Thoughts of the Day

Photo by Sara Fogan

Every now and then I like (and need) to take a few moments and remind myself about what is really important to me, in my life. If you follow me on my Calminsense Hypnotherapy Facebook page you may have seen some of these quotes before on this page, or will in the future. Many of these Quotes of the Day are beautiful examples and illustrations of the work I do as a hypnotherapist, so I will probably draw on them in future essays.

• “Remember that all successful people started with no experience and moments of self-doubt. Don't let that stop you!” – Bruce Van Horn

• “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours.” – Buddha  

• “Bad news is: You cannot make people like, love, understand, validate, accept or be nice to you. Good news is: It doesn’t matter.” – Unknown

• “A bad attitude is contagious.” – Lolly Daskal

• “You cannot control the results, only your actions.” – Allan Lokos

• “Sometimes one creates an impression by saying something; sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.” – Dalai Lama

• “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” – Muhammad Ali

• “It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” – William Somerset Maugham

• “You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best-loved ideas.” – Charlie Munger

• “The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.” – Nadine Gordimer

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

Moving On, Part 2

(This blog was originally posted on August 4, 2014)

Image courtesy of Microsoft

In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe conducted a study to identify which stressful life events cause physical illness.¹ They published the results of this study as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. It comes as little or no surprise that Holmes and Rahe’s research rated death of a spouse, divorce and marital separation, respectively, as the three most stressful life events. Whatever the cause, letting go of a relationship can be very difficult and painful. For some people, it is traumatic. In this blog, I explain how experiencing grief and working through the five stages of loss during hypnotherapy can help you accept that the relationship is finished.

When someone is having trouble accepting that the relationship is over, Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., advised taking the client through the stages of grief and loss² during hypnotherapy. Although there are five stages of loss, it is important to remember that not everyone experiences each stage of grief or even go through them consecutively. It is also possible to repeat these stages and to experience one or more at the same time.

• Stage 1: Denial, characterized by shock and numbness, and refusing to accept that the relationship is over.

• Stage 2: Resentment. Anger at the other person(s) in the relationship or anyone else who is around.

• Stage 3: Bargaining, wherein the person tries to make a deal with God, themselves and other people in his or her life to just get the person/relationship back.

• Stage 4: Grief. This stage is characterized by crying and/or emotional withdrawal. (If the person is crying excessively, I would also require a medical or psychological referral so I could address this issue in hypnosis.)

• Stage 5: Resolution. During this final stage of grief and mourning, the person starts to get his or her life back on track. The individual begins to feel more hopeful and accepts the fact that the relationship is over, the other person(s) is not coming back.

Remember: the emotional pain we experience at the end of a significant relationship isn’t just sadness about the person who is no longer in our lives. We also feel pain because we have lost or can no longer follow an important mental script or “known” in our subconscious mind. Regardless of the quality of that bond, disengaging from it and the habits or behaviors you have practiced during the relationship entails breaking script. Now, you must venture into the unknown experience of being independent from that relationship. I use therapeutic guided imagery to facilitate the process of forgiveness—of the self and the other person(s)—to help you heal and leave the finished relationship behind. I also employ guided imagery to help you relax and increase/rebuild your self-confidence, improve your self-esteem and reinforce your self-image as you forge this new path.

 It is only when we can say goodbye with love and respect to the lost relationship and the person(s) we shared it with that we can truly move forward in our lives.

1)      Holmes TH, Rahe RH (1967). "The Social Readjustment Rating Scale". J Psychosom Res 11 (2): 213–8.

2)      Kübler-Ross, E. (1969) On Death and Dying, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-04015-9

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

Moving On, Part 1

(This blog was originally posted on August 3, 2018)

Image courtesy of Microsoft

I recently read a quote from Redefining Refuge which really resonated with me: “Cutting people out of your life doesn’t mean you hate them, it simply means you respect yourself. Not everyone is meant to stay.” Think about it: children are born, grow up and eventually move out of the family home. They may attend college, get married and start their own families; or, they choose a vocation and start their career, perhaps moving out of state (or out of the country) to establish their own lives. Changing and moving on is part of living; growing up emotionally as well as physically and chronologically. While these separations are initially hard for both the parents and the “kids,” that doesn’t mean these life transitions should not occur.

Just as we grow up and outgrow our roles as children in the family home, we can also outgrow the relationships we have forged during the course of our lives. As we mature, it is natural to develop different and separate interests from the ones we shared with our childhood and school friends. We often away from friendships and romantic relationships we have enjoyed as adults. But, why shouldn’t this occur? We continue to grow and mature every minute of our lives. It is not so unusual to discover that the things that you couldn’t imagine liking or wanting to do at seventeen have become sources of profound enjoyment at thirty-seven. If the relationship devolves from friendship and respect to resentment and even physical and/or physical abuse, it is time to cut those ties and move on to a healthier relationship and a safer environment. But knowing this doesn’t make it easier to do. Does it?

It isn’t just that we continue to feel strong emotions about or bonds to the other person that makes this separation so difficult. Rather, per John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, it is so difficult to “leave” a relationship we have outgrown because we must give up a powerful known in our subconscious mind. This relationship and the person(s) we share it with have become part of our mental script; the longer we have been following this script by interacting in loving and respectful ways with the other person, the more difficult it is to stop following that script. The same is also true if and when we have been following an unloving and disrespectful or abusive script. Even if you do not or no longer have positive feelings about the other person or people, this separation may be painful because you must venture into the unknown experience of being independent from that relationship. Regardless of the quality of that bond, disengaging from it and the habits or behaviors you have practiced during the relationship entails breaking script.

Whatever the cause, letting go of a relationship can be very difficult and painful. In the next blog, I will explain how experiencing grief and the five stages of loss during hypnotherapy can help accept that the relationship is finished. When we are able to say goodbye with love and respect, we can move forward in our lives and so can they.

       

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014