Follow Your Own Path

(This blog was originally posted on July 6, 2014)

Photo by PresentationPro

            It is easy—too easy—to get carried away while planning somebody else’s life. From the moment a baby is born, its proud relatives start imagining the kind of fulfilling, exciting and successful life this new person will ultimately live. Will Baby grow up to be President of the United States one day? Will Baby become a doctor, lawyer, soldier, police officer or firefighter like Mom or Dad? Maybe our newborn is destined to live a life in the limelight as an actor or, even marry the heir to a throne in Europe and will become a monarch one day. (Hey, it’s happened before, why not to our tot?)

               There are a few problems with this fantasy game. First, each person who “plays” it can only project the possibilities that already exist as knowns in his or her mind. It is common to imagine your young child or loved one follow a similar life path as your own, because this is what you already know; this is your comfort zone. If you have chosen the same career as one of your parents, this association is likely to be reinforced even more: “Of course, Baby will do this, since generations of our family are already in this career!” Maybe Baby will do that; he or she will receive plenty of conscious and subconscious message units about this vocation, and is likely to nurture a subconscious mental script about it. But, what if other people’s plan for you isn’t what you truly want for yourself? What if you don’t even know what you want to do, or change your mind (and switch careers) down the road? How do you break this news to your “very disappointed” family?

            The second problem with this fantasy game is that each person may be influenced to pursue a life path that in which parents/caretakers and other relatives have no experience at all.For example, I decided that I wanted to be a psychologist at the tender age of 11. This decision was actually inspired by another student in my sixth-grade class who declared that this was what she wanted to do. I honestly didn’t know much about psychology back then, but I must have decided that career sounded pretty cool, and declared “psychology” as my college major eight years later.

 The third problem with this game is that none of us know where our lives will ultimately take us, even when we have a definite career or life/lifestyle in play. Ten years after I earned a research Master’s degree in psychology in another country, I was working as an editor of a martial arts magazine when I finally found my way back to my original choice of vocation. Well, not the original choice, but very close.The day I started my training to become a hypnotherapist, I realized that this was the work I really wanted to do and should be doing. Perhaps my decision to abandon what could have been a very successful career in journalism was impulsive, impetuous and even short-sighted; but I have never looked back.

  My young nephews recently also announced what they would like to do when they grow up. My family often has fun imagining ways that they can (or will) achieve their goals. In fact, we recently went to town embellishing details of how the youngest boy’s career can and will be successful (and fun for us, too). I know that’s not fair to him;he may well change his mind about what he wants to do, anyway. There was a time when I thought I would like to be a writer. One of my friends still (occasionally) tells me that I should be an author and how disappointed he is that I didn’t choose writing as my vocation. Whatever. I know that I made the right decision for me. There is really nothing like the feeling of doing what you know you want to do, what you are meant to do and what you truly enjoy doing.

  If it takes a long and winding road to get where you know you are meant to be, so much the better.

               

 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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/

(c) 2015

Tuning it Out

 (This blog was originally posted on February 20, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Fotolia

As the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, drew to a close, I marveled at the athletes’ incredible physical and mental prowess. To even qualify to participate in an Olympic event, they had to be at the top of their game—a national or even a world champion or finalist in their sport. (Hard as qualifying to compete in the Olympic Games must certainly be, qualifying for them seems like it would be the “easy” part.) Once these athletes made their nation’s Olympic team, they all would have had to face off against similar-ranked competitors of other nations—and then then their teammates—on the world’s stage. There would be no time to revel in the excitement and honor of being an Olympian, representing and earning medals for their nation. Similarly, there would be no room in their training regimen (nutrition, rest, training, training, training, competition, etc.) to feel nervous about the athletic challenges to come. No matter what went on around them, whether they felt sore from yesterday’s competition or elated about having earned a career “best” in the preliminary round, these athletes had to remain focused on the job ahead of them. They had to continue to give their all (and a lot more) to score that winning goal, the highest/longest jumps, the most beautiful spins, the fastest runs down the mountain slope, half-pipe or chute. There would not be time to ruminate over mistakes they have just made or whether that triple-triple jump combination in their ice-skating program sufficiently intimidated their top-ranked opponent. So, how do these athletes keep it all together to bring home the gold or silver or bronze?

When I work with hypnotherapy clients to help them achieve their athletic goals, the first thing I do is reinforce and/or build their self-confidence about their skills and talent in the sport. If a person has won prizes or championships in this sport before, and/or had to qualify to participate in the upcoming event, I incorporate this information into the hypnotic script. I teach breathing techniques to help the person learn to relax his or her physical body; then, I introduce guided-imagery so the person has an opportunity (or several) to rehearse the event and even work through various competitive scenarios. If appropriate, and with my client’s permission, I may also invite the coach or trainer to help me incorporate sports-specific jargon or instruction about a technique that the person is working on, in the script. I also reinforce suggestions about continuing to follow a healthy lifestyle to support the client’s athletic program (e.g., eating nutritious meals, drinking plenty of water and getting enough rest and a good night’s sleep).

Equally important, I help my clients to tune out distractions during the competition, such as camera flashes, cheers or applause, or being in an unfamiliar environment. In these cases, I use imagery and systematic-desensitization techniques to not only “desensitize” the person to these stimuli, but to create an association in which these stimuli will actually help to increase their confidence in their athletic prowess and double their focus/concentration on what they need to do to succeed in the event. Many athletes are distracted and affected by negative self-talk, or some receive discouraging or disparaging comments from opponents or even teammates, friends, family members or a coach/trainer. In these instances, I first desensitize the person to these kinds of negative messages. Then, I help my client to create powerful imagery to virtually shield (protect) the individual from others’ negative comments/energy, and to dissolve and dissipate negative self-talk before the person even knows or notices that it is going on.

While the client in hypnosis, I include a final suggestion about muscle memory: “Allow the athlete inside of you to give yourself permission to trust your body. Trust your training and all of those previous experiences of success doing [this sport], which you have been doing for so long. Allow your body to do what it does well, and you are doing it even better than you ever have, before.”

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/.

© 2015

The Elevator Lesson

(This blog was originally posted on May 8, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

                “Hello? Hello!” When there was no answer, the thrum of persistent knocking. Finally, the shrill sound of a ringing bell similar to noise of an old-fashioned alarm clock rang once, twice. Then the cycle repeated; this time, the voice sounded more plaintive, more panicked.

                “Excuse me? I think someone is stuck in one of the elevators,” I told the receptionist.

                The woman cocked her head in the direction of the elevators and picked up her phone. “I’ll call security,” she told me with a calm smile.

                It seemed like ages until someone finally showed up to help get the passenger out, although probably only a few minutes had passed from the time I alerted someone about the stuck elevator until the problem was resolved. The whole time, I battled my own wave of panic and concern for the person stuck inside while sending these mental messages: “Help is coming. You will get out soon.” It was 3 p.m.—well past lunch-time—but what if he or she had not eaten anything since breakfast? I knew from my hypnotherapy training and personal experience that hunger and low blood-sugar levels can bring on or exacerbate anxiety and trigger symptoms of nausea, dizziness and weakness. I have helped my clients work through phobias that were created by subconsciously associating the physical symptoms of having a low blood-sugar level with an object or some event going on in their environment. Since the person in the stuck elevator was also actually experiencing this event, it would be reasonable if the person developed a legitimate fear of elevators after today. What if he or she already had a phobia of elevators….? But, I was getting ahead of myself.

                 Of course, the building’s security officers showed up and got the person out of the elevator. He seemed no worse for wear and was even laughing about what had happened. I wondered what I would or could have done in his situation. Like this passenger, I would have called out for help and activated the alarm, like he did. Then I would have worked on calming down (and remaining calm) by doing diaphragmatic breathing so I could focus on possible options to resolve my problem. Once I established that there was cellular reception from where I was, I could call someone in the office I was visiting in that building to let them know there was a problem with one of the elevators and ask them to send help for me. Alternatively, I could have called a friend or family member to look up the phone number of a general manager of the building and raise the alarm. I could have even called 911.

                I think the thing that most disturbed me about the incident was other people’s response to it—or lack of response. Even if I was the only person who initially heard the person knocking and calling for help, which I doubt, the alarm bell was very loud. The receptionist didn’t seem too concerned when I told her that I thought someone was stuck in an elevator; it was as if one or the other machine malfunctioned on a regular basis and this was another daily inconvenience. People continued to walk past, chatting on their mobile phones or with a friend. Some pressed the call button to summon the other elevator to take them back downstairs. But no one seemed particularly worried, curious about or interested in the shrill rings that cut through the air every few seconds. It was like they didn’t want to get involved. Maybe they didn’t, and that scares me more than the idea of being stuck somewhere. I just find it very sad and disheartening that we can no longer generally count on the kindness and awareness of strangers for help and support during a crisis or an emergency.

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/.

© 2015

An Ounce of Prevention

(This blog was originally posted on May 14, 2014)

                Around this time last year, an equine dentist examined and floated my horse’s teeth. Just like people, our animal companions need to have their teeth examined and/or cleaned to ensure that they are able to eat and digest their food. More important, these check-ups can prevent a tooth infection from spreading to the gum and into the bloodstream, which could be deadly. Looking back on the afternoon, I considered the many different things that I and other people do to prevent physical, emotional, social and practical problems from arising. What motivates us to take these precautions?

In the autumn, many people get a vaccination to prevent getting the flu later in the season. They start drinking more juice, taking vitamins and eating well to stave off a winter chest infection. When they have a cough, fever or running nose, they usually don’t need much persuasion to see a doctor and, if necessary, pick up a prescription for medication to relieve their discomfort. When we move to a new neighborhood or change jobs or schools, many people make some kind of gesture to create a social or professional alliance. My dad used to give a loaf of home-made French bread to new neighbors who moved into a home on our street; I made chocolate-chip cookies to share with my colleagues when I started a new job at the magazine. People who play contact sports usually don at least some kind of protective head gear to safeguard against concussion; many also wear other kinds of body armor to protect their limbs and chest. In each of these cases, the person makes a conscious decision to behave in a specific way that will protect or safeguard his or her well-being.

The decision to seek hypnotherapy to achieve a vocational or avocational self-improvement goal is also a conscious one. Even though I use specific techniques to access a client’s subconscious mind to effect the desired behavior change, the person must first make a conscious decision to seek this therapy. In addition to their desire to quit a habit that is interfering with their life right now, many people seek hypnotherapy to help them change a behavior that they fear will cause a bigger problem for them later on. For example, when I work with people to stop smoking or lose weight, their primary motivation to change their behavior (smoking or over-eating) is often to improve their health. Perhaps the person is at risk of cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and a doctor has advised that the best chance of increasing his or her longevity is to start following a healthy lifestyle. Others may want to increase their motivation, because procrastination has resulted in their missing deadlines at work, or failure to get their car in for a scheduled service caused more serious mechanical problems on the road. Many times, even after they achieve their stated goals, people want to continue with the hypnotherapy to help motivate them to continue to follow the new behaviors that have improved their lives.

Hypnosis and therapeutic guided imagery are effective, natural and drug-free techniques through which you can achieve these and other self-improvement goals. Whether you are ready to embark on this journey for the first time or just want to fine-tune the new behaviors or skills you have been working on to avoid temptation, I am here to help you achieve them.

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/.

© 2015

Isn't It Interesting?

(This blog was originally posted on November 21, 2014)

                During my senior year at college I took an art (drawing) class as one of my electives. I preferred to look at and create portraits of people, animals and even scenery; “modern art” was not my thing. However, one of the class projects entailed using more abstract techniques such as lines, angles, shapes and bold splashes of color so that the specific object I drew would be virtually unrecognizable. The instructor even took the class on a field trip to check out a modern-art display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The excursion was meant to inspire the class and get everyone thinking not just about the specific techniques the artist used to create his or her masterpiece. In addition, we were supposed to consider the meaning or interpretation of a few specific pieces that “spoke” to us.

                I admit that I felt a little panicked and completely out of my element during most of this excursion. (Did I mention that modern art was not my thing?) I spent a lot of time staring, squinting and moving around different paintings trying to figure out what I was supposed to “get” out of them. What was I looking at? What was I supposed to see? I made notes about artistic techniques I recognized from the class. I did quick sketches of what I was looking at and scribbled questions to myself beside the illustrations. Nothing so far was really speaking to me; none of these works even made any sense to me. Time was ticking away and the field trip was almost over. Finally, I did the only thing I could think of: I put aside all of my expectations and preconceptions about what I should be seeing so I could just observe the details in front of my eyes. There would be plenty of time to assess and analyze everything, later. So, I looked.

                My eyes were opened that day. The second I stopped trying to categorize everything I saw, I could see and appreciate the tiny details of artistic technique—the slightest feathering of a brush stroke at the end of a line; was this intentional or accidental?—that I might never have noticed. I considered the angles and geometric shapes, shade and lightening of the color, in terms of how I might or could create a similar effect in my next project. And then I was able to wonder: What could or would these effects mean for the image I was trying to represent?

One of my friends has a favorite expression that I have started to use a lot, too: “Isn’t it interesting…” As in, isn’t it interesting how someone with physical suggestibility hears a question directly and literally but will make a statement that is full of metaphor and inference? Or, isn’t it interesting how two people with the same self-improvement goal can have completely different triggers for the unwanted behavior? Looking back, that field trip was the first time I was intentionally, consciously noticing and appreciating interesting and unique aspects of an otherwise-familiar situation. I looked at lines, smudges and shapes drawn in charcoal pencil. I regarded splashes of watercolor paint, or heavy lines and smudges of acrylic paint smeared onto canvas screens and sheets of metal. And then, somehow, all of this information (message units) coalesced into some kind of recognizable image in my subconscious mind. Suddenly, many individual pictures came together to create a story in my mind.

Isn’t that interesting?

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/.

© 2015

Doing My Homework

(This blog was originally posted on March 30, 2014)

                In my blog titled Creating Your Hypnotic Script, I described how I create customize hypnotic scripts for each of my clients. This process actually (unofficially) begins during the first introductory conversation I have with a prospective client, when the person contacts me to discuss whether hypnotherapy can help him or her to achieve specific vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. During the course of this conversation, I try to get as much information about my prospective client and the presenting issue as I can. This isn’t being “nosey”; rather, I need to know whether these goals fall within my scope of expertise as a hypnotherapist. If not, I will refer him or her to a medical doctor or licensed mental health practitioner, who would be a better source of support for that issue. (For a complete list of ways in which hypnotherapy may help you, check out the Appendix tab on my website.)

                Once I determine that I can help you, I will need to know even more information and specific details about your behavior/habit: How long have you been doing “X”? Under what situations/circumstances are you most likely to do or want to engage in the behavior? When and why did you start doing this behavior? Have you ever tried to change or stop this behavior in the past? Why do you want to stop doing “X” now? Finally, I will ask whether you ever been hypnotized before. It does not matter whether you have been hypnotized in terms of whether hypnosis can help you achieve your goal; it will. However, this information is useful for me to help gauge how much time you may need to become comfortable being hypnotized (i.e., the hypnotic induction) before we address your specific behavior in hypnosis.

                Once we conclude the conversation and we have set your appointment with me, I consult my notes and text/course material for different hypnosis and guided-imagery techniques that I feel will be most appropriate or applicable to help you achieve your behavioral goal. I may revise or write out a completely new hypnotic script that I can use when we meet that is composed of elements of several different scripts. If we have worked together before, I will review the notes I made during your previous session and research hypnosis scripts or techniques to follow up our recent work together. Of course, I know that this plan may change or be revised again, depending on what we discuss during the session and how you respond to/feel during the hypnosis, etc. I will also review different hypnosis and imagery techniques, and even prepare alternate scripts, to use during the session if necessary or as time permits.

                My goal as your hypnotherapist is to help you address and change the habits that no longer work for you and replace them with behaviors that do. To do this, I constantly review and practice the techniques I know, and train for certifications in new topics that will enable me to help more people in even more ways.

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/.

© 2015

“Extra” Sensory Perception and the Law of Attraction

(This blog was originally posted on July 24, 2014)

                How do you explain it when something happens that you just knew would occur without possessing substantive evidence to support this feeling? Perhaps this incident is proof of your powers of intuition. Or, is it an example of the way the Law of Attraction and John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Mental Bank Concept works? You might even call it evidence of a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby you thought so hard about something that your subconscious mind somehow “made” that event happen. Then again, maybe it’s just a huge coincidence that something you thought about for maybe two seconds manifested itself in the physical world an hour, day or week later. All of these explanations are reasonable, possible and even likely depending on your belief system.

                Have you ever thought about a friend or relative that you haven’t seen in a very long time and then, out of the blue, receive an e-mail or a phone call from that person? Have you ever turned on the television and discovered that a favorite movie from your childhood is on, and you and some friends were seriously, literally just talking about how much you love it? I have had many experiences like these. Last week, I reconnected with a friend I hadn’t seen or heard from in years. True story: I read an article in the paper that reminded me of her, and the very next day she reached out to me on Facebook. This afternoon, I was thinking about a scene from The Man From Snowy River. Kirk Douglas is one of the stars of that movie; a documentary about him is playing on TCM as I write this blog. I had absolutely no idea that this program would air when I was thinking about the movie. These kinds of things happen to me a lot.

                My favorite personal example of this is from high school. I fell asleep listening to the radio; I had been waiting all night for the DJ to play my favorite song at that time, and I woke up two seconds before it came on. Of course, I was very excited when I realized that I woke up just in time to hear my favorite song a second before it played. I was sure this was an example of extra-sensory perception: I mean, how else could I explain this happy coincidence? A few years later, I even wrote an extra-credit essay about this experience for a psychology course about perception. This time I had a more measured explanation about how and why this experience occurred. Even during sleep, the brain continues to work and perceive all sorts of sensory stimuli such as smell, touch, sound and taste. (If you have ever incorporated the sound of your dog barking outside or the smell of fresh-brewed coffee in your dreams, you know this is true.) Similarly, I had likely heard someone on the radio announce that the song would be played next, and that is how and why I woke up when I did.

So, what is really going on? I previously posted a blog titled Introduction to the Mental Bank Concept, in which I explained how the Law of Attraction can facilitate, impede or even prevent us from achieving our goals. In a subsequent blog titled Intuition, I explored the relationship between the human brain’s ability to perceive various stimuli and organize, interpret and communicate this information in the context of Dr. Kappas’s Theory of Mind. And tonight I came across the following quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson that both simplified and complicated this issue for me: “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

                So, maybe that is the answer to my question after all. My hypnotherapy training at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute and my experiences putting these theories about the Law of Attraction into practice has taught me that the power of our mind can make just about anything and everything possible. We just need to know how and what to ask for, and where to look for the evidence that what we want already exists and is waiting for us to find it.

 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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015