Creative on Purpose Live - Mary Welp

Looks like it's showtime. It looks like we've successfully landed where we're supposed to be. Welcome to Creative on Purpose Live, insightful conversations with inspiring difference makers to help you live your legacy in endeavors that matter. I'm your host, Scott Perry, Chief Difference Maker at Creative on Purpose. If you're ready to fly higher in the difference only you can make, visit creativeonpurpose.com and sign up for the weekly newsletter. Get insight and inspiration for better living and making a bigger difference delivered to your inbox 3 times a week. And grab a free copy of the Live Your Legacy Quick Start Guide. Let's meet today's guest, Mary Welp. Welcome to the broadcast. Please tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where can people go to learn more about you and the difference you're making?

Absolutely. Thank you, Scott Perry. Really happy to be here. My name is Mary Welp. I am a hypnotherapist and a craniosacral therapist, and I've been in private practice for 20 years. And when the pandemic came, things shifted, you know, the one-on-one shifted, as I think it happened with a lot of us. Things shifted and we needed to shift with it. So I started thinking about the work that I've done with my clients over the years, and there was a therapy that I started marrying the bodywork and hypnotherapy and teaching them self-hypnosis so that people could do their own work between sessions. So as I sat with it, the RISE really came to me, and it's an acronym for the 4 steps. So what I have been doing lately is I've written a book about RISE, how to do RISE and why it works and what you can address with it. And then I've also been teaching it and traveling, and as I can, and as things open up a little bit here and there, I've been going to yoga studios and mental health centers and anywhere I'm invited and teach people how to do RISE. Because what I found with my clients is they would walk in the door knowing what their block was. They knew what they wanted to shift and change. They just didn't quite know how to move the energy. So we would do some in session, but then they would take it home and work on themselves in the evening or do the process. It only takes 10-15 minutes. And as they did it, they would come back and tell me that they've been using it for other things that they started. We started working on boundaries, and now it's shifted to I'm getting my more patience in my life, or I'm looking at some of the imprints in my life and why I react the way I react to things. And I really appreciated that people, I think, now really also be spending more time alone. We We're faced with our issues a little more. They're a little louder. They're a little more in our face. And we need tools. We need tools. We don't— can't always get with someone to help us work through things, and we need tools to help shift things. So I'm very passionate about RISE. I'm very excited about it and teaching it. You know, you see people awaken. You know, you see a layer come off. You see them inspired in some way to make a shift in their lives. And, um, so I'm just trying to grow it as much as I can and put it in as many people's hands as I can.

Really, really fantastic. I, I'd love to just get a little bit more of a handle because I think hypnosis is, for some of us, something that feels fairly exotic and something that, you know, we don't have a lot of, um, lived experience with. It's something that may be seen as kind of on the fringes, um, even, uh, you know, especially of, you know, the traditional approach to psychology, medicine, and, and that sort of thing. And, and just the fact that you're, you're marrying that, uh, with meditation seems unique and interesting to me. So I'm just curious about if you could give us some context for, you know, what hypnosis itself is and why it's effective, and, um, and then how you put them together in a unique way.

Well, hypnosis, I would argue with you, we do all the time, every day. When we miss that exit on the freeway, we're in a hypnotic state. When we zone out watching television and it's like, oh, what, what just happened? Or we're reading a book and we realize we don't realize what we've read the last couple paragraphs and we have to go back and start again. So I think stage hypnosis and some of the way that hypnosis has been used has given it a false false identity. We are in a hypnotic state many, many times a day. It's very rejuvenating. The body craves it, and really it's just relaxing the nervous system. So again, we do that in different ways, you know, taking a shower, taking a deep breath. There's lots of ways— going for a walk— that we put ourselves in hypnotic stages. And again, I think the stage hypnosis has given it a false identity because we can shift things no matter what the depth of relaxation is. You can just be open and receptive and things can shift. You don't have to be in a catatonic state as it is portrayed. Hmm. So what hypnosis does though is that it allows you to target something. You don't hypnotize just to hypnotize. You know, like meditation, you might sit just to meditate. Hypnosis, you're usually addressing something that you want to shift in change in your life. So by setting up this practice, you can continually address an issue until it does shift. And sometimes that takes one session, or maybe it takes a couple of days, or maybe it takes a week, but it gives you a format and a practice. The meditation part gives it that daily practice to keep going in and looking at, okay, how much have I shifted? You know, have I really shifted? Because when we do move things, the world challenges us and says, you know, did you really change that? Are you really ready to let that go? So I found that by helping my clients do this as a regular daily practice, that they could move things more quickly, and they could also do the work on them themselves on their own. And so I've made the practice as basic and simple as I can so that when you rest to do the work, you don't have to get a piece of paper out and read it and, okay, what's next, what's the next step, that it's kind of a logical, simple process. So R is for relax. So you do a body progressive relaxation, or, you know, the deep breaths that really still the nervous system. Then I is imagine. You want to go to a very safe, happy place. And some— maybe somewhere you've been before, or you can create it where you think of a beach or somewhere in nature. And then S is suggest. That's where you actually do the work to move the energy. So you can do that through a visualization, you can do it through progression, you can do it through affirmation. It really depends upon what you need and what the issue is that you're addressing. And then E is empower. So once you move that energy, what do you want to have replace it? So if you're letting go of a bad habit, or you'll get it letting go of anger, you know, if you're— if a certain situation comes up, you know, that you're struggling with, how are you going to deal with it differently this time? And really to think about that and embody that. And then it becomes more of a natural process in your life. You're not thinking so much about that block during a day.

So what I'm hearing is that it's a practice that allows you to become aware and, and of, and, and to bring your attention, your consciousness, to, to some, to a circumstance, a situation, a moment, so that you can make that shift happen. Am I, am I reading that right?

Yep. Yep.

Fantastic. And so is it Um, is this idea of hypnotic meditation something new that you put together, or is this— are these both practices that have always had some, some integration or, uh, points of intersection?

Yeah, I, I think they go so well together, and I have been marrying them together myself in my own practice. Just at the end of the day I like to lie in bed and review the day and kind of see what went right and what went wrong and kind of clear the slate. And so I think they're very natural together. The meditation to me just helps to keep it as a regular practice that you're not just doing it today for a boundary issue, but you can also use it next month for your golf swing or for your eating habits or whatever, more patience, whatever issue or challenge that you're up against that you're, you know, that you want to look at.

Really, really fascinating. Um, what's interesting is that for, for me, my lifelong interest in Stoic philosophy provides a lot of practices and a lot of insights for bringing a similar kind of awareness, attention, and consciousness to developing virtue potential, stepping into possibility, embracing uncertainty and adversity without anxiety. And what I heard you say earlier is that your, your clients experience a greater sense of equanimity. I don't think you use that word, but patience and a sense of calm. And I love that that you wove in this. I had never really thought of it this way, but hypnosis is a way of relaxing your nervous system, which is, you know, definitely something that I feel like is part of the meditative tradition and a lot of other spiritual and philosophical traditions. The thing that I'm always really curious about is, you know, I'm guessing that 9-year-old Mary Whelp did not wake up one day and say, you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to be a hypnotic meditation teacher. And I certainly didn't wake up at 9 years old and say, "You know what? I want to be a podcaster and coach." So I'm always just curious about, you know, the backstory, the origin story, like what brought you into this work?

Oh, Scott. Yeah.

The other thing is, I would just be curious if you see any common thread in the things that you've done that lead up to this, because to me, that it's always interesting to see if there's an overarching theme or thread that we could follow in retrospect, you know, that makes sense now, but probably did not make sense at the time.

Yes. Um, no, 9-year-old Mary Whelp had no idea that any of this even existed. And actually, the 39-year-old Mary Whelp had never had a massage, had never heard the word chakra, had no idea the willingness and the wanting of the body and the mind and the spirit to heal. So my story is a surrender story, really. My father had passed away in '93, and he was the first person close to me that had ever passed. And I didn't know what to do with the grief. I didn't know— I didn't know what to do.. And I realize now, looking back, that I've just kept stuffing and adding more to the list and keeping myself busy and thinking I was doing the right things. And I had a moment of surrender where I literally went to my knees bawling and saying, you know, I can't do it my way anymore. It's not working. And I said, you know, I know I have purpose, show me. And I just started to not be closed to things. To look to see what came into my life and to be open to it. And then I got a job at a bed and breakfast where I learned Reiki and craniosacral later on, and then that developed into the hypnotherapy practice. So in asking for the thread among it all, I guess the, the jobs I had before I had my awakening was I was a pastry chef for many years, and I also trained horses. So I've been a caregiver, you know, feeding the sweets and the bread. You know, people always greet you with a smile when you're a pastry chef, but it was a way for me to nurture and to take care of people. And also when I was training horses, it was the same thing. It was— I was, you know, teaching them very early, you know, things to do— how to lead on a, on a halter, and very basic early horse things. So, um, those things carried on. So when I started working with people one-on-one, it wasn't ever something I ever thought I would do, but it was a time of my life where I continually surrendered and let go and invited in whatever came. And I, for some reason— and maybe I just have it in me— but I had that trust that the universe would provide if I would stop trying so darn hard and putting so many obstacles in my way, and I would relax. Then things would start to happen and unfold, and they did.

Yeah, it's fascinating that you brought up the theme of surrender because it's something that I was posting on social media earlier this week, you know, this idea, uh, we talk about it quite frequently at Creative On Purpose, this idea of letting go of what's not yours to begin with. Um, and I think especially in this country, especially if you look like me, you, you, you feel like you're actually in control of much more than you're actually in control of. And, um, and what's interesting about your story that, that And please correct me if I'm wrong, but what was resonating as also something that's true of my story is, you know, that moment of surrender and opening up to possibility and becoming— re-engaging our, you know, awe and wonder about all the things that we don't know and our curiosity to explore the edges of our understanding and ability often comes when we experience, you know, some sort of failure, some sort of fall, or some sort of, you you know, what we might call trauma. And, you know, these are things that very sadly can really just break people. But for some of us, it just seems like we're lucky enough to be broken open to the possibility. And by letting go of what's not ours, we can then start to— you know, what I'm hearing in some of your previous experiences, you know, pastry chefs, I've never been one, but I, I've— some of my best friends are pastry chefs, and I know it's a craft. I mean, it takes a lot of skill to get to the point to where you just intuitively know how to not just, you know, put the things together, but how to, um, you know, knead it or, you know, roll it out or whatever, how to bake it. And with horses, that also seems, um, like a, a craft where developing intuition and instinct, um, is really important. And it feels like that must also be a part, uh, of the work that you're doing now. And so I'm interested in— you brought up trust towards the end, and I think another subject near and dear to our heart, uh, here at Creative On Purpose is learning to trust ourselves. And I'm curious about that part of it because again, I don't think that's something that we get a lot of training in our educational, occupational, industrial complex does not encourage us to do a lot of trusting of ourselves.

So yeah, we're looking for the problems, you know. And for me, I think it was accentuating the positive. And really, when something good would happen, or when I would really connect with someone, or when I would connect with an idea, or when I learned Reiki and my hands turned on, or, you know, to really treasure that moment and make it louder than that part of me that was saying, oh, Reiki's nothing, you're not doing anything, your hands are sitting there, what, you know, there's no color, there's no explosions, there's no, you know, nothing fancy happening here, there's nothing going on. And it was the more I would do that, the more I became validated. And, and also, honestly, I asked for the validation. I said, if I'm on the right path, if this is what I'm supposed to do, let it be easy. Maybe not easy is not the right word, but let it feel right. Let it be a type of flow where I'm not pushing it, I'm not having to have it, I'm not, you know, making it. I'm allowing it.

Yeah, I, I really feel that because we— I, I call it pushing the river. I can tell when I'm pushing the river. I'm getting excited. I'm exhausting myself by doing it, by, by overtrying. And when it becomes a little bit more— when, you know, I— when things become effortless, um, it's, you know, often because I'm doing the, what's essential and nothing more, and letting the transformation emerge naturally. Because it's not just about me and the effort that I'm putting through, but it's also about the people that I'm doing that work with and for, and the circumstances and situations I find, you know, put myself in or find myself in. Really, really powerful. There's one thing before we get to our final question that you said that I would really love for you to speak more to, because again, it's been a theme in the recent weeks here at Creative On Purpose. And this idea, um, that you said that, you know, when the pandemic hit, um, one of the things that you were seeing in your clients was, you know, the, the, the challenge of loneliness. And we live in a, in a world, um, that doesn't allow us to be lonely, uh, because there it's always putting us you know, with other people, sometimes in straight rows, listening to somebody tell us what we need to know, um, or tell us, telling us what to do. Um, and, um, at the same time, we can, we can, even as we are surrounded by other people at school or on the job, we can feel very lonely. But there's also what I was hearing, what you're saying is, um, helping people give them tools to, I guess, reframe or redefine their loneliness and engage something healthier like solitude. And I don't know if I'm reading that incorrectly or not, but I just wonder if, like, what are the approaches that you use to help people, you know, with this epidemic? It's one of the things that psychologists say is the most devastating thing happening on the planet right now. It's not a pandemic, it's our feeling of disconnect and loneliness.

And I think that's because we have relied on others to tell us how to think and what to do. So when that light gets turned on us, it's, you know, the deer in the headlights. You know, what do I do with that? And so for my clients, and what I've been seeing a lot of, is the negative self-talk, comes up first and the loudest. We tell us what's wrong, what's going to happen. We go down that fear spiral and worry. And for as difficult as this time has been, there has also been a lot of opportunity and a lot of great new growth that is coming out of this time. And I think if everyone spends a little time thinking about it, there are things in their life that are also have changed for the positive. Whether they found their voice or have addressed some bad habits or whatever. But I think addressing the negative self-talk and giving themselves credit for what they have, how they are surviving, how they are doing the best they can in an unbelievable situation. We don't spend equal time with the worry and the negativity as we do the positive, and much less raising the positive up a little bit higher. So really quieting that negative voice and telling it to go sit in the corner, that it's not helping, it's not appropriate, you can be quiet now. And finding that, that inner voice, you know, our brains are— we can train them like pets. You know, our mind, our conscious mind anyway, is very habit-inducing, very— it loves habit. So we can also form good habit. And I think by looking at whatever that light is shining in on us, you know, how can we reframe that? How can we turn a negative into a positive, or just realize that it's something that is you know, that we don't need to carry anymore. We don't need to do. We can let it go and give ourselves permission to do that because we have so much of a voice of, well, I always have done it that way. I have to do it this way. I've always thrown the birthday party for Great Grandma. I have to do it this year, you know. And just to be open to what comes, to be and allow the surprise. I think there's a lot of surprises out there for all of us that are positive and that are, um, you know, validating. So, um, allowing room and space for them.

Yeah, I, I love that. I, I love the idea of taking some of that a step further because one of the things that I noticed when the pandemic first hit and people were contending with the status quo. Like, we love the status quo. We love to know what, where we stand and what's expected. That's a part of human nature. But we also have that aspirational, exploring, adventurous nature of wondering what's beyond the horizon. And the pandemic, you know, initially was an invitation to realize how much we took for granted, um, and how, you know, how little gratitude we were expressing on a daily basis for the everyday conveniences, pleasures, and experiences that we had, especially when it came to human-to-human connection. Um, and, you know, that voice, whether you call it resistance, imposter syndrome, anxiety, fear, whatever, it's also in some ways to me, a teacher and a wayfinder. I don't experience a lot of anxiety when I'm sitting on the couch deciding what to watch on TV. But when I'm pointing in a direction where I may actually be, you know, stepping into my potential or, you know, trying something new, learning something new, doing something new that might actually enhance my experience. The voice of the imposter and resistance gets pretty loud, which can be an indication that I'm heading in a direction worth exploring.

And that's exactly what I've been going through the last year. I've not been a teacher before. It's been me in my dark little office and my massage table for 20 years. And now I'm a teacher and I'm an author. And those are roles and labels that I never imagined for myself. And, uh, would have scared me to death 2 years ago. Yeah, but now it's like, what the heck, you know? I have something to offer, offer it, see what happens.

Yeah, what a gift. And it's been— you and I were speaking before we hopped on about the theme of the show this year being Live Your Legacy, and this idea that, you know, we spend the first half of our lives doing what society, you know, what our parents, what our teachers, what society, what our occupations tell us to do. And we get rewarded for that with status and, and stuff and a salary. Um, and we think that that's defining who we are. For many of us feel that, you know, define ourselves by that for a long time. And then when it gets disrupted, and I think there's been a kind of awakening amongst a lot of folks, uh, because of the pandemic and the interruption to the way things have been usually done, that, um, maybe there's more to us than what we do for a living. And maybe, um, we could actually define ourselves beyond our role, uh, and, and, um, lean into this, the soul, the sacrifice, the service to others, um, that might lead to something that's worth remembering after we're gone. And I feel that in that story that you were just sharing, like you in some ways reinvented yourself where you pivoted, you couldn't do your work the way you were doing it. So you found a way to deliver your message and maybe in a way broadened your reach and connected with even more people and were able to share more healing with more people that way.

That's my dream.

Awesome. Well, the last question that I always ask is, um, you know, you've shared several pieces of, of insight and wisdom already that will inspire those that seek to, you know, make a bigger difference and find the difference only they can make and share it with others. If there was just one final insight, tip, tool, exercise, mantra, quote that you could share for someone like you that would like to step a little bit, you know, half a shade braver into their potential and the difference only they could make, what would you tell them?

Be open and allow. Don't, don't have a preconceived notion about anything. Be a blank slate every day.

I love it. Love it, love it, love it. All right, folks, well, we thank you for tuning in. Mary and I really appreciate you lending us your valuable time and attention. We hope that today's broadcast motivates you to take a bolder step into possibility, living your legacy. You can learn more about Mary at risehypnoticmeditation.com. And of course, it's always fantastic to see you over at creativeonpurpose.com as well. If you're listening to this as a podcast, please consider, consider leaving us a 5-star review. And now take the insight and inspiration from this conversation and go fly a little bit higher in the difference only you can make. Mary Walt, thank you so much for sharing your insight and inspiration today.

Appreciate it.