Hypnotherapy is a Legitimate Solution: Craig Meriwether

 Summary

In this episode, hypnotherapist Craig Meriweather and host Christian Brim explore the science of hypnosis, debunk myths, and share success stories of how hypnotherapy can transform lives by accessing the subconscious mind.

Key  Topics

• What is hypnosis and how it works
• The science behind brain wave states (beta, alpha, theta, delta)
• Myths and misconceptions about hypnotherapy
• How subconscious programming influences emotions and behaviors
• The role of visualization and symbolism in hypnotherapy
• The importance of training and credentials for hypnotherapists
• Success stories of healing and personal growth through hypnotherapy

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https://calendly.com/cbrim/30min

Transcript

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Christian Brim (00:01.05)
Welcome to another episode of the Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, hypnotherapist Craig Merriweather. And before you tune out, because you heard hypnosis, stay tuned because I promise you this is worth listening to. And I've never talked to Craig. Craig, welcome to the show.

Craig Meriwether (00:21.442)
Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate you inviting me onto your show. And yeah, you're correct. It's there's a lot of unfortunate misconceptions and myths about hypnosis and therapeutic hypnosis. And I think it scares a lot of people off. yeah, like you say, it to tunes them out and it's unfortunate 'cause it's an extraordinary way of these this umbrella term of hypnotherapy of techniques and tools to access your subconscious mind and create change.

Christian Brim (00:40.464)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (00:52.368)
Yeah, and I I I would have put myself in the camp of those skeptics until my business coach recommended a hypnotherapist that he had been using. And I was skeptical, like I said, and it was expensive. And I really only did it because the need

I I perceived was compelling, like the problem I was trying to solve was compelling. And I trusted his judgment. Like I I didn't think he would steer me wrong. And the experience was remarkable. I I think I thought, like most people do, that either hypnosis isn't real or it's some type of vaudeville, you know, stage act, right?

but what I was exposed to, and I I didn't do it for very long, and and to an extent it did solve the problem, but what I was shocked at was the reprogramming of the brain. Like I I'm like, how in the hell did you do that? That's weird. so that's just my my personal experience.

Craig Meriwether (02:06.712)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and in and of itself it's it it seems like magic and it seems weird and spooky and voodoo ish, but really all hypotherapy is it it's not doing anything you're not doing already. The reason you are compelled and other other people seek out these this kind of therapy is that they kind of already hypnotize themselves. And you know, some of these struggle with anxiety.

Christian Brim (02:22.108)
Hm.

Craig Meriwether (02:36.866)
Maybe it's around business, around work, maybe it's around family. I'm guess it's just happening in one area of your life. And and while it may seem that it happens all the time, that you're anxious all the time, it may seem pretty chronic, maybe it's been going on a long time even. I'm gonna guess it doesn't happen all the time. There are parts of your day when you're not anxious. Out of the sixteen hours or so that you are awake.

Christian Brim (02:58.469)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (03:08.29)
You're not anxious all 16 hours. Maybe it's maybe it's late at night while you're watching TV or up early in the morning while you're working out or having lunch with a friend or playing golf or whatever the thing is. There's a part of your day when you're not anxious. So the subconscious mind knows when to turn it on and turn it off. So you have programmed yourself to create this warning system, because that's when really what the feeling of ang anxiety, feeling of being anxious is. It's warning you that there's danger, fear, warning you that there's danger.

That's why you don't walk down the dark alley at midnight, even though it's a shortcut home. that's why you don't peer over the edge of the tall building or the Grand Canyon too far because it's dangerous and that fear and that anxiety will keep you away from that. Now we may hypnotize ourselves to activate that warning system in inopportune times, maybe about giving that presentation at the networking event.

Christian Brim (03:40.305)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Meriwether (04:06.502)
or at the big meeting or in front of the financial advisors or investors. And so you've hypnotized yourself in one form and another or another to create a physical response. Cause it's not just, you know, again, n nonsense or or fakery. You're literally creating a physical response and it's not easy to turn on the stress response. It's not easy to turn on the fight or flight. Brain has to start

Christian Brim (04:11.186)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Meriwether (04:36.494)
Creating that adrenaline and cortisol, dumping it into your bloodstream, the heart starts racing against the big muscles of your arms and legs to fight or to escape. Your immune system and the the like digestive system, the power starts turning down because it wants all that energy into the big muscles of your arms and legs. You start breathing shallow, you get quick oxygen. It this happens like in sleep when somebody's having a nightmare. Because the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. That's just part of being human.

Christian Brim (04:58.705)
Right.

Christian Brim (05:03.634)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Meriwether (05:05.728)
And so if you've ever had the experience of having a nightmare, maybe maybe something very realistic somebody has gone through, like a veteran having a PTSD dream about being back in combat on the front lines, even though their war was forty years ago. Or maybe something super ridiculous, something super stupid, like cheeseburgers chasing down the street throwing coconuts at your head. It's never gonna happen. And yet your subconscious mind thinks you're under attack, that you're in danger, has this

Christian Brim (05:15.922)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (05:20.934)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (05:34.391)
shoot first, ask questions later, kind of safety protocol, and it'll turn on the stress response to armor you, to protect you, and to warn you. And that's just in sleep. That's what's happening when you're having a dream. Literally change your physiology because a cheeseburger's attacking you on the street. So what's going on in your waking world? And so if you start attaching

Christian Brim (05:36.859)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (05:51.653)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (06:02.978)
Certain feelings of fear or overwhelm or worry creating the anxious feelings or stressed out feelings, you can start wiring that into your brain. Because what you practice, you get better at, which is great if you're learning the piano or guitar or martial arts or learning to walk as a kid. But what if you're practicing anxiety and stress? Are you not programming yourself for certain patterns in certain situations, maybe work, maybe family, maybe some other situation? So you're hypnotizing yourself.

You know, you're influencing yourself with the news you listen to, the talk radio you listen to, or the podcast you listen to. You're influencing yourself all the time to lean this way or that way. All we do in therapeutic hypnosis is do it on purpose with these certain tools and techniques. And you mentioned kind of the vaudeville of the shows like in Las Vegas or comedy clubs and things. And understand this isn't mind control, it isn't brainwashing.

It's not turning people into zombies, not turning people into Manchurian candidates to assassinate the Prime Minister. This is giving you back control. Because in a sense you're already out on control. If you're just automatically I work with people and they say, I don't even know why I'm anxious. I don't know why I'm angry all the time. I just feel this sense of resentment. I don't know what it's from. Maybe from childhood. I work with people in their seventies who had great abuse that they had forgotten about or masked.

Christian Brim (07:30.79)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (07:32.547)
when their children carried that for some sixty five seventy years

It's like that's how powerful you are. Because they're not doing it to harm themselves. They're doing it to protect themselves. Because they want to remember that there's a can can be a dangerous world out there. They hypnotize themselves to react to the world in a certain way because of the experiences they had in life. So all we do is just do it on purpose. But we can't make somebody do anything. That's why smoking sensation, one of the things hypnotherapy is really famous for is helping people quit smoking. So that's not 100% guarantee, because if you don't want to quit smoking,

You're not gonna quit. I can't make you quit smoking. And so, you know, somebody, you know, like their wife or husband, it's like, you know what? I'm tired of the smoking, the money, the smell, it stinks all the time, the health implications that are coming down the line. You're quitting. I made an appointment for you Thursday at two o'clock. You're gonna go see a hypnotherapist. And they show up, it's like, well, I you know, I don't want to quit. I'm just gonna tell them every I tried everything and even hyptotherapy didn't work, and so I'll smoke in the garage.

Christian Brim (08:11.143)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (08:35.416)
You know, th they don't want to quit, so I can't make them quit. Otherwise I'd I could hypnotize Elon Musk to write me a billion dollar check. But the reason I don't have a billion dollar check is because they don't want to write me one.

Christian Brim (08:42.909)
So

Right. So so so if if you were going to in in layman terms define hypnosis, because you you've talked about, you know, we hypnotize ourselves, and and you do hypnosis therapy, then then what is the definition of hypnosis?

Craig Meriwether (09:03.976)
Hypnosis is just there's this brainwave state. And so the famous ones we learned about back in school, beta, alpha, theta, and delta, it's literally just how fast your brain is processing information. And you and I, Christian, right now, we are in the beta brainwave state. We're focused in this present moment, focused at the task at hand, having this conversation. We're in the present moment.

Christian Brim (09:07.888)
Okay.

Craig Meriwether (09:29.176)
We're firing those little electrical pulses in our brain about 18, 20 cycles per second. People probably see those videos of the brain and it's shooting that lightning storm when I move my hand around or you're walking down the street or you're thinking of thought, feeling an emotion. This lightning storm of of all these brain cells firing little electrical pulses happens. How fast that lightning storm happens determines what brain wave state you're in. So let's say I'm back in high school math class.

Christian Brim (09:39.185)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (09:58.511)
And I'm focused because that's gonna be on the final and I gotta do well. And so I'm I'm trying to pay attention. I don't understand what's going on. And it's but I'm trying to write down the equations and understand. And and I'm in the present moment. I focused. I'm I'm trying to get it, get it together, but it's boring for me. And so I just start staring out the window. And my mind floats off and drifts off. We all have that happen. You can't remain in the beta brainwave state of this conscious awareness of the present moment, 16, 17, 18 hours a day.

That's why people find meditation annoying and difficult and frustrating, because it's difficult to keep your mind in the present moment. And even longtime meditators will say, Yeah, I I did my half an hour of meditation, but my mind's all over the place. It's difficult. So it's a natural state of moving into an altered state of consciousness, that daydreamy state, which they call the alpha brainwave state. So you move from like 18, 20 cycles per second to like 12.

Now I'm just staring out the window in high school math class. I'm thinking about the weekend coming up. It's gonna be so much fun, hang out with my friends, that vacation you know my family took last year. And well, I'm still there in the classroom, the teacher's still talking, I'm just not paying attention. That meeting at work or the networking event or whatever, your mind drifts off. If you ever had that experience of driving down the street and you don't remember the last minute or two, you miss your exit or something, and you find yourself at work, or you find yourself at home or the store or wherever, picking up the kids. It's like

Your subconscious mind took over driving and your your conscious mind drifted away to think about something else, maybe the project that's due on Friday, or the you have people coming over on the weekend. Your subconscious mind knows how to drive, like knows how to walk and tie your shoes and all that stuff. So it took over driving because knows how to drive home, it knows how to drive to work, it's done it hundreds upon hundreds of times. So you slowed down how fast your brain is processing information and drifted off. watching TV puts you in the alpha brainwave state.

Christian Brim (11:33.745)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (11:55.327)
of the and then you get into that really hazy state you're not really asleep or you're not really awake and i'm I'm back in high school math class I started I started laying down and I'm not really asleep yet. Pretty soon I will be. I'm firing about six cycles per second I'm heading down towards one half cycle per second the delta brainwave state. But the teacher sees me and says hey Craig why don't you come up come up here and do the problem on the board.

And I I startled myself a awake and I'm looking around and everybody's staring at me and I'm embarrassed and I look at this problem on the board. I don't know how to do it because I wasn't paying attention. Even though I was sitting there in class, I wasn't paying attention. And now I'm stressed. I'm firing about 30 cycles per second. I've altered my state of consciousness like three or four times just sitting there in high school math class because I got bored. It's like that that's hypnosis. The the alpha, theta, delta brainwave states.

Christian Brim (12:29.596)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (12:50.166)
Is what's known as the hypnagogic trance state is the the fancy term. And it this word as has grown to because of movies and TV, and and unfortunately it's grown to have this magical kind of idea that we can take control of you, and you can't. It's just a natural state of of brain that we just

put yourself in that whole trope, that whole cliche, I don't have one right here, but like a pocket watch where you're swinging the pocket while you're getting sleepy. I'm just you know, math I don't mean to put math teachers on blast, I apologize to any math teachers out there, but I'm just being a boring person at the party, at the networking event. And that whole trope that we sa you saw in the movies back in the nineteen forties or whatever, and it's like you are getting sleepy, Bueller, Bueller, Bueller. It's

Christian Brim (13:22.556)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (13:45.367)
It's just trying to bore somebody into that alpha brainwave state. And even the word hypnosis, back in the early eighteen hundreds, we're talking like eighteen twenties, there was a doctor, Dr. James Esdale, and he was a surgeon in India. And back then, that's just all over the world, not just India, but all over the world. There's not fancy hospitals or fancy anesthesia. You're having your leg amputated, you're biting down on a stick. Or you know, blow to the head to knock you unconscious.

So he's learned this trance state. He learned this to put people into this deep, deep trance state. It took about an hour. And he put them in this deep trance state that looked like they were in a coma. So he could do surgery and cut people open with a knife and take out tumors and sew them up, do amputations, deal with war injuries and wounds and all this kind of stuff. So he goes back to England and he starts talking about and teaching people this trance state.

Another doctor, Dr. James Bard, learning about this trance state, working with it, wanting a word to describe it to his colleagues and to write about it, thinks that he should name it after the Greek god of sleep. The Greek god of sleep is hypnos. So he called it hypnosis. And so this word has just grown to encompass all sorts of these altered states of consciousness of the alpha, theta, and delta brain we state. We can do this work

You know, in a crowded airport with your eyes open under fluorescent lights, at a crowded gate if some you know, somebody's having a panic attack or something. It's it's not it's nicer if the, you know, room's a little dim and and you're in a comfortable chair and you have a blanket over you maybe or something. Yeah, that's nicer. Helps the body relax. focusing on swinging a a pendulum or a a watch or stare at that spot on the wall, the l the wonderful picture or the window or yes.

Christian Brim (15:16.422)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (15:38.903)
that we yi we have these techniques and these tools to help the mind and the body move into a more relaxed state, even a more bored state, if you will. But it's it's a natural state that you go into multiple times a day. That's a whole thing of of consciousness. You're moving in and out all the day all at work, at a party, at home, over, you know, dinner. Your consciousness moves in and out. That's just the natural state of being a human being. All we do is take advantage of it. Put it

Watching TV puts you in the alpha brain waste state. And they knew that back in 1969. And that research didn't come out in a medical journal, it came out in the Journal of Advertising and Marketing in 1969. And that's a very influential state, being in the Alpha and Theta brain waste states. You know, the the news knows that, TV knows that, politicians know that, certainly advertisers know it. And so you're just

You move yourself into a highly influential state multiple times a day. You're doing it anyway. And it's not that you're always influenced. I mean, just to be not to make it political, but just I think people get this example of the news. There's a certain style of news that some people are influenced by and other people are not. So you can take a right winging right wing leaning person

Get them to watch CNN or MSNBC, and they're not going to be influenced by that. Even though they're watching TV and they're in the alpha brainwave state. You get a left leaning person and get them to watch Fox News or One or whatever. they're not going to be influenced by that. You know? So you just can't make somebody now they're more inclined, let's say, a a right-leaning person to watch Fox News, Fox News and be influenced.

Christian Brim (17:24.359)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (17:34.659)
A left-leaning person, MSNBC or NPR or something. And they're more inclined to be influenced by that because they open themselves up to those ideas and that influence. So if you're interested, you can do great healing in this in this work. But I can't make you do anything. Again, I'd I'd be a really rich person if I could just get billionaires to write me checks once a week. So it's it's not control, it's giving you back control. It's not

It's not even really hypnotizing you, it's de hypnotizing you really of the issues that you may be have been carrying for a really long time.

Christian Brim (18:13.184)
Yeah, I I I noticed after I had done the hypnosis, I I was more aware of the liminal state between sleep and non-sleep. So like right you you described it, the the point right before you go to sleep. And and I also noticed like what affects that. So like trying to recall.

some something or trying to remember like, okay, I need to remember to do this tomorrow, something like that. Engaging that part of my brain disrupted that liminal. And I I knew I was in that liminal space for me when

random, and I mean random, images would start to come to my my mind, right? They were not like connected to anything that I had been thinking about or that I was worried about or anything. It would just be these random images, and and sometimes it would be a person that I'd never seen before, or sometimes it would be a a building or a room, like just random. Like and that to me was.

just just my own kind of like understanding of how my my brain works. I assume that not everybody's brain works in images like that, but maybe. but that that that liminal space, you know, right before you go to sleep is the closest that I can compare the the hypnosis state to. It's like it

Is that accurate?

Craig Meriwether (19:58.125)
Yeah, yeah, it's very accurate. Again, it's this isn't we're doing magic to you. We're not creating some new state of consciousness. we're just working with what's already there. We're working what you what with what you've already done. And yes, there there's a different that that's why there's there isn't just one technique. There's isn't isn't one size fits all. Some people more visual mu you know.

Christian Brim (20:09.128)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (20:23.384)
Some people more auditory. We s we knew that back in school. There's visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners. And so that works with hypnotherapy too. That's why there's all these sorts of different techniques and tools. But again, it's like you can't make anybody do this. There's probably people listening who even have been to hip hypnosis session. They say, well, it didn't work for me. I'm one of those people that can't be hypnotized. And the the researchers at the universities and things, they love to have their little tests.

Christian Brim (20:26.611)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (20:53.334)
And see if you're hypnotizable. Can you be hypnotized? And 20% of the people can't be hypnotized. That's not true. It can't be true. They couldn't be hypnotized with you in that university setting, in that particular office. They didn't feel comfortable. They've they and so they and they were resisting, yeah. They exactly 100% were resisting because they took control. They didn't feel comfortable, they didn't feel comfortable with

Christian Brim (21:05.576)
Mm.

Christian Brim (21:13.254)
Or they were resisting, right? yeah.

Craig Meriwether (21:21.986)
The person with the the office with the Zoom call, I do most of this stuff over Zoom now. They didn't feel comfortable with the Zoom call. They some their spouse, their mom, their dad set up the appointment. And they didn't really want to be there, so they're gonna, you know, settle in and resist and put up that that wall. Why? Because they are in control. They don't want to, so they won't. And it's not that you can't, it's that that's how powerful you are that you decided.

Maybe unconsciously you didn't want to do it. Maybe there's an unc you know, unconsciously, or maybe consciously, you s thought, you know what, I'm not ready for this healing right now. It's not the right time for it. Again, that may have been an unconscious thought, and you just walked away thinking, I can't be hypnotized. Everybody can be hypnotized because you do it to yourself all the time. The reason we have well, again, the the politics thing. The reason maybe you align yourself one way or the other.

Is because of you've been influenced. Maybe through family or friends or just life experience, you've been hypnotized. Again, it's not a bad thing or an evil thing. All we do is take advantage of that. Like with sports, you can hypnotize somebody to have more focus. Or even when business, have more focus, have more motivation. Maybe there's fear around.

Expanding, opening up that second location or getting the manager or something. You know, yeah, there's fears around that. Okay, let's work with that. Why are you creating this physical response of anxiety or worry or anger around opening up the the second location or expanding to a hundred employees or whatever it may be? The whole thing with the shows, you know, you go to Las Vegas and there's a hypnotist show and they're

There's people up on stage that came up from the audience that are dancing like Michael Jackson and singing like Elvis and and dancing, you know, and you know, barking like dogs and quacking like ducks. Every single person up there on the stage volunteered to be up there. He didn't pick resistant people who didn't want to do it. He's not picking the introvert at the back of the room sitting in the shadow, sinking down on their chair trying to hide.

Christian Brim (23:31.101)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (23:38.201)
He's picking the extrovert who got there early, sat in the front rows now saying, jumping up and down saying, pick me, pick me, because they want to be star of the show. They want to be up on stage and have a good time. And they all have a big smile on their face at the end of the show because they had a good time. They want a funny video to put on on Instagram. They want to be silly in front of their friends. They just want to be part of the part of the fun. And you you'll notice in those shows, they'll they'll bring up like 12, 14, 16 people.

Because they know they're gonna the hypnotist knows they're gonna excuse about three or four of Because even if they thought it was a good idea sitting in the audience, once they get up there and the bright lights and maybe even cameras, and of course everybody's got their phone out filming this and they're the mind starts to panic a lot of they get straight fright. Now, as a professional, you know, you know, person who knows h hypnosis and hypnotherapy, he's doing it on the entertainment side because there's great money in that and it can be fun.

Christian Brim (24:27.806)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (24:39.404)
But he would know how to deal with that in a clinical setting. But he's he doesn't have time. This is a show. You gotta get going. These people are out in an hour, so we we gotta get the show going. He doesn't have twenty minutes to help this person you know get relaxed. And so they're excused from the stage. You'll see that in like the YouTube videos and things. So you know what you you seem covered up, because they're looking for certain cues, muscle muscle relaxing in face.

And you may even pick up the arm and see if it's 'cause they'll do a little test, a little hypnosis test. And you'll see if their eyes are darting around and all this kind of those are little cues, body language. And if they sense the person is really tense and tight, there's like nah, they're not gonna be good. It's not gonna be a fun show. And so they're excuse. Why? 'Cause they're can't do it.

Christian Brim (25:24.372)
So why could they so you use the word therapy? The the the guy that I used was in California and this may have been part of the reason, but he was purposeful in not using the the word therapist or therapy because of of legal ramifications. Are you a licensed counselor?

Craig Meriwether (25:46.401)
No, no, no, no, no. I am not a psychotherapist or any sort of psychiatrist or anything like that. I am specifically a hypnotherapist, just as somebody may be a massage therapist. They're not a physical therapist, they're not a general practitioner, they haven't gone to medical school, they went to massage school. I went to hypnotherapy school, I went to great training at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, it's five hundred hours.

Christian Brim (26:04.392)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (26:16.162)
And this is and I th I'm glad you brought this up because this is really you need to be careful about who if your this interests you and you want, you know, to look into this, be careful about who you work with because there are states where you know you don't need much training to put out your little certificate. And you know, there's a training I live in Arizona, I live in Flagstaff, Arizona. I do most of my work over Zoom now. work with people around the country, around the world. I work with people, you know, just to be

some of the unique places people have been Iceland and Bulgaria and Puerto Rico and Costa Rica and Tahiti. And most of are Americans on at working or school or you know on vacation or something. but that's the extraordinariness of this technology that we're using right now. But you know, there's a workshop coming up in Phoenix, Arizona, and they're it's a traveling training thing.

They were in a hotel ballroom and in three days, twenty-four hours of training, and then you can call yourself a a certified clinical hypnotherapist. Cause they just call you that. They just like take out their magic wand and tap you on the shoulder and they hand you a certificate and say, Well, now you've done our training for twenty hours or so, you're a hypnotherapist. It's like that's half a week of the training I got. And, you know, including medical hypnosis. Medical hypnosis was

Christian Brim (27:30.44)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (27:43.979)
in at the hypnotherapy academy is taught some of the classes are taught by physicians, actual doctors. Dr. Sapien is a pediatric emergency pediatric physician at the emergency room at the hospital there, teaches at the university there. Dr. Dulce, neurosurgeon, literal brain surgeon, and teaches some of the classes and medical hypnosis. So it's extraordinary training. So be aware of who you're looking at.

To work with. Look at their biography. If they don't tell you where they were trained, that's a huge red flag. I brag about my training all the time because it's quite extraordinary. you know, like like an EMT, emergency medical technician, rides in the ambulances, restarts a heart pulp fiction style, and you know, bleeding and internal injuries and broken limbs and all this stuff unconscious. That's 150 hours to do that.

Christian Brim (28:30.994)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (28:42.828)
I have five hundred hours just in pure hypnotherapy training and medical hypnosis. And so again, that's a pat on my back and I I'm I'm bragging and flexing a bit here. but the reason why is what you just mentioned. There are people out there who aren't extraordinarily trained. Do you want like massage? You want a massage therapist who has five hundred hours of training, do you want a massage therapist who has twenty hours of training? You know, and it's and this is the same and there's it it's a head scratcher.

on why states don't license this. I th I would think the American Psychological Association would be all over that. That you need a certain amount of training or anything to be licensed and you have to take a test. It's like anything massage therapists have to take a test to be licensed in the state they practice in. Physical therapists, of course, psychiatrists, of course, or and psychotherapists, auto mechanics. So you know, plumbers, electricians.

Christian Brim (29:38.505)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (29:41.667)
They all have to take licensing exams for the state to make sure they know what they're doing, not hypnotherapy. So just 'cause you see somebody hypnotherapy, they're they have an office down the street from you doesn't you know, you you really need to ask the questions if you're talking on the phone with them or doing emailing and just making sure they know what they're doing.

Christian Brim (30:01.351)
Good advice. So if i g i as as we conclude here, give us some of your most colorful, exciting, dramatic success stories.

Craig Meriwether (30:18.84)
Sure. I was the one that s sticks with me, because of its extraordinariness is I was working with a a woman and now this started because I was doing classes for the cancer support community of Arizona. They had opened up an office in Flagstaff. I was doing workshops given back, you know, Saturday mornings and Thursday evenings and beyond like pain control and healing and acceleration and and

boosting your immune system and these kind of things. You know, there'd be 12, 15 people in a class, like a series of classes. And you know, like February 2020, they were the first group that I saw who are taking everything seriously, and they shut down because everybody in you know with dealing with cancer has a compromised immune system. And so as the kind of COVID thing started really ratcheting up, they shut down the office.

in terms of in person stuff. And all everything went to Zoom and I had to learn how to do Zoom sessions. just kind of, you know, trial by fire and through it thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. And so, you know, and it was like, well I'm not gonna do a Zoom session. I don't want to be that guy, so I started doing Zoom sessions. And that's how I learned how to do it. And and in and of itself it's not that different than doing a regular session. And what's interesting and not just

Christian Brim (31:23.302)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (31:46.393)
With hypnotherapy as a little tangent here. whether it's a talk therapy session, a a business coaching session, life coaching, relationship counseling, a doctor's appointment, hypnotherapy. What the research has shown over the last five years or so is that Zoom sessions work as well as in person sessions. And there's research that shows that Zoom sessions work better than in person because people feel relaxed and comfortable in their homes. Of course, that's gonna be extraordinarily helpful for hypnotherapy.

Christian Brim (32:12.66)
That makes sense.

Craig Meriwether (32:15.016)
And they don't have to drive across town. You live in a big city. You don't have to drive across town on a Friday afternoon to try to get to your appointment. And when you're done, you're at home. How cool is that? So anyway, I started doing these Zoom sessions for the classes. And this woman was in the class, one of the twelve or so people in the class, and she's about seventy years old, you know, mid-70s. And we'd done two classes already on the third class.

She's kinda early to the class and we're chit chatting as one does about the weather and weekend plans and all that. And she says, You know, I was I wanted to ask you if h hypotherapy can work with procrastination. And I said, yeah, well that's a mindset issue. You know, you're blocking yourself from moving forward on something because your subconscious mind thinks it's dangerous. Maybe something very beneficial to you going going to that, you know, investment meeting.

Going to the networking event, doing the presentation at the conference. It may be something very beneficial to you, getting the project done by Friday. But you're holding back, you're putting the brakes on it because your subconscious mind has been hypnotized, has been influenced to think that it's dangerous in some way. Now it may be untrue, but it's trying to protect you. That's its main job. I said, Well, yeah, pr and hypotherapy will work with procrastination. And she said, Well, I'd love to do a session just with you one-on-one.

And so we set up an appointment for the very next day, because I had an appointment right at the same time that was open. And so 24 hours later, we're on a Zoom call, and she says, You know, I I told you I wanted to work on procrastination, but what I really want to work on is why I don't matter in life. This is a 70-year-old woman who thinks she doesn't matter, that she has no worth, that she has no value. And so we say, Yeah, absolutely. We we can work on that. And and there's a because there's a feeling state to that. There's a feeling state to not

Christian Brim (34:05.011)
Mm.

Craig Meriwether (34:05.688)
feeling worthy or valuable. There's a feeling state to anxiety, a feeling state to anger, of course. And that's caused by brain chemistry. And the way we change brain chemistry in that way is through a thought, conscious or unconscious. A thought of fear. A thought of of that we're not going to make it. A thought of, well, I'm not valuable, I need to hide. That's a feeling state in the body. So it's real, you know, one of the ways of dealing with that is tracing the feeling state back to the thought that created it.

Christian Brim (34:33.234)
Mm.

Craig Meriwether (34:33.61)
And so we're doing some regression work. And and understand this is the first session I've done with her solo. She's done at this point three group sessions over Zoom of general issues around boosting your immune system and all that. This is her first solo session and we're doing regression work, back to cause is the fancy term. And I do my ten down to one, two and one. Where are you?

And she says, I'm standing up in my crib and my father's screaming at me because I won't stop crying. And so if this is, you know, if she was seventy so a few, you know, some years ago, you know, this may be the late nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties, and maybe got men back then weren't exactly tutored and trained on how to do, you know, be nurturing parents to young children. Or maybe dad was having a bad day or a bad week or a bad life, or maybe dad just wasn't a very nice person.

Anyway, mom's out of the house for whatever reason, baby's crying, he doesn't know what to do, and out of his frustration, he just yells louder than the baby and says, Why don't you just shut up and be quiet? And in that instant, that child, all of us, but in that instant, that child has to justify why this is happening. And her in that child's mind, in that traumatic event of this person who's supposed to be.

Loving her and nurturing her and protecting her instead of screaming at her and being very frightening, that child thought, Well, the only reason this is happening is because I don't matter in life. I have no value, and I need to hide. I need to hide my light. I need to be quiet. And she held on to that for some sixty-five, seventy years until she decided, she decided, that it was time to let it go and drop that heaviness. And she did. And I never saw her again.

So we had like three generalized classes with a group of people over Zoom, one solo session over Zoom, and she released and dropped the hurt and pain she needed to and moved on with life.

Christian Brim (36:41.947)
I'm curious, was she because i I mean if when you say you're in a crib, that to me is you're pre-verbal. Right? Yet she's she remembered the words? That's that's fascinating. She said my dad is a reminder. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Craig Meriwether (36:50.402)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's how you got twelve, fourteen months old and something like that.

Craig Meriwether (36:58.574)
I don't know that she remembers the word, she just said my dad is screaming at me.

Craig Meriwether (37:05.1)
Now now here's the how here's the thing. Sigmund Freud was very clear about this. Carl Jung, Melton Eriksson, the all the psychiatrists, psychotherapists. The subconscious mind speaks to us in metaphor and symbolism.

Speaks to us in dreams, speaks to us in imagination. We can also speak back to the subconscious mind in symbolism and metaphor. That's why a lot of these techniques, Pyptotherapies, imagine yourself walking down a beautiful beach. You come to a waterfall, it's a waterfall blue healing energy. Stand under the waterfall and wash all the stress and it is there really a waterfall blue healing energy? No. But you can imagine there is, just as you can imagine there's a cheeseburger chasing down a street throwing coconuts at your head. So and you'll have a physical change in your body.

Christian Brim (37:20.296)
Mm.

Craig Meriwether (37:50.595)
We take advantage of that. But the subconscious mind may be speaking to you and remembering things in a more symbolic and metaphoric way. It also may be twisting things. Memory is not solid and sound. It's it fluctuates over time. Every time you think of a memory, you're manipulating it a little bit. Not to be evil or bad or anything, it's just that when we think of something in the past, whether it was a week ago or

Christian Brim (38:00.308)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (38:04.797)
Right.

Christian Brim (38:12.327)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (38:20.682)
sixty years ago, we are changing it just due to the life circumstances we've gone through. In fact, one memory expert said that the only way to keep a memory pure is to not think about it. So whenever you think about high school or you think about that meeting six months ago or when you you're changing, you're altering it. That's why eyewitness testimony is not you know, they they don't like to rely on it solely in court, especially cold cases from 20 years ago. So

Christian Brim (38:47.304)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (38:49.954)
Did that really happen? Did it happen in the way she remembered it? Quite possibly not. But that's the way the nervous system installed that into the mind. And so that's what needs healing. Whether

Christian Brim (39:00.891)
Yeah. I g it it it could have it could have been mu multiple events that she had

Craig Meriwether (39:06.902)
multiple events and maybe dad was a really nice guy and and that's not the way it happened at all. I was in in school and Hypnotherapy Academy, this is great example. I know we're up against time, but real quickly, there was an older woman in the class. She was retired and wanted to do something and sh you know, instead of golf or, you know, learning piano or s you know, well, piano comes into this. she wanted to learn hypnotherapy. And so kind of as her her retirement thing, she was learning hypnotherapy.

And and we're in class. This is a real class. You go to and sit in a classroom with other people and you learn about these techniques. You may see a demonstration at the front of class before you break up into small groups to practice with a coach in the room. this is highly supervised training. And so she had volunteered to do this this process, and it was about playing piano. And she's a really great piano player, but she had hidden her talent and it really hurt her, hurt her soul.

'Cause she wanted to play for her grandchildren and she just couldn't do it because she remembered her piano teacher, like twelve years old, overheard the piano teacher talking to her parents saying, I can't teach her anymore because she's so bad. She's so terrible. Her sister's fine, but you know, older sister's fine, but I can't teach her. And she's like, Well, I guess I'm terrible and bad and I she never played really again. She'd played to herself, but she wouldn't play out or play for other people at parties or family events or anything like that.

Christian Brim (40:18.108)
Mm. Mm.

Craig Meriwether (40:35.362)
For some sixty years or so, maybe you know, fifty years or so. And she's just doing this process and her memory came back and expanded it to remember things that she consciously didn't remember, including the piano teacher saying, She's so good, I've taught her everything I know, and I can't teach her anymore. She needs a better teacher. I can teach her sister, because her t sister sucks. And I mean she didn't say that, but you know what mean. And and I can teach her big

Older sister, because I still have something to teach her, but she's so good, she's so great, she needs a a really great teacher, maybe from the university or something. But she had edited all that other stuff out to the point of, I'm so bad I can't play anymore, and held on to she hypnotized herself. She literally cut out parts of that conversation the parents were having with the piano teacher.

Christian Brim (41:15.796)
Mm.

Craig Meriwether (41:29.388)
in order to fit some sort of mold of maybe what she thought about herself and and at those times in terms of self worth and value. And thought, well it makes more sense that I'm a bad piano player than a great piano player, because that doesn't fit my worldview of who I am. And so she held on to that for some whatever, fifty years, fifty five years, until during hypnosis, in front of twenty people, she let it go.

And she started playing piano again for her grandchildren and parties and things like that. You know, i and now was that really even true? I don't know. If you know it was fifty years ago, who's she gonna ask? You know, and so but the subconscious mind thought it was true. You know.

Christian Brim (42:00.86)
That's wild. Who knows?

Right.

Right. Well I mean that's that's kind of the theme is it it doesn't really matter whether it's true or not, your brain perceives it as true.

Craig Meriwether (42:19.338)
Exactly. And that's what you work with. Is it metaphoric? Is it symbolic? Is it actually true? In and of itself, that's an interesting conversation to have over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Let's just fix the issue that the subconscious mind perceives as an issue. And let's do it maybe in a way that's very similar to not to make it traumatic or anything, but in a way that your mind will absorb new information. You know, like you're saying before, visual, auditory, kinesthetic.

Christian Brim (42:22.28)
Yeah.

Craig Meriwether (42:47.906)
if you're not a very visual person, using visualization techniques is not going to be helpful. Really what we're going to do is reverse engineer what you've done. We're going to de-hypnotize you of how you've already hypnotized yourself. To maybe be anxious of giving speeches in front of people because in the fifth grade you gave the book report or the show and tell and everybody laughed at you because you you just goofed it up or whatever.

And you equated that in your mind to being in front of people is dangerous, so don't ever be in front of people. And now thirty years later, you need to give the big speech at the conference, the keynote, and you're nervous because you have hypnotized yourself with an instruction on how to keep yourself safe that you shouldn't get in front of people because you were laughed at and humiliated back in the fifth grade. That's dangerous. That's not that doesn't feel good.

Your subconscious mind wants to keep you safe and protected, so hold on to these instructions like files in a filing cabinet. Well, you're the one who put it there. Not to say it was your fault, especially traumatic events as a as a child. It's not your fault, and it's not that you did it on purpose, and you probably did it unconsciously, put these protection files in there, but you're the one who put them in there. So that becomes empowering. You don't have to look outside of yourself. I don't fix anybody. As a hypnotherapist, I don't fix anybody. And hypnotherapy in and of itself doesn't fix you.

Christian Brim (43:52.178)
Right.

Craig Meriwether (44:10.476)
You fix yourself. You're the one who did it. Again, I'm not not saying it's your fault or to blame you or blame the victim or anything like that. Certainly not. But you're the one who installed those instructions and armored yourself in that way. So let's undo it. And I don't mean to make it sound that simple and easy, but sometimes it's that simple and easy, like the example I get I gave. Yeah, not everything's like a one and done and everything gets done in in an hour, hour and a half session.

Christian Brim (44:27.485)
That's

Craig Meriwether (44:40.13)
But sometimes it does. You know, and I wanna make it all sound easy and simple and magical and things, you know, sometimes I see people four, five, six times. That's pretty much it. That means that's the average. Sometimes I see people one or two times, some people see people you know, people seven or eight times. But I'm not gonna see you eighty, ninety sessions over two years, like maybe talk therapy. Talk therapy is very helpful, very useful. Coaching, absolutely, one hundred percent.

Life coaching, business coaching, relationship counseling. One hundred percent. We all need coaching in life. A baseball player, hitting coach, running coach, throwing coach, first base coach, third base coach, head coach, general manager. All to get you to a World Series. So yeah, have coaches in your life. Hypnotherapy is a great way of coaching because it works directly with your subconscious mind.

Christian Brim (45:30.929)
How do people find you if they want to learn more about what you do?

Craig Meriwether (45:34.43)
yeah, finding me, thank you. is probably the website release the past dot com. And I'll I'll send that to you. That's relatively new. I'll kind of do a little rebranding. Either craigmeryweather.com, but I know Merriweather has a lot of different spellings to it, so I put up release the past dot com. We can do consultation call if you're interested in more information, email back and forth, happy to talk with you if you have any questions. Yeah.

Christian Brim (45:58.675)
Perfect. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, and until next time, remember you are not alone.