Shownotes
In this fascinating episode of The You World Order Showcase podcast, host Jill Hart sits down with Craig Meriwether, a certified clinical hypnotherapist and founder of Arizona Integrative Hypnotherapy. Craig specializes in helping people eliminate negative emotions and limiting beliefs that prevent them from reaching their full potential. He shares insights into how hypnotherapy works and its powerful ability to help individuals reprogram their subconscious minds for confidence, peace, and success.
The Journey into Hypnotherapy
Craig begins by sharing his personal journey into the field of hypnotherapy, which started with his own struggles with anxiety and depression. He describes how, as a teenager in the 1980s, resources for mental health were limited, and medications like Prozac weren’t yet available. As a result, he navigated his way through emotional challenges without much support or understanding. It wasn’t until the birth of his son in 2000 that Craig realized he needed to make a change—not just for himself but also to break the cycle of emotional pain and provide his child with the tools to manage anxiety and depression.
Craig turned to hypnotherapy and other healing modalities, gradually learning how to rewire his mind and reset his nervous system. Over time, he not only healed but also amassed a toolbox of strategies that he now uses to help others.
How Hypnotherapy Works
Craig explains that one of the unique aspects of hypnotherapy is that it empowers individuals to take control of their own healing process. Unlike traditional talk therapy, where clients may feel dependent on the therapist to "fix" them, hypnotherapy works by accessing the subconscious mind—the part of the brain that holds onto deeply ingrained beliefs and emotional patterns.
He emphasizes that emotions like anxiety, depression, and anger are the brain’s way of signaling that something is wrong or unsafe. Hypnotherapy helps identify the faulty instructions that the subconscious has been following, allowing the individual to reprogram their mind for healthier responses. Craig highlights that this process is empowering because the client is in control. They have the ability to make lasting changes to their emotional and mental well-being.
The Power of Reprogramming the Subconscious
One of the most compelling parts of the discussion is when Craig delves into the idea that "what you practice, you get better at." Whether it’s learning a musical instrument, mastering a sport, or developing a habit of negative thinking, the brain becomes wired for whatever you repeatedly do. Craig emphasizes that many people unknowingly practice anxiety, fear, or anger, reinforcing these emotional states until they feel ingrained.
Through hypnotherapy, individuals can break these patterns by practicing new ways of thinking and feeling. By tapping into the subconscious mind and using tools like visualization and therapeutic hypnosis, clients can rewire their brains to practice confidence, calmness, and resilience instead.
Practical Applications: Overcoming Test Anxiety
Craig shares several real-life examples of how he has helped clients, including individuals struggling with test anxiety. From high school students preparing for standardized tests to professionals taking licensing exams in their 30s, 40s, and beyond, test anxiety is a common issue that can hold people back from success. Craig explains that the root cause of this anxiety often lies in a fear of judgment or failure, which hypnotherapy can address by changing the underlying beliefs that trigger those fears.
In his work, Craig combines hypnotherapy with neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and other modalities to help clients feel calm, confident, and capable in high-pressure situations like exams, job interviews, and public speaking.
The Science Behind Hypnotherapy
Craig is passionate about the research behind hypnotherapy, and he shares some compelling statistics. A 20-year meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2023 found that hypnotherapy has a 99.2% success rate for various issues, including anxiety, pain management, and more. Craig encourages listeners to explore the research themselves by using Google Scholar to access studies published by reputable institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
One of the biggest misconceptions about hypnotherapy is that it’s about losing control, when in fact, it’s the opposite. Hypnotherapy gives individuals the tools to regain control over their minds and emotions, enabling them to heal in a safe, gentle, and effective way.
Reclaiming Your Power
As the conversation comes to a close, Craig leaves listeners with a powerful message: “What you practice, you get better at.” Whether you're practicing confidence, fear, or anxiety, your brain will reinforce whatever you focus on repeatedly. Hypnotherapy offers a way to consciously practice and wire in positive states of mind, leading to lasting change.
If you’ve been struggling with negative emotions, limiting beliefs, or anxiety, hypnotherapy might be the key to unlocking your full potential. Craig invites listeners to explore his website, aceanytest.com, where they can download free confidence-boosting recordings and learn more about how hypnotherapy can help them reprogram their minds for success.
This episode is an inspiring reminder that you have the power to change your mind—and by doing so, change your life.
For more information or to connect with Craig Meriwether, visit Arizona Integrative Hypnotherapy.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Transcripts
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Hi and welcome to the You world order showcase. Podcast I'm your host, Jill Hart. And today we have with us Craig, Merriweather Craig is a certified, clinical hypnotherapist and founder of Arizona, integrative, hypnotherapy, helping people eliminate the negative emotions and limiting beliefs that may be keeping them from reaching their full potential welcome to the show, Craig. It's really great to have you here.
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::Craig Meriwether: Hi, Joe, thank you. I've been looking forward to this
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::Craig Meriwether: for a while. Now we kinda been going back and forth for what seems like a month or 2, and then been finally here. So I'm looking forward to talking with you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yeah, this is great. So how did you get into this? Was there like some turning point in your life that you just decided that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: gotta do something.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it you know, started off, I guess the you know. Try to. The long answer to what you know probably should be a short question. But to getting into to this work was my own
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::Craig Meriwether: issues, my own hurt and pain I was dealing with. I was really struggling with a lot of anxiety and depression as a teenager. And that's back in the 19 eighties.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. No Internet at that point. No, even Ssri kind of drugs like Prozac, and things like that. Those didn't come out till the mid 19 nineties, late 19 nineties. And so really, it was just, you know.
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::Craig Meriwether: talking to your doctor, or a talk therapist, or whatever book you could find at the bookstore. The library, you know, and teenagers not going to do any of those things. At least I wasn't because you just you don't know any better. You know. You just think that this is the way it is is how everybody feels.
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::Craig Meriwether: and you know, I sort of just struggle with it through the 19 nineties
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::Craig Meriwether: and
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::Craig Meriwether: just felt familiar. You know, I think a lot of people can can understand that it just.
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::Craig Meriwether: It's just comfortable, comfortably miserable, but it's comfortable because you don't know any better.
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::Craig Meriwether: And it was really the birth of my son in the year 2,000 that I really thought. You know I need to. I need to get it together.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. My mother struggled with depression and anxiety. I struggle with depression, anxiety.
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::Craig Meriwether: So whether it's a nurture or nature thing, whether it's a genetic component to it or just marrying what was in the home. I want to make sure, my son, if
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::Craig Meriwether: I wasn't marrying it to him. If it is a genetic component that got triggered, then I want to, you know, have some tools, so I could show him you know how to how to manage or how to deal with it or eliminate it. And so I started just working on myself, kind of on and off
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::Craig Meriwether: lot of trial and error. And at that point, you know, 2,000 2,001. The Internet's out there.
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::Craig Meriwether: So a lot of information you can get your hands on
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::Craig Meriwether: and just started working with the tools and the strategies and learning some skills.
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::Craig Meriwether: And again, you know, on and off, and life gets in the way, and a new baby and all that kind of stuff moving. But I kept it up. I kept practicing here and there and and learning more, and one day I just woke up.
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::Craig Meriwether: and really, you know, I hadn't felt depressed or anxious. In a really long time it was just kind of. I'd have rewired myself.
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::Craig Meriwether: reset my nervous system.
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::Craig Meriwether: and I realized I had this toolbox full of tools. And I I started doing different things in terms of like writing. I wrote a book on depression back in, you know, 2010, or 2011 or so, and you know, doing telesummits back then you did telesummits. And you know all sorts of different things. I started my own podcast and it was. It was around
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::Craig Meriwether: that time when I had the opportunity to
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::Craig Meriwether: studied you become a hypnotherapist, and that was one of the things that really helped me was therapeutic hypnosis. Because what what I like about it is
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::Craig Meriwether: you're not looking outside of yourself
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::Craig Meriwether: to fix somebody. I think that you know a lot of that work of whether it's talk therapy. Something like that. You sometimes you? Well, I'm going to go to this person. They're gonna fix me. They're going to figure me out.
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::Craig Meriwether: and they're going to fix me. And you know you're there 2 years later, and you're still struggling
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::Craig Meriwether: because they haven't figured out the root issue. You know what the root issue is, maybe not consciously, but it's there in your unconscious, because that's what's
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::Craig Meriwether: causing you to change brain chemistry to create the feeling state of anxiety, or depression, or anger, or overwhelm or worry.
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::Craig Meriwether: These are just warning signals that there's danger. Your mind is trying to warn you through the feeling states within your body. Anxiety, depression, anger, overwhelm, that there's danger, wants to keep you safe, wants to keep you protected, just maybe using faulty instructions on how to do that.
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::Craig Meriwether: And you're the one that's allowed to change it. I mean, technically, you're the one who put it in there, even yes, through distress, through trauma.
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::Craig Meriwether: through humiliation or embarrassment, or situations, circumstances that cause fear or anger
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::Craig Meriwether: wasn't your fault.
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::Craig Meriwether: and it shouldn't have happened. It wasn't fair, especially as as a child.
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::Craig Meriwether: and those instructions on how to keep you safe are more than likely put in there unconsciously.
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::Craig Meriwether: But you're the one who put them in there, which becomes actually very empowering. Because well, if you're if you put them in there as a child, what can you do as an adult.
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::Craig Meriwether: and so, or as a teenager, or as a child.
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::Craig Meriwether: So
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::Craig Meriwether: I I found that very fascinating, very interesting. And the more I just researched consciousness and and
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::Craig Meriwether: mind and healing, and
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::Craig Meriwether: I just thought hypnotherapy is such an extraordinary modality. And so I got the opportunity to train
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::Craig Meriwether: at a really wonderful Academy hypnotherapy Academy of America
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::Craig Meriwether: to the Premier Hypnotherapy Academy
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::Craig Meriwether: here in America. And but you know, people from all the world were there Europe, South America, and it was just an extraordinary training of about 500 h
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::Craig Meriwether: 9 Am. To 6 Pm. Monday, through Friday, 2 and a half months at a real, you know. School you went to. So it was extraordinary training, learned all sorts of wonderful techniques, and since then, with continuing education. And the reason why.
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::Craig Meriwether: again, I told you a long answer to maybe a short question. But the reason why I focused at least this program acne test on test anxiety is because I was getting a lot of people in my practice one-on-one
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::Craig Meriwether: with test anxiety and and not teenagers. I was working with people in their thirties, and they had to take a professional exam licensing exam certification exam.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. Maybe there's a 65 year old who
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::Craig Meriwether: in retirement is bored is like, oh, what what about real estate. Maybe I'll become a real estate agent, and they have to take their real estate. You know, realtors licensing exam. They haven't taken a test in 55 years.
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::Craig Meriwether: So
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::Craig Meriwether: it's not just because a student in high school is taking the Sats or the the you know algebra final, or something like that. There's all sorts of things, including like
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::Craig Meriwether: Kid in a university. He or she has got to take the Mcats to get in medical school or the Lsats to get in law school or you graduate law school. Now you got to take the bar exam. Isn't that something like a
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::Craig Meriwether: 10 h exam over 2 days, or something insane like that. I know an auto mechanic here in town where I live.
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::Craig Meriwether: And he did something like that. It was like a
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::Craig Meriwether: 2 day test of 3 h each
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::Craig Meriwether: for to to be certified as a auto mechanic for the State. And so it's not just.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Or insurance, or just a hairdresser.
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::Craig Meriwether: Therapist. Yeah, it's all sorts of things physical therapy. One of the 1st people I ever worked with was a extraordinarily intelligent woman who had decided to niche her field and wanted to become an audiologist.
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::Craig Meriwether: working with kids with hearing impairment, deaf children! What an extraordinary thing to do with life as a career, and she just couldn't pass the licensing exam to start her career. And it's not just, you know. Oh, God! I failed a test. Now you got to tell your family and friends you failed again.
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::Craig Meriwether: and this test was something ridiculous, like $600 per test, and doesn't matter whether you you
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Pass, survey.
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::Craig Meriwether: Test or failed. Okay.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Money.
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::Craig Meriwether: A check.
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::Craig Meriwether: and you know she spent tens of thousands of dollars in training and a year's worth her life in training, and the starting salary was something like $80,000. So it's like pretty painful when you're not passing that test. And like I said, she's extraordinarily intelligent. She was top of her class in high school top of her class, getting her bachelor's. But the issue came when she went to graduate school to get her master's degree. The school was filled with people who were at the top of the class.
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::Craig Meriwether: So you know, it's a school filled of one percenters in terms of being at the top, the valedictorians and all that, and the stress started 1st time for her, because now she's up against the best of the best.
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::Craig Meriwether: and you know, to remain at the top of the heap, whatever that meant to her.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. Extra studying, extra work, lack of sleep, all that kind of stuff
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::Craig Meriwether: and what you practice you get better at.
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::Craig Meriwether: And she got really good at feeling anxious, or, you know not need to get not just get an a on the test, you need to get 100%. You need to get a hundred 5% because you did the.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Extra all the extra credit.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so the the stress and anxiety all sort of got linked to taking tests, because that was the judgment
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::Craig Meriwether: of how well she was doing.
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::Craig Meriwether: She was gonna graduate either way. But she, for whatever reason, oh.
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::Craig Meriwether: in her past, decided, whether through herself, through parents, through friends, through bullies, or whatever needed to be at the top of the top.
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::Craig Meriwether: and she just carried that just become her norm. She carried it with her, and she did great at audiology training when she was getting that education. But when it came time to take the test it just blew apart. She knew the information backwards and forwards.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so I worked with her, and I started working with other people with the same issue again, whether
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::Craig Meriwether: you know somebody in their Master's degree or a specific specialized training, like a plumber or electrician, or or a high school student.
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::Craig Meriwether: or an actor, or a musician doing auditions.
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::Craig Meriwether: or, you know, public speaking phobia, and they're all the same kind of thing, because really the root issue
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::Craig Meriwether: comes down to fear of judgment
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::Craig Meriwether: or fear of failure. And maybe you know something else. But those are the 2 big ones.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so
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::Craig Meriwether: when looking at that issue, there didn't seem to be a whole lot out there to help people with.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, you can see you can forward. What's extraordinary is you can find a lot of stuff around golf.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, like how to how to, because that's a very minds, mind game, you know. Certainly there's a lot of athletic prowess in terms of of, you know, swing and and strength, and all that kind of thing. But really, it's about focus and and mindset.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so you can find a lot of information on the Internet and books and classes and videos and trainings on how to get the mindset, the focus for to become a great golfer.
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::Craig Meriwether: But there was nothing about test anxiety. A couple of books on Amazon, maybe a couple of classes on one like teachable or something for $12 in a half an hour class.
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::Craig Meriwether: and you know, maybe a couple of 5 min videos on Youtube.
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::Craig Meriwether: And there was nothing comprehensive.
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::Craig Meriwether: strangely about test anxiety, even though some research shows that 36% of people taking tests, no matter what age you're talking about, struggle with it.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so a lot of the tools I had come up not come up with, but had learned through my own healing and just training as a therapeutic in therapeutic hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming, those kind of modalities
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::Craig Meriwether: and working with people with test anxiety. I put it together in this program
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::Craig Meriwether: to help people again, whether you're, you know, a high school student or junior high school, or or a college student in university or your, you know, a career. You're you're working on professional stuff or public speaking or
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::Craig Meriwether: auditions, or anything like that.
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::Craig Meriwether: And
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::Craig Meriwether: it's really all about just helping people feel comfortable
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::Craig Meriwether: and confident.
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::Craig Meriwether: You know whether you take an exam taking a test, doing an audition or something like that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: One for job interviews.
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::Craig Meriwether: Or jump. Oh, there's a good one, too. Yeah, yeah. What? What you know.
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::Craig Meriwether: Of course, you know you're doing a Phd. Or something like that. You're doing an oral defense of your your Phd. Your dissertation. But a job interview.
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::Craig Meriwether: man, fear of fear, of judgment, of fear, of failure. You don't get that job. And yeah, there's I can only imagine when an actor goes through, you walk into an audition. There's 50 other people who look exactly like you.
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::Craig Meriwether: and you know, a job interview. Maybe it's down to 5, 6 people, and you all have the same credentials, all have the same kind of academic background. You're all perfect for the job.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. So it's really coming down to you, really, and making that connection that could be nerve wracking.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, it's all I mean, we're running into tests all day long. But even if you graduated high school a long time ago, we're dealing with tests all day long.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Yeah, I just
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: a anytime you're going to do something that requires someone to
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: make a determination whether you're qualified or not.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You're being tested.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. And it really comes down to. And there's other aspects and other factors to it, depending on your situation. But we don't want to fail, and that's 1, i think
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::Craig Meriwether: one of the biggest unfortunate aspects of school. Maybe they're doing it differently now, or they're trying to do it differently. But you know you got punished if you didn't do well.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know whether you get that big F on the test or the D minus.
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::Craig Meriwether: And then you, you know, maybe you don't pass the class. And now you got to go to summer school. If you're back in high school or grade school or something.
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::Craig Meriwether: or you know you don't. You show your report card to your parents, and now you're grounded.
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::Craig Meriwether: or you're in trouble, or you don't get your allowance, or you don't get to go to the dance or hang out with your friends, or whatever it is.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so it's not that
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::Craig Meriwether: you look at the test and say, Oh, you really don't know your times tables or your vocabulary isn't doing so well, let's let's focus on that. Let's get some extra help. Let's find you a tutor.
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::Craig Meriwether: or let's do some extra work to, to catch you up, to make sure you can move on to the next.
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::Craig Meriwether: You know phase of education. It's like, Oh, you're you're stupid, and you need to be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You're labeled.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. And you know, why wouldn't you take that? You don't want to feel that again? It's a safety thing.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so if you equate
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::Craig Meriwether: not feeling safe
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::Craig Meriwether: or feeling like. Well, the last time I took a test I failed, and I
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::Craig Meriwether: all these consequences happened due to that. Why would you want to take a test again.
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::Craig Meriwether: or why would you feel comfortable and confident, taking a test? And the more tests you take.
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::Craig Meriwether: the less, maybe confident you're going to feel, and what you practice you get better at what is strongest within your mind is what you do over and over again, and of course we know that from
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::Craig Meriwether: learning a musical instrument, playing piano or violin, or guitar, or something, or learning dance, or learning a foreign language, or learning martial arts.
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::Craig Meriwether: What you practice you get better at, you know, learning to walk as a as a child, or learning to ride a bicycle.
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::Craig Meriwether: What is strongest within your mind and your body is what you do over and over again. So what if you're practicing anxiety
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::Craig Meriwether: if you're practicing stress or anger overall? What if you're what if you're linking that anxiety to taking a test.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It practicing, linking that to
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: the results that you're getting from whatever you're doing. And
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I I have
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: lots of experience with people that have gone to take tests and and haven't passed them, and then tried again and didn't pass them again.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And it's it kind of builds on itself.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: So I would say, you know, get a hold of you before you start going into the team.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, that's that's a little bit of the unfortunateness of of
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::Craig Meriwether: hypnotherapy is we're usually last on the list.
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::Craig Meriwether: Oh.
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::Craig Meriwether: and we get the people who have no hope.
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::Craig Meriwether: They've gone to the doctors.
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::Craig Meriwether: and they can't deal with even like physical pain. They can't deal with the low back pain or the hip pain. There's nothing wrong. The Mris, the X-rays, the spec scans, everything, nothing shows anything wrong. For years and years they've struggled with pain. They go to talk therapy. So maybe there's an emotional component. 2 years later, after 90 sessions, they're still in pain.
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::Craig Meriwether: They still have the anxiety still have the anger. And so, till finally, maybe they read an article or something their friends say, Hey, well, you know you know, I know somebody went to hypnotherapy, and it worked for them, maybe. And they're like, Okay, fine
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::Craig Meriwether: like, what do I got to lose?
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::Craig Meriwether: And so we get a lot of the
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::Craig Meriwether: last resort. There's nothing else they can do except go to hypnotherapy. And it's unfortunate, because
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::Craig Meriwether: you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It works so well.
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::Craig Meriwether: It works so well, and it's not just me saying that's not just anecdotal.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: I'm saying it.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, you can look online. Look at the research that's been going on. There's a research study that just that was released last year. Well, when we're recording this last year, 2023
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::Craig Meriwether: in the journal foundations front, oh, frontiers in psychology.
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::Craig Meriwether: And you can actually find it published on the National Institutes of Health. They did a 20 year Meta analysis meaning. They just looked at 20 years worth of hypnotherapy research and found that has a 99.2% success rate.
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::Craig Meriwether: And that's that's not me just throwing out numbers. That's literally, you can find that on the Internet, especially if you want to do a deep dive into this. Many of you probably know. And probably you, Jill, know, that Google has a subsection
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::Craig Meriwether: that only searches research papers published in in scientific and medical journals. And so if you just go to regular Google
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::Craig Meriwether: and type in Google scholar, the 1st search result will say, scholar.google.com
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::Craig Meriwether: that all that searches is research in in scientific and medical journals.
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::Craig Meriwether: and just put in hypnotherapy, or put in hypnotherapy and anxiety or hypnosis and pain control, or whatever you want to look at hypnotherapy and cancer hypnotherapy. And
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::Craig Meriwether: you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Whatever your flavor is.
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::Craig Meriwether: Ptsd, and and find hundreds, if not thousands, of research, showing that this works.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, and and not, and not just like from heads. Universities never heard of, or this Harvard. This is Yale. This is Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge.
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::Craig Meriwether: This is the big stuff and published in medical journals you've heard of before. So it's extraordinary, but it still has that kind of film due to the entertainment side of it. You introduced me as a clinical hippo therapist, and that's mainly just to say, Yeah, I don't do entertainment. I'm not. I don't go to parties, or, you know, do Las Vegas shows or comedy clubs.
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::Craig Meriwether: and I, you know that's fine, if that's, you know, entertaining for people. But
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::Craig Meriwether: it's really all about a person's intention. I can't make anybody do anything. They don't want to do so. If somebody comes to me to quit smoking.
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::Craig Meriwether: and they want to quit smoking.
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::Craig Meriwether: they'll quit smoking. But the reason smoking cessation is a hundred percent guarantee because you might not actually want to quit smoking.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, you might just want to.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, and this has happened to a colleague of mine.
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::Craig Meriwether: They had somebody come to them and tell them straight out. It's like, Oh, I don't want to quit smoking. I just want to tell my wife that I tried everything, including hypnosis, and maybe I'll just smoke in the garage.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. Just use it as negotiate $800
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::Craig Meriwether: to just negotiate with their wives to smoke in the garage.
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::Craig Meriwether: and because the intention was not to quit, so guess what they didn't quit.
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::Craig Meriwether: and just like, if if somebody wants to come to quit smoking, and has the intention to get healthier and and save all that money.
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::Craig Meriwether: I can't hypnotize them to go rob a bank.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, and then we'll split the loot afterwards, just as I can't go into prisons and hypnotize everybody to be an upstanding law abiding citizen, or I can't hypnotize Elon Musk to write me a billion dollar check.
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::Craig Meriwether: You know. The reason I don't have a billion dollar check from Elon Musk is I can't make people do anything they don't want to do. And so you see, those shows
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::Craig Meriwether: in Las Vegas or comedy clubs or Youtube videos
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::Craig Meriwether: and understand that everybody on that stage, that's.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, singing like Elvis Presley, and dancing like Michael Jackson, and quacking like a duck. And whatever they're doing.
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::Craig Meriwether: they volunteered to do that.
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::Craig Meriwether: Why? Because they're they're exhibitionists. They're extroverts. They want a funny video to put on Tiktok and Instagram, and they want to make their friends laugh. They want to have fun.
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::Craig Meriwether: I don't want to do that, and I'm guessing, Joe. Maybe you probably don't either, and your solicitors don't want to do that. But but every single person who gets up there volunteered
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::Craig Meriwether: to go up there to have fun. Their intention is to have fun and guess what they have fun. They have a great time.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so your intention what if your intention is to is to heal? What if your intention is to drop that anxiety, or that anger, or that physical pain
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::Craig Meriwether: that it has no purpose for you.
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::Craig Meriwether: What are the chances? Are you're gonna do it, you know. And again.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Very high.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, this isn't talk therapy. We're not going to go over and over and over the abuse and the trauma, or if that's what the situation is, you're going to heal it in a safe and gentle way, because you're the one who's doing it, not me.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You the difference between meditation and hypnotherapy, because I think sometimes people.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Also muddy, those waters.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a there's a big gray area between, what is meditation, what is guided visualization, what is guided meditation? What is hypnosis.
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::Craig Meriwether: What is neuro linguistic programming? It's a big gray area. But what I tend to tell people is with meditation. It may feel similar.
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::Craig Meriwether: But with meditation. Oftentimes you're focusing your mind to try to
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::Craig Meriwether: reduce your thoughts and the activity of your conscious mind.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so you may just focus on your breath. Or maybe you're reciting a mantra, or you're just watching the trees blow in the wind, and if a thought comes, you just allow your mind to go back to watching your breath or focusing on something
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::Craig Meriwether: with therapeutic hypnosis. We actually want to use the imagination we want to play, pretend.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so that's where
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::Craig Meriwether: you know you could pretend you're standing under a gentle, healing waterfall of blue energy.
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::Craig Meriwether: and it's washing away all the stress and the anxiety. Now, I don't like working out in the garden all day long.
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::Craig Meriwether: working outside, and you're hot and sweaty and muddy and dirty, and just washes it all away, even on the inside, you know, it's you're using your mind to imagine and to pretend.
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::Craig Meriwether: And I've had people say, well, I don't think I'd be hypnotized because I have an overactive imagination. I have overactive minds like great, perfect. You actually might be better at this.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, than somebody who doesn't. Kids are great at this.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know, 8 year olds 5 year olds 10 year olds. They're great at this, because who better in imagining things than children?
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::Craig Meriwether: And so it's a lot of playing. Pretend a lot of imagining. But what you're doing is communicating directly to that unconscious part of mine, because that's what I like. Storytelling like symbolism likes metaphor
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::Craig Meriwether: doesn't really like that logical, analytical part of mine. That's why I think people get stuck, especially maybe in talk therapy not to throw, you know, not to disparage talk therapy, because there's a lot of healing there. A lot of help can be can happen there. But
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::Craig Meriwether: sometimes I think people get stuck because they're not. They're working on problems. But now they're not working on the problem
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::Craig Meriwether: because it's in the unconscious.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so by moving into a quiet state of mind and body that probably feels similar, maybe even looks similar. If you were to wire people up.
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::Craig Meriwether: Here's the person meditating, here's the person and doing therapeutic hypnosis. The brainwave state may look exactly the same.
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::Craig Meriwether: But we're doing different work. And we actually want to access
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::Craig Meriwether: imagination in that daydreamy state.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so yeah, what's the difference between meditation daydreaming out the window at a boring meeting or back in high school math class
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::Craig Meriwether: and and therapeutic hypnosis that the brain may look exactly the same in terms of how it's firing and and.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: You too.
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::Craig Meriwether: The brainwave state. You're in Alpha or Theta Brainwave State.
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::Craig Meriwether: But we're just
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::Craig Meriwether: utilizing it in different ways.
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::Craig Meriwether: you know. Does your brain really.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Doesn't know the difference between a memory
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: and and something that you're imagining.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, the brain can tell the difference. And what's interesting about memory.
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::Craig Meriwether: And I'm sure you probably have had people on your show before talk about memory and things.
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::Craig Meriwether: but with memory you actually add on to it every time you access a memory, it's really fascinating. So really, while there is some truth
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::Craig Meriwether: to the memory you have. You've actually added on to it every time you accessed it. And so you're manipulating and changing it.
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::Craig Meriwether: which can seem a little scary, but also again, it's very empowering. Because if you can change how you perceive
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::Craig Meriwether: your past.
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::Craig Meriwether: why not do that? And why not do that to your benefit.
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::Craig Meriwether: And
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::Craig Meriwether: it's sort of like, you know, an app, an app on your phone. You go on your your phone. You're like, My God, I got to update this app again. I just did them like 2 weeks ago.
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::Craig Meriwether: And while it's the same app.
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::Craig Meriwether: and it works basically the same way you've updated it with new information. You can never go back
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::Craig Meriwether: to the original app you downloaded onto your phone, maybe 3 years ago.
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::Craig Meriwether: Hello!
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::Craig Meriwether: Same with a memory. 1 1 memory expert said that the only way to keep a memory pure is to never think about it, never access it.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so every time you think about memory. So you're changing it. You're manipulating it. So let's do that on purpose.
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::Craig Meriwether: But let's do it for healing.
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::Craig Meriwether: and that's where the power comes in you're doing it. I don't fix anybody. And hypnotherapy in and of itself doesn't fix them. You're gonna fix yourself. And we were using the power of your mind. Dr. Irving Kirsch.
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::Craig Meriwether: called hypnotherapy a non-deceptive placebo.
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::Craig Meriwether: because we're not tricking you into healing like giving you a sugar pill and some sort of pharmaceutical research study, and then you heal yourself because you think you're getting real medicine.
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::Craig Meriwether: You're going to do it on purpose within your intention to heal fully out there and imagine how much more powerful that's going to be.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
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::Craig Meriwether: yeah, yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Wow! So do people have to come to your your integrative hypnotherapy center or.
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::Craig Meriwether: No, no, since Covid, as a as a I'm sure a lot of people have experienced a lot of your listeners and watchers experience. A lot of this stuff's happening over. Zoom.
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::Craig Meriwether: I'd probably say 80% of my sessions nowadays are over just like this. If you're watching this, it'd be just like this.
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::Craig Meriwether: And what's interesting is they've done a lot of research. I love research. And
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::Craig Meriwether: you you they've done a lot of research because I want to make sure I don't want to do stuff that doesn't work.
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::Craig Meriwether: and that affects my business. If I start doing things that doesn't work. And and so
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::Craig Meriwether: I looked into the research around zoom sessions. And what the sociologists have shown is that not only
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::Craig Meriwether: do zoom sessions work as well as in person. There's been some research that shows zoom sessions work better than in person, and the reason why they think that that it works better
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::Craig Meriwether: is that people feel relaxed and comfortable in their homes. They feel safe in their homes, so it'd just be like talking to you right now. You're sitting in your comfortable chair, or maybe there's your living room where your recliner is, or if you want to sit back in your bedroom on your bed.
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::Craig Meriwether: just finding a place to be with your laptop, your ipad, or even your phone.
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::Craig Meriwether: whatever is working best, making sure it's charged.
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::Craig Meriwether: But as long as we have
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::Craig Meriwether: good audio and good visual, because something that 56% of communication is is physical. So you want to see people.
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::Craig Meriwether: But as long as we have good communication, good Internet connection. It works just as well because you're the one doing the work. It's not like, I'm sending energy to you or I'm doing it for you. This isn't physical therapy where I'm helping you manipulate muscles to get stronger, and things like that, or massage
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::Craig Meriwether: where I'm actually doing the the work to for for the healing work. You're doing it yourself. I'm just here to supervise, to facilitate to lifeguard the situation. So it works great over Zoom. And that's nice, especially if you like. Live in a big city.
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::Craig Meriwether: You don't have to drive across town on a busy, you know. Rush hour
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::Craig Meriwether: Friday.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Then you're stressed when you get there.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, you're stretching.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Top of anxious.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. And so, yeah, getting a long answer to sort of question. It works perfectly well over zoom and and just like talk therapy or a doctor's appointment, or something like that, works great over zoom.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Do you do any of this as
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: group in a group setting, or is it.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah. In fact, I just did. I was at a symposium this last weekend for ocular melanoma eye cancer, which is boy. That's a
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::Craig Meriwether: kick to the gut right there. But
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::Craig Meriwether: I was on one of their podcasts and I was invited because it's near where I live, and I was invited to present hippotherapy. And there's 20 people in the room, and I don't know something like a hundred people on Zoom because they were they were streaming it.
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::Craig Meriwether: and of course this has to be more generalized.
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::Craig Meriwether: Oh, and I can't specifically go. How are you feeling, or, you know, check in with every single person. But it does work great over in group sessions. In fact, I started the reason I even got into the zoom thing I was doing classes for the cancer support community. I live in Arizona, Arizona integrated hypnotherapy.
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::Craig Meriwether: and they opened up. I live in Flagstaff, Arizona up in the mountains.
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::Craig Meriwether: and we just got snow the other day
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: That was just.
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::Craig Meriwether: Time of year.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: 2 weeks ago.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, I mean, we're we're not down south, where it's a hundred degrees all year long. We're we're up in the mountains where it gets chilly, and
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::Craig Meriwether: they opened up. An office here.
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::Craig Meriwether: March 2020.
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::Craig Meriwether: They opened up their office, and I'd been in contact with them because I wanted to run.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Lessons and.
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::Craig Meriwether: Do workshops and things and give back, and just, you know, help out and and spread the word.
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::Craig Meriwether: And we had set up classes for March 2020. And you know, of course, those got they were the 1st people I I was aware of that actually started canceling things and shutting down offices, you know. Everybody's got a compromised immune system and
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::Craig Meriwether: and went straight to Zoom.
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::Craig Meriwether: And I didn't want to be that guy. I don't do zoom sessions. So I was like, I guess I'm learning how to do zoom zoom classes.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so we were doing
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::Craig Meriwether: group sessions like pain, control and healing acceleration and immune system boosting
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::Craig Meriwether: over zoom with, you know, 1520 people in a zoom class, and it worked great, did it for years.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: That's awesome. So you offer recordings to reprogram.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. Well, again, I like giving back. I want people to understand this work.
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::Craig Meriwether: And you know a big part of life is just feeling confident in yourself, not just with tests, I mean, that's a big part of life, obviously, but
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::Craig Meriwether: but we're just in general life in general, feeling more confident in yourself.
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::Craig Meriwether: And so yeah, there's 5 different recordings to download. If you go to ace any test.com, you'll see the little little thing pop up the little window, pop up, or if you look in the menu bar, you'll see something that says, program yourself for confidence, something like that.
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::Craig Meriwether: And yeah, they're there for you to download and to share and to have and to practice with.
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::Craig Meriwether: And they're just recordings to kick back in your most comfortable chair.
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::Craig Meriwether: close your eyes and just
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::Craig Meriwether: drift and float for 20 min, half an hour and and program yourself, because you're the one doing the work
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::Craig Meriwether: program yourself for confidence. So please, yeah, have that. I'm sure the links will be
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::Craig Meriwether: in the show notes, and and here and there and everywhere. But
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::Craig Meriwether: or contact me, and I'll I'll send you the link to them.
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::Craig Meriwether: and it's just for you to have and you to share.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: And we'll also put the link to your website on in the show notes. So people can reach out to you if they're interested.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah. And yeah, the best way. You know, I know Arizona integrated. Hypnotherapy is a mouthful.
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::Craig Meriwether: But if you just
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::Craig Meriwether: Google, search flagstaff hypnosis. I'll show up. You'll see me, Arizona integrated hypnotherapy, or just go to ace any test.com. And you can email me from there as well.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Awesome. So, Craig, this has been.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: It's really fascinating. What's the one thing that you hope the audience takes away from the conversation today?
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::Craig Meriwether: I think the most important thing. If people can really get this idea, I think it's a life changer. It was a life changer for me, anyway.
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::Craig Meriwether: and it's we've we've mentioned it before we talked about it, and it's what is strongest within your mind is what you do over and over again.
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::Craig Meriwether: You don't get a black belt in Taekwondo or judo on your 1st day of martial Arts class. You got to earn that, and you earn it by practicing and doing it over and over and over again. What you practice you get better at.
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::Craig Meriwether: But what if you're practicing fear? What if you're practicing anxiety or anger or physical pain that has no medical diagnosis to it. Well, if you keep wiring that not only into your brain, but into your nervous system.
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::Craig Meriwether: and I think a lot of people may feel hopeless about that like this is the way it's going to be. But it's not. It's you're under control. And that's
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::Craig Meriwether: what the most amazing thing about this work of hypnotherapy
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::Craig Meriwether: is. A lot of people say, Oh, I don't want to lose control. I I go to hypnotherapists, and they're going to make me do quack. I don't know why I'd make people quack quack like a duck. I don't see the financial benefit to me by having people quack like a duck, but
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::Craig Meriwether: think they're going to lose control. And really what this work is is, it's giving you back control.
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::Craig Meriwether: You know you're doing the work. I don't fix anybody. You fix yourself. It's giving you back control.
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::Craig Meriwether: and there's what you practice you get better at. So what if you practice confidence with those recordings that you can download? What if you practiced feeling strong and empowered within yourself, even if you have to pretend there's that word again. What if you just imagined that you were strong and empowered? And since the mind can't tell the difference, as you said before, Joe. The mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined and what's a memory
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::Craig Meriwether: you'd literally be wiring into. This is what Olympic athletes do.
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::Craig Meriwether: he literally mentally rehearsed, sit in a comfortable chair
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::Craig Meriwether: and and imagine themselves. Maybe they're on their little diving platform to start the the, you know, breaststroke, or the whatever the swimming race, and they imagine themselves jumping into the pool a hundredthth of a second before everybody else, or crossing the finish line, or they're doing gymnastics, and they're doing the twists and the turns and the tumbles and all in the flips. And they're doing it perfectly. And they're wiring it into their brain. Literally, they know they're wiring that into mind just by imagining it.
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::Craig Meriwether: So if you're imagining failure.
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::Craig Meriwether: are, you are? What if you're imagining that you're going to fail that test.
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::Craig Meriwether: are you literally not just wiring that into your system? And so it's where people would need to get
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::Craig Meriwether: really aware, what are you practicing? Over and over again each and every day? Fear, anxiety, joy, happiness. It's up to you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: People in the Woo community call that manifesting.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: But all manifesting is is what you're talking about.
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::Craig Meriwether: Yeah, yeah, you don't. You don't get what you want, you get who you are.
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::Craig Meriwether: And and that's also another kick to the gut.
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::Craig Meriwether: So
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::Craig Meriwether: the reason you don't have what you want is, you're not the person who can have that yet.
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::Craig Meriwether: but that's an important word. Yet
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::Craig Meriwether: you can have what you want.
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::Craig Meriwether: It's just you have to practice, and you have to rewire your system
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::Craig Meriwether: and you can have it.
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::Craig Meriwether: It just takes some practice.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist & Host of the You World Order Showcase Podcast: Thank you so much for joining.
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::Craig Meriwether: Hi, Jill! Oh, you're welcome! It was fun talking with you.
