I am gonna make my life even better than it was today. You know,
Jeselle: You know?
Craig Meriwether: that's the thing with asking yourself questions in the morning, you know, and how am I gonna you wanna learn something. You wanna learn Spanish or math or someth I don't know, whatever you wanna learn. you're gonna learn the piano, but let's say Spanish, it's like I wonder how I'm gonna learn Spanish in a way that's fun and easy. Yeah. And now your subconscious mind has the instruction of like,
Sharmaine: Yeah, then get opens your
Craig Meriwether: let's find a fun, fun, easy way to learn Spanish. Maybe it's an app, maybe it's a class, maybe it's
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: a class that meets up at a coffee shop, you know. I I don't know, you know. And all of a sudden you start seeing the flyers, you start seeing the your phone's listening to you, of course, so you're you know, you
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: know all the ads start popping up on Instagram or something. So yeah, just speak
Sharmaine: Yeah. It
Craig Meriwether: loudly near your phone when you want something. I wonder how I'm gonna make a million dollars.
Sharmaine: Well you wanna know yeah, right? What is it?
Jeselle: What was your reminder?
Craig Meriwether: Or do or do that do that to your friend's phone and see see what starts popping up.
Jeselle: You know, we didn't get to where people can find your books. And if they want
Craig Meriwether: yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: to work with you and come to you and get a consultation, also how they get a hold you.
Craig Meriwether: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. yeah, the best way is is through the website and I can send you all this information, but release
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: the past dot com and that'll get you to me. It's basic craigmarywether dot com, but release the past dot com will get you there. You find the Depression one eighty in the mind mastery blueprint on Amazon. I d do some social media, but it's not I've kind of taken a break from that. And
Jeselle: No blame you.
Craig Meriwether: min mental, yeah, mental health break from social media. So I'm not so so much on that anymore. Yeah.
Sharmaine: You're right. We understand that one.
Craig Meriwether: And so best way is the website, release the past dot com. And yeah, happy to talk with people, answer any more questions they might have and set up a consultation call. Again, most of my work I do over Zoom, so it's as long as we can figure out the time zone issues, yeah, we're good to go.
Jeselle: And as always, we put all those in the show notes for those who are driving and listening to us. Absolutely.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, I'll put that in the show notes. Yeah. All right. And you'll put that in the show notes. I'll send it to you so you can put it in the show notes, yeah.
Jeselle: Craig, it was amazing talking to you.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. thank you. I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you inviting me. I know it took us a few tries with all life, my life, your lives. we can get
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: three people to try to talk, you know, in different time zones. But yeah,
Jeselle: No.
Craig Meriwether: I appreciate the invitation. It's it's fun talking with you.
Jeselle: Absolutely, and...
Sharmaine: It was it's been a I love your w hummingbird in the background, by the way.
Craig Meriwether: thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too. That's my I don't know, spirit animal since I was a little kid. I grew up in San Diego. We'd go to San Diego Zoo and you know, my while my brother and my dad wandered around looking at whatever elephants and tigers and polar bears and whatever my mom and I had to sit in the hummingbird enclosure for like an hour.
Sharmaine: Th that's cool.
Jeselle: I really don't blame you, they're so fun to watch, they're fun to be around. Mine was the-
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. god. Yeah. Yeah. In fact I
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: have have a hummingbird feeder right outside my window and so they could be working, talking and they're flying around. Yeah.
Sharmaine: And watching yeah. Yes. Love it.
Jeselle: That's wonderful. See, mine was the red pandas at the San Diego Zoo. That was
Craig Meriwether: yeah. Nice.
Jeselle: my fascination.
Sharmaine: Mm-hmm.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, everybody it was so fast we had pandas at San Diego Zilla. There was like like every week there was a story about the pandas. 'Cause it's a big deal 'cause they came from China and they were on
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: loan and all this stuff and they were gonna get pregnant and all this stuff. But yeah, pandas are amazing. Yeah. yeah, yeah.
Jeselle: Mine's the red pandas. But the red pandas are amazing. They're
Sharmaine: Yeah.
Jeselle: not even a panda. They look like a raccoon.
Sharmaine: Ha ha
Jeselle: Yeah.
Craig Meriwether: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, those are those are wild. Yeah. Very cool. yeah.
Jeselle: Yeah, but yeah, it was amazing talking to you. I love your perspective and definitely had me thinking. Yeah.
Sharmaine: Learned a lot today. We've learned a lot today.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. I'm good.
Jeselle: But for all of our listeners, we'll have everything in the show notes. As always, thank you for listening. Can find us on social media, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. Subscribe on YouTube if you want. Yeah, thank you everybody and don't forget our website as well.
Sharmaine: L L I T G at Riverside dot com there.
Jeselle: you
Sharmaine: I remembered that one.
Jeselle: Once again, everything will be in the show notes. Barlink tree.
Sharmaine: Thanks everybody. Thank you, Craig.
Craig Meriwether: Yeah, you're welcome.
