Is Shapewear Stealing Your Joy? The Hidden Cost of Squeezing In

😂✨ Could Spanx be the silent villain behind your anxiety? This week on Life of Love, Julie Hilsen welcomes Craig Meriwether, certified clinical hypnotherapist and founder of Arizona Integrative Hypnotherapy, for a hilariously enlightening dive into the hidden ways we sabotage our joy – sometimes by simply squeezing too tight into our shapewear! 🩲

Together, we explore:

• Why breathing deeply could change your emotional destiny (yes, even during your morning toothbrushing routine 🦷)
• How pretending to feel confident actually rewires your brain in just a few weeks 🧠✨
• Why joy isn't a birthright—it's a daily practice, like brushing your teeth or feeding your dog
• How tight jeans and Spanx can send your body into panic mode 😵‍💫
• The magic of the 3-2-1 Reset Hug Method to hack your brain for love, happiness, and calm 🤗💖
• Why even the Dalai Lama still practices loving-kindness meditation daily (no, it’s not automatic even for him!)

🎧 Tune in for laughter, deep insights, high-consciousness humor, and some real talk about practicing emotional and spiritual health like you practice physical health — with commitment, compassion, and a little bit of silliness.

You are not entitled to joy — but you can absolutely create it! 💥🌎🧘‍♀️

✨ Subscribe for more episodes designed to help you breathe deeper, laugh louder, and love bigger.

Transcript

Julie Hilsen (00:05)
Dear God, universe, goddess, support, of beings that are here to help us, thank you for bringing us together. I'm calling in our guides, I'm calling in the universe as we have been.

connected through the scheduling for over six months. We've been back and forth and his grace and divinity is shining through and I just welcome, I welcome his team. I welcome my team. I invite all the beings for the highest good to come collaborate with us for this creation to bring forth a message with sincerity, clarity and strength to reach the ears that need to hear and the hearts with which.

that wish to soften to this message. May we be conduits for joy, for creation, and for hope. And I'm really excited to collaborate to bring forth this message for the highest good. And I honor everyone's ears, I honor everyone's presence, and I invite you to share this message as you feel called. Our interconnection on this grid of light and love is strong and everyone's attention adds to this.

this light and this place that we're all going to together. Nobody's being left behind. That's been coming through to me so clearly. There's not there's not this great awakening that only five people are going. It's everybody everybody's going to be drug around to this great place that we're heading to with with I say it's new earth, but I think it's discovering that the new earth has always been in us. So I honor I honor everyone's contribution and we've gotten so far that I just

I wanna share that from my heart. so without further ado, welcome Craig to the show. Craig Merriwether is a certified clinical hypnotherapist, medical hypnosis specialist, neuro-linguistic programming specialist and founder of the Arizona Integrative Hypnotherapy. He's also a bestselling author. He's just had a lifetime. He's not very old. He's been busy, I guess, helping people live their life of dreams. And to me, it's...

living your life of dream is a life of love. And so I want to honor his life of love as he's come forward to share his expertise, his insights. He also has a website where he helps people with test anxiety and performance and dealing with negative emotions. you know, he just has a lot of depth. So Craig, thank you for being on Life of Love. I'm so excited to share.

Craig Meriwether (02:30)
Thank you, Julie.

it's, you were saying at beginning, it's taking us a bit to get together, but right time, right place, and here we are. So I've been looking forward to this, Julie, for a bit now.

Julie Hilsen (02:42)
Me too. And so when we first connected, I was lit up by, well, the idea that you can show up to take a test with less anxiety, that's huge. But then when you get down deeper into it, it's like confidence, right? Like you're going to sit down and you'll be confident that you're prepared. And I just wanted to explore that idea of confidence with you and what you've found through your expertise, personal experience, or if you have a story that

led you to understand it was confidence, or it might be some some more basic level of, of being or consciousness that you can give us insight on because everyone wants to show up in their best self, right? Like

Craig Meriwether (03:23)
Sure,

yeah. And a big part of it, not everybody's story, but a big part of the anxiety around tests or speaking in front of people or asking that person out on a first date, whatever it may be, going for that promotion, is just the fear of failure. And there's a huge self-preservation element within the subconscious mind. It's there for your safety. It's there to keep you safe, protected, it's for survival.

which doesn't necessarily mean your success and happiness. It wants you alive and it's using past experiences to formulate a kind of safety protocol. And maybe, know, just as a kind of a broad example, if in terms of test anxiety or, you know, or let's say getting in front of people, you know, to do the big speech at the conference and, or the big meeting at work or something.

And maybe back in the fifth grade, this person got up and did their history report in front of class and everybody laughed because it didn't go well. You know, they didn't do a good job at it. They stuttered or they lost track of what they're supposed to say and got lost and all the pictures were upside down or something. That's all the kids laugh because, you know, they're 10 year olds and that's what 10 year olds do. They can be kind of mean and then mock them for the next few weeks. And so a little instruction gets us.

gets installed into the subconscious mind that's dangerous to be in front of people. Yeah, it wasn't a survival thing, it wasn't a physical danger, but it was humiliating, was embarrassing, nobody wants to go through that again. And so there's a little kind of file that gets put in the filing cabinet of your subconscious mind that says, okay, getting in front of people is dangerous and you don't want to experience that again. So, getting your, you know, doing your master's degree presentation or your PhD dissertation or

doing the speech at the conference or getting up in the meeting to do your presentation, all of sudden that triggers the alarm bells to go off. And instead of somebody pulling a fire alarm in a building, the sirens go off, the strobe lights go off warning everybody that there's danger. We also have a warning system, but it's feeling states. It's a feeling state of anxiety, feeling state of fear, the feeling state of overwhelm and worry. It's warning you that there's danger in your external environment. The problem is,

The mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. And this is most noticeable when somebody's having a nightmare in the middle of the night. And if you've ever had that experience, Julia, many listeners have, maybe you know somebody who has, one of your children had a nightmare and they tell you about this crazy nightmare. I was dreaming that a cheeseburger was chasing you down the street throwing coconuts at me. It was so scary. And the mind can't tell whether that was a real threat or an imagined threat. And even in deep sleep, it'll turn on the stress response. And that's all.

really hard thing to do. It's not an efficient way to run the body. The brain starts creating that adrenaline and that cortisol. know, and you've heard the crazy stories of grandmothers lifting cars off a baby. That's adrenaline doing that. That's not being dumped into your bloodstream. 300 % more blood moving to big muscles in your arms to fight your way out of the situation. 300 % more blood moving to big muscles in your legs to escape. It's gotta come from somewhere. And so the power of your immune system, the power of your digestive system starts to turn down, even in deep sleep.

all because a cheeseburger is chasing you down the street. And so it has a safety protocol of shoot first, ask questions later because it wants you alive. It wants you safe, wants you protected. So you can imagine what's happening in your current, in your waking world. And so you get tapped to do the presentation at the meeting or the conference or something. And all of a the alarm bells go off. like, maybe you don't even remember the fifth grade or the high school thing or whatever happened. But there's a file in there that says this seems dangerous.

Being in front of people is dangerous. We're going to turn that down, turn the volume up on the anxiety, but move away from that. Maybe the procrastination happens or the self-sabotage happens or person is driving to the conference and runs their car into a telephone pole. Now they can't make it. All these things can start happening. And so that's the kind of one aspect of it. Healing that issue that maybe is related to getting in front of people or whether it's test anxiety or some other issue.

But you were specifically asking about confidence. And that is an aspect of you that you can develop. You are confident in a great many things. And specifically I can tell you that you're confident that you can tie your shoes. You don't have to think about it. You just do it. And if I was to ask you, are you confident in tying your shoes? Of course you're confident in tying your shoes. Are you confident in zipping up your jacket? Are you confident that you can open a door and close the door behind you? Of course you are. You are confident in a great many things. And yeah, these may be

little small silly things. But what is that feeling state of confidence, knowing you can go to wherever you park your shoes, go to the shoe room, sit in a chair to put on your shoes, knowing that you can tie them, you can zip up the side. There's confidence there. And a lot of this practice is now linking that confidence to something you want to be confident about. So whether it's taking the test or doing the presentation, or if you're an actor or musician, the audition.

or the first date or the job interview, whatever it is, there's lots of tests out there.

Julie Hilsen (08:37)
Yeah,

I was just gonna say there's tests all over the place. There's tests like just dealing with interpersonal skills, you know, like you can feel those subconscious red flags, those, you know, the blood, you know, certain situations make your blood boil. We say, there's a saying, my blood is boiling. You're like, that's a test, right?

Craig Meriwether (08:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. They're all over the place and not necessarily just the math test in school, you know, and where there's, you know, well, we just mentioned a bunch of them and people may feel a lack of confidence. Well, you can have all the things that you want. You can have the joy, you can have the happiness, you can have the confidence. It may just take some practice. And you can wire that feeling state that

Julie Hilsen (09:03)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Meriwether (09:27)
that confidence, that love, that joy happens literally into your brain. So you can feel like that, but there's a practice to it. What you practice, you get better at. And so we know this from, you know, playing the guitar or playing the violin or going to dance class or martial arts. That's a great one. You go from a white belt to a black belt, but it takes practices. So hanging a black belt on your first day of martial arts class, learning to walk as a kid, learning to ride a bicycle. You can do these things, but it takes some practice.

So what are you practicing? Are you practicing anxiety? Are you practicing fear? Are you practicing feeling worried and overwhelmed? You're literally wiring that into your brain. You're wiring that into your nervous system. sounds scary because how do you stop that? Well, you gotta practice something else. There may be some issues that need healing around that, around that worry, around that overwhelm, around that anxiety. But just because you get rid of the anxiety, let's say the overwhelming chronic anxiety,

I think we all need a little bit of fear, a little bit of anxiety. That's what keeps you from walking down that dark alley at midnight. You know, we want to remember that there are dangerous situations walking out in nature. You're out in the desert and rattlesnakes in the trail. OK, that's not your friend. You want to move away from that. It's a dangerous situation. The fight in the street or the restaurant or something move away from that. So, yeah, a certain amount of fear and anxiety helps a certain amount of stress helps you, you know, finish the report by the deadline. So it can be good.

but when it peaks and you head down the other side, you're now you're getting into chronic anxiety, panic, overwhelm, and your systems start to shut down. Well, okay, there's ways of dealing with anxiety if there's some long-term chronic anxiety or fears within your mindset. But just because you deal with that, and you deal with that hurt and pain, doesn't mean all of you're filled with joy and love and happiness and confidence. Maybe you are.

But if you haven't practiced for it, why would it all of a sudden be there? If you grew up in a situation where maybe there wasn't much joy or love in your house, how are you going to get that?

Julie Hilsen (11:25)
Right. I love that. Yeah, that's such clarity because I

think that in general, most people think they're entitled to be happy. Like happiness means lack of whatever stress, you know, like if you if you get rid of all these things that are wrong, what's left? Happiness. But but you make a really good point. You that's a skill that you develop that it just doesn't arrive. It's not you're not entitled to that feeling. You have to

Craig Meriwether (11:35)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Right.

Julie Hilsen (11:56)
intend for it and to practice it. So I love this clarity, because I think just getting that idea out could change so many people's perspective and, even be more more raw about it. Like, I'm trying to be happy right now I am trying to find it like, just be honest with yourself that that you're looking for it and it's it's okay not to be happy. You know, the joy, the joy is not there, but you're not entitled to it. takes a little bit of effort.

Craig Meriwether (11:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and you know, we're

Yeah,

we're wired, we're human beings, we're wired to feel the full spectrum of emotion. don't think necessarily anger or sorrow or grief or sadness is bad. It's just when you get cycled into that. And so it's there all the time and it gets chronic. Yeah, yeah, there's no balance. mean, the Dalai Lama still meditates every day. The guy's 90 years old and read his books.

Julie Hilsen (12:40)
Yeah, it becomes a loop, and people get off balance with that loop,

Craig Meriwether (12:51)
He talks about the anger and the sorrow and the despair of what's going on in Tibet, let alone the rest of the world. But the Chinese government is so bulldozing down his monasteries to build roads and railroad tracks and whatever, and arresting his monks, torturing his monks, that causes a great deal of despair and sorrow and grief and anger. He's a human being. He's going to feel that. That's a natural response to an extraordinarily tragic situation. But he doesn't want that to be who he is, his essence. So every day...

He practices loving, kindness and compassion. That's his work. That's what he does. And at 90 years old, he's still doing it. If anybody was to have it down by now, you think it'd be that guy. But he doesn't have a lot of the challenges in life that a lot of us do. He doesn't have any children. He doesn't have a spouse. He doesn't have a business that's in financial trouble and all the stuff that goes around taxes and...

and aging spouses and things like this, children falling off their bike and breaking their arm. He doesn't have to deal with that. He has a staff of people, in fact, that meets his every need and want. And yet there he is still, everyday practicing. So there's a certain relentlessness to this work, a relentlessness, of course, to our physical health. And this is a great example. It's like, we know at this point that you have to be doing something pretty much

every day, at least three to four times a week, whether you're going to the gym or spin class or dance class or martial arts or whatever you're doing. And every day you gotta be taking a walk, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, eating right, drinking right. It's relentless. You just don't get to go to a personal trainer once, workout at the gym twice, and then you're in shape for the next 50 years, eating whatever you want. You have to be constantly vigilant about your health as you move through life.

Certainly it was maybe a little bit easier when we were 17, 18, 19. Certainly not when we're in our 50s and 60s and older. And so there's a relentlessness to your physical health. We know that. What about your emotional health and your mental health, your spiritual health, your relationship health? There's a relentlessness to this work. That's why the Dalai Lama of all people is still practicing. And so what are you doing in your life to move forward? And again, that's, know,

If I was to write down everything I wanted to do during my day in terms of prayer and meditation and reading and qigong and all the different things, I'd have a five hour practice I would need to do. Sometimes I can actually do that occasionally here and there, but sometimes I got 10 minutes with everything going on. So what can you do in that 10 minutes? Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (15:25)
I know it's...

Mm-hmm.

You wrap up your Tai Chi, your meditation.

If you could do it with your...

Craig Meriwether (15:36)
Yeah, I don't have an hour and a half

to do the full Tai Chi thing. You know, I, but I may have 10 minutes to do some Qigong, you know, or, know, yeah, I may not have time to do my full hour of connecting and all that kind of stuff, but I may have 10 minutes to do some prayers and meditation or something like that. And so I may be sitting in my car at the parking lot before I walk into work or a meeting or something. And so you just kind of.

Julie Hilsen (15:56)
Yeah, well, that's it.

Craig Meriwether (16:03)
Find those times and it's the practice of it. And you can have, again, like we talking about before, it's through the practice that you can find that confidence. You can find that joy and that happiness. And even if you don't feel confidence, I don't feel joyful, I don't feel happy, I don't feel confident. I don't feel loving. It's been a rough time. And yeah, I understand that. But to wire your brain for it, you have to practice and sometimes maybe just pretending.

is enough pretending you have the confidence visualizing yourself in the future up let's say speaking in front of public getting the standing ovation from doing such a great job with your speech there's a research study that was done in the 90s this is right when like a lot of the MRI machines coming out of spec scans and things where scientists could watch the brain in real time before all we knew about the brain was what they

gained from sociological experiments and autopsies. So here they could watch the brain in real time. this group of researchers wanted to watch the brain as it learned something new. And so they picked piano and they brought a bunch of volunteers in to learn how to play piano. They taught them the simple little exercises and scales and little songs you learn as a beginner. Taught them how to do this. And they came into the lab for seven days straight and practice for two hours.

They had the control group, because when you're doing this kind of research, you need that control group that doesn't do anything because compare and contrast. Here's a brain that doesn't do anything, doesn't learn anything new. Here's a brain that's learning how to play piano at the end of the week. Where are the differences? Compare and contrast. But they also had a third group. This work is really interesting is they had a third group only pretend to play the piano, to learn the piano. So he brought this group in. They showed him the simple little scales and exercises and little songs that you learn as a beginner.

But instead of sitting at the piano, they sat in a recliner. They closed their eyes and they pretended to the piano, practice the piano. So at the end of the week, they watching everybody's brain. At the end of the week, the control group, nothing changed in their brain. Of course they didn't, they didn't learn anything. They didn't do anything new. Nothing changed in their brain. No big mystery there. The group that actually played the piano, we put their hands on the piano, worked the keys with their fingers, heard the music, read the sheet music with their eyeballs. They developed a new neural network.

in the part of the brain for music, neurons, brain cells connecting together, forming a new neural network that was visible in the part of the brain for music. And of course they were. They're doing something new, they're learning something. Of course they developed a new neural network. No big mystery there. But what was extraordinary is a group who only pretended to play the piano also developed the same neural network in the same part of the brain. Brains look like they're playing the piano, even though they never touched it, they never heard music, they never read the sheet music.

by pretending that whole fake it till you make a thing is real. And so, yeah, maybe you don't have the confidence right now. You don't have the joy, you don't have the happiness. Within about a week, you start rewiring your brain just by pretending you do. And according to the University College of London, it takes something like 66 days to create a habit. So this doesn't take years and years and years, even if the issues, the hurt and pain was there for years, even if it happened

you know, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, it's not going to take years and years and years to fix. We're talking weeks, if not months. And that's the extraordinary illness of the human brain. You literally start rewiring your brain in about a week and within about two months, you'll have a new habit, a new habit. Automatic feeling state mindset, you know, tying your shoes without having to think about it, whatever your martial arts, that punch, that kick, the dance move, whatever it is.

Julie Hilsen (19:24)
That's inspiring. Yeah.

Craig Meriwether (19:45)
Within about two months, you'll have a new habit where you can just happen automatically within the unconscious part of mind. And that's pretty extraordinary as a human being. So again, it goes back to what are you practicing then? You know, and that's where the watchfulness has to happen. What are you telling yourself? What are other people telling you? What are you watching? What are you getting involved with? And yeah, I know the world's on fire, but there's also got to be time to make sure you're moving and growing.

in the way you want to and you're allowed to do that. The world's on fire and the Dalai Lama still finds time every day to practice loving kindness and compassion meditation. know, and so if we each, know, whatever it is, even if you have five minutes, there's something you can do. You don't have two hours to pretend you're playing piano. You don't have four hours like the Dalai Lama to meditate. You know, what if you have five minutes? What if you have 10 minutes? What could you do? Yeah. And that's where, you know, the lists come out and the practices and

Julie Hilsen (20:40)
Well, that's a good segue.

Craig Meriwether (20:43)
and all that.

Julie Hilsen (20:43)
Yeah. Well, I was going to ask you that's a great segue because I wanted to ask you about that morning, getting in the zone first thing in the morning that you had mentioned at some point when we were talking about there's a getting into the state and

Craig Meriwether (20:51)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (20:58)
So

maybe that could be an action step, maybe getting into the state when you're brushing your teeth. Because you're sitting there, you know, I one of those automatic toothbrushes that you get 30 seconds in each zone. And I'm always like, oh, I'm so bored. I'll walk around and then I'll forget what zone I was on. be like, I don't know if I got zone four. I got to go back. so, it'll be done. I'm like, wait, I only did three zones. I got to start it. Maybe that'd be a good time for me to.

Craig Meriwether (21:13)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Start again.

Yeah.

Julie Hilsen (21:28)
you know, focus on. So what is your morning routine to get in the state or the zone of confidence or loving kindness or whatever, however you want to start your day?

Craig Meriwether (21:37)
Right, right, yeah, and

depending on the morning and how much time I have, but there's a couple exercises I like to do, and I could show you real quick. I'll do like the quick couple minute versions of these. But if you just have five, six minutes, there's a couple of really great exercises to do. Some of your listeners may already heard of these before, but they're a great way to center yourself and ground yourself, as well as change your brain chemistry, reset your nervous system.

and reset your reticulatory activator system. The reticulatory activator system is part of the brain. It's one that's always looking for danger. That's why a new mom will wake up when hearing the baby cough in the other room or sneeze or cry out in the middle of the night. You're always hearing. You smell smoke, you wake up. You hear the back door open at 4 a.m., you wake up. Too hot, too cold, gotta go to bathroom, you wake up. That's your reticulatory activator system. You're driving towards the red light, I'm sorry, driving towards the green light, and now your peripheral vision, see

the other car going way too fast towards the red, so he's slamming your brakes automatically, that's your reticular activating system. But it's also there to help you create solutions and find answers. And that's that thing when you're thinking about buying a new car and you're thinking about buying a Toyota Prius. It's like, now you see Toyota Priuses everywhere. You know, they're there yesterday, the day before, but you just weren't focused on them because now you're looking at the solution to the new car, gets good gas mileage, may I get a Toyota Prius. And then you think, well, yeah, but...

Julie Hilsen (22:50)
It's true.

Craig Meriwether (23:00)
You know, family likes to be outdoors. We like to go hiking and being out in nature. Maybe we should get a four-wheel drive car. Maybe we should get a Jeep. But now you refocus your reticular activator system and I see Jeeps everywhere. Well, Jeeps were always parked next to the Priuses and driving down the street. You just weren't focused on them. Just as you're not seeing the Kias or the BMWs or the Dodge Caravans. And so this is that thing, if you've ever had this experience of your day going from bad to worse.

You focus your reticular activating system to find you more things to be upset about, to be angry about, to be afraid of even. And it's that, it's this process of biology where we have the five senses. We'll see here taste, touch, smell. We're being inundated with 11 million bits of information per second. So the temperature of the room, which you probably don't notice unless it's too hot or too cold.

Julie Hilsen (23:35)
to match your state,

Craig Meriwether (23:56)
Maybe the little sounds around you like the refrigerator going on or the ceiling fans on maybe. We don't notice it unless there's like maybe a squeak or something and the ceiling fan is like, what's that? There's something off about that. It's too bright or too dark. You don't notice unless there's something a little bit off about it because we can't handle all that information. So we have to filter out a lot of stuff. We're only cognizant of 50 bits, five zero, 50 bits of that 11 million.

And so when you're focusing on your day going from bad to worse, you're filtering out all the good stuff. Yeah. And so what's great about doing these exercises in the morning, whatever it may be for you, I'll show you a couple of that I like to do, but whatever your, your, techniques or exercises are in the morning by doing them in the, or during your day, but by doing in the morning, you focus your reticular activating system to find you. If you're looking for your exercises about peace.

or love or loving kindness or compassion. And you focus on that in the morning, you refocus your reticular activator systems and find more things to bring you more love, kindness, compassion, things like that. And so this first exercise, I wanna show everybody real quick. And it's simply called three, two, one reset. This is one I like to do in the morning because it gets me into that zone I want to be in. And this may be not great for if you're like out.

about to run a marathon or get into competition for sports, or you gotta do that business meeting and the promotion, whatever. But in terms of me and what I want my day to go, this is a great one for me. And the three stands for three slow breaths, because that will help reset your nervous system. The vagus nerve comes down out of the back of the head. It's a big part of that parasympathetic nervous system. So we have the sympathetic nervous system, the stress response.

parasympathetic relaxation response, when all the energy goes back to the right systems that need it the most at that point in time. So we have the parasympathetic nervous system. The vagus nerve is a big part of that. Attaches to the eyes, to the ears, to the muscles of your jaw, goes past your vocal cords, attaches to your heart, to your lungs, and to your gut. And by breathing deeply into your gut, you flatten out that diaphragm, it fills like where your rib cage is. Your lungs are huge.

And so, you your heart is something like the size of your fist. Your stomach's not that much bigger. Kidneys are pretty small. The lungs are huge because we need that much oxygen coming in. So breathing in deeply, because when you're stressed, you shallow breathe. This brain takes 20 % of the oxygen we breathe in. So the more you breathe in, the more fuel, oxygen you can send to your brain for rational, calm thinking. Resets the nervous system, moving you over to the parasympathetic, because that vagus nerve is attached to the lungs. As you exhale, you can even

Exhale with a sigh. Because as you vibrate the vocal cords, you're vibrating the vagus nerve that goes right by it, therefore stimulating the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, relaxation response. So, that's why humming and singing feels so good. Because you're vibrating the vagus nerve, you're stimulating the vagus nerve, therefore activating the parasympathetic. So even exhaling with a sigh if it's appropriate. And the two, the three, two, one, where he says we're gonna create

bilateral stimulation. And when somebody's in feeling anxious, is feeling afraid, feeling really angry, you're lighting up a part of the right side of the brain. Well, it needs oxygen, blood supply, fuel, nutrients to energize all these brain cells sending their little electrical signals to each other. So it vacuums it away, pulls it away from these other parts of the brain. These other parts of the brain go quiet. So one way of undoing that is by bilateral stimulation, which is just movement exercises.

Left side, right side of the brain controls, left side of the body, the side of the brain controls, right side of the body. So just here's my little squeezy ball, just by moving your arms, you can start pulling that energy away to light up these other parts of the brain. And since I'm moving on both sides of my body, I'm lighting up each side of my hemisphere in different ways. You can do a different way. If you've ever seen somebody drumming on their knees in a meeting or back in school, they're not hyper, they're nervous.

and they're self soothing by drumming on their knees, walking, left foot, right foot, left foot, that's bilateral stimulation. What we're gonna do is we're gonna grab our shoulders. And this is bilateral stimulation, because you grab on each shoulder, but you also obviously see that this is a hug. This is nurturing, healing, loving touch, even if you're giving it to yourself. And if you wanna kinda squeeze your shoulders or give yourself a bear hug or do the havening technique, which is like rubbing your hands up and down, it's very, very calming.

very reassuring, very loving. This is nurturing, healing touch. This is sending a signal from the nerves in your arms. Remember you touched that hot pot, signal goes up your nerve to your brain. Hey, you're touching a hot pot, let it go, goes back down, you let it go. The nerves are now sending a signal up to your brain. It's creating the hormone GABA, which is dissipating and evaporating all the adrenaline and cortisol and stress hormones so it can now fill your brain with oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. The feel-good chemistry.

Julie Hilsen (28:59)
You don't

need an edible, you just need a hug.

Craig Meriwether (29:01)
Yeah, yeah, you actually don't.

And if this is safe for you to do so, of course, if you're driving, if you're watching the kids around the pool, if you're in a safe place, yeah, if you're in a safe place and you can do so, it's safe for you to do so. So close your eyes, think of somebody you want to give a hug to. Remember, the mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. It's like those piano players.

Julie Hilsen (29:08)
Yeah, don't do it unless you have a Tesla as long as your Tesla's not on fire

Craig Meriwether (29:27)
And because you're sending the signal of love, compassion, even hugging yourself, and now you're imagining hugging somebody that you care for, you're flooding your brain with an oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, and creating molecules called neuropeptides that send the message of emotion to your body. When you're feeling upset, these are literal molecules of anxiety, anger, overwhelm, worry. In this instant, we're creating molecules of love, joy, and happiness.

top of the hormones of oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine. Thinking of that person, that person can be in your life today, it could be a pet. You have a dog, a cat. If you align yourself with a spirit animal, a power animal, the wolf, the bear, the dolphin, it doesn't matter. Your mind can't tell the difference between what's real or what's imagined. Maybe it's somebody who's no longer with us, your grandparents, grandmother, your grandfather. Somebody you've never met before, Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, Gandhi.

The mind can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined. As you feel the physiology, this hug, and imagine hugging somebody you care about. You will literally resetting your nervous system and literally hacking your brain and changing the chemistry of your brain five minutes, six minutes. I mean, you do it for half an hour if you'd like, but if you only have five, six minutes, you sit in your car and do this before you walk into that meeting or walk into the classroom or whatever. If you've had a rough day.

Life is life. Sometimes there's challenges. You've had a rough day. Do this exercise before you walk back into your house and be with family and friends and things. Reset yourself, put yourself in state. And if you want that state of joy, of happiness, this is a great exercise to do that with. And even if just five, six minutes, you will literally reset your nervous system and hack your brain to change your brain chemistry. And the more you practice something, the better you get at it.

and it'll be faster and easier to get into that state because you're literally wiring your brain for that state of happiness and joy and compassion and love and whenever I'll see you on.

Julie Hilsen (31:26)
Yeah, and it immediately cancel deletes the fight or flight because those three deep breaths are like you're safe. Like if you're breathing through your nose and you're breathing calm and deep breaths, you're safe. It's the opposite of panting or gulping for air or holding your breath. Like, you know, and you said when we're stressed, we shallow breathe. I adore breath work. It's just transformative.

Craig Meriwether (31:30)
Yeah, immediately.

Yeah.

Well, and what's also funny, I I know we're getting close to the end here, but what's fascinating about the biology around that breath is that, you know, something like 30, 35 days or so without food and the body dies. Something like three to four days without water, five days without water, we die. But it's like five, six minutes without oxygen. We're unconscious eight, nine minutes. We have permanent brain damage. Ten minutes and we're dead.

So you literally have minutes. You're on a fast for medical reasons, spiritual reasons. Great, that's fantastic. Amazing. You don't have a glass of water today, not great, but you're gonna be okay. But you don't breathe, you have minutes. And the biology, your mind, your brain knows this. So if you're not breathing well, you can really start to panic. You are not getting the force, essence, biology of air going through your system.

The oxygen you need to maintain life. And the feeling state of panic is anxiety. And so one of the great things to do is to breathe. Again, the lungs are huge. They're huge for a reason. We need that much air. you know, and we, when we're stressed, we tighten the stomach muscles waiting for that one, two punch to the gut. The rib cage is here for the heart and the lungs, but the only thing protecting the vital organs of the abdomen are the muscles. So you tighten the muscles.

They even need time to relax those muscles, practice relaxing those muscles so you can get that big belly breath. You know, we don't want to pants to fit better, look good at the high school reunion and the wedding and everything. So we suck it in. But if you relax it and breathe deeply into your abdomen, flattening out that diaphragm, getting the air in the bottom of our lungs. I mean, that's exactly what we need to be doing. And it will turn off the stress response.

Julie Hilsen (33:18)
Mm, yeah, that big belly breath

Yeah.

Yeah, give yourself the Buddha belly.

Like when you really fill it up, you get the Buddha belly, like your first trimester.

Craig Meriwether (33:39)
Yeah, yeah. it's, and yeah, I don't see any magazines

where people are doing that and everybody's looking thin and in shape. so it's, yeah, it doesn't feel, you yeah.

Julie Hilsen (33:45)
No.

yeah, and those Spanx? I mean, you probably haven't worn

Spanx, but with women, when we put on those Spanx, it's like, shwoop! And he is...

Craig Meriwether (33:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. It sucks it in. And like, yeah, I get it. I want to look good too at the wedding. I want to look good in my high school reunion, but you know, I want my jeans to fit better.

Julie Hilsen (34:04)
Yeah, and just realizing

subconsciously the message you're sending your body is there's not enough air and then you can go from there.

Craig Meriwether (34:10)
Yeah, if you're not out of air, what's

the mind gonna do? It's gonna start to panic. And again, the feeling state of panic is anxiety. literally those molecules of anxiety are gonna dump into your system. Yeah, yeah.

Julie Hilsen (34:19)
and okay, so.

Mm-hmm, and I just

public service announcement. I'm sorry. I have to interject People are going crazy about these the candles and melting the wax for the smells and it it makes the air quality horrible like They're not putting real vanilla in that wax candle melt thing

just be aware that's affecting your air quality. And it's the number one most important thing, you know, you need clean water and clean air to to just show up as your best. And when you're inhaling these artificial petroleum based scents, your body has to filter out the toxins. It just does. These microplastics are all over on our bodies around us. So control what you can. So please. I mean, you might have spent a lot of money. They might be pretty

But maybe just turn on the light, but don't put the wax thing on it.

Craig Meriwether (35:15)
I love candles. I like to use it when I can, when I have longer periods of time to do my more ritual kind of work. But yeah, I try to find those ones that are harder to find than they used to be. Non perfumed candles.

Julie Hilsen (35:23)
Hmm.

They're hard to find. I think the soy ones,

they're coconut-based or soy-based. You have to look and see if they're non-toxic. It's like, really? We just want to chill out.

Craig Meriwether (35:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, I just want to light a candle. Oh, it shouldn't be that hard.

Julie Hilsen (35:44)
So pretty. and the poor bees, you know, we can't use all their beeswax for candles. They need some for their eyes. But it's a consciousness.

Craig Meriwether (35:50)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I don't I don't have 40

dollars for a tiny little candle every two weeks

Julie Hilsen (35:56)
⁓ my gosh, this has been so much fun. I appreciate all your insight and I can share your website with the audience on the show notes, but you want to call it out in case someone just wants to.

Craig Meriwether (35:56)
that.

Yeah.

Sure, yeah.

I don't know if this ever got through, but I think at the beginning we were talking about I'm a hypnotherapist and I could go on for three hours about that. It's a fascinating modality, but I'm a hypnotherapist. And if you want more information about that, I'm happy to talk with you, email, phone, text, Arizona Integrated Hypnotherapy, but I work with people around the country, around the world through Zoom. It's a wonderful way of doing it. In fact, what research says that...

Zoom sessions might actually work better than in person because people feel safe and relaxed in their homes. And so they relax a little bit deeper and not just hypnotherapy, but talk therapy, relationship counseling, coaching, know, doctorate appointments. Research over last five years. So Zoom sessions work as well as in person and maybe even better in person as well with some research. So happy to talk with you about it if you're interested at all. Arizona integrated, Hidlotherapy links are probably somewhere around here, but

live in Flagstaff, so if you just Google Flagstaff hypnosis, I'll show up somewhere.

Julie Hilsen (37:08)
Nice, that's so great. I just adore your work. Thanks for sharing your expertise and insight. This has been a blast.

Craig Meriwether (37:10)
Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Julie.