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.

• “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest steppingstones to success.” – Dale Carnegie

• “Life offers more than meets the eye. The challenge is that you can only see what you focus on. See more do more.” – Andrew Morgan

• “Next to love, friendship, in my opinion, is the most valuable thing life has to offer.” – Henry Miller

• “To acquire knowledge one must study, but to acquire wisdom one must observe.” – Marilyn vos Savant

• “I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.” – Simone de Beauvoir

• “Either do something to address your fears or do something to let them go.” – Lolly Daskal

• “No one knows enough to be a pessimist.” – Wayne Dyer

• “If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.” – Jim Rohn

• “Don't let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do.” – John Wooden

• “If you wait until all the lights are ‘green’ before you leave home, you’ll never get started on your trip to the top.” – Zig Ziglar

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

Physiological Benefit to Quit Smoking

(This blog was originally posted on April 9, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

People have various motivations to give up smoking cigarettes. Increasing restrictions on the areas people can smoke in public makes it more difficult and uncomfortable to light up when they are out of the house. Some people hate the smell of smoke in their hair and on their skin and clothes. Others decide that the financial burden of purchasing cigarettes is no longer worth the enjoyment of smoking them. For example: A pack of cigarettes costs more than a gallon of gasoline in most locations in the United States; and health and life-insurance policies can be more expensive for people who smoke. But the primary motivation people quit smoking is to improve their health. Here is a list of the specific physiological/health benefits of quitting smoking and an estimated time frame in which these benefits are realized since smoking your last cigarette.

• 20 minutes: Blood pressure, pulse rate and body temperature return to normal/natural level.

• 8 hours: Carbon monoxide level drops to normal level; oxygen level in the blood increases to normal.

• 24 hours: Chance of heart attack decreases.

• 48 hours: Nerve endings start to re-grow, and ability to taste and smell improves.

• 72 hours: Lung capacity increases and bronchial tubes relax.

• 2 weeks-3 months: Improved circulation and increased lung function (up to 30%); it becomes easier to walk.

• 1 month-9 months: Decrease in coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue and shortness of breath. Also, cilia begin to grow back in the lungs, which increases their ability to clean, handle mucous and reduce infection in the lungs.

• 5 years: Decrease in lung-cancer death rate for the average smoker (one pack per day): from 137 per 100,000 people, to 72 per 100,000 people.

• 10 years: Decrease in lung-cancer death rate for the average smoker (one pack per day) to 12 per 100,000 people. This rate is almost the same as that for someone who has never smoked. Other benefits include replacement of pre-cancerous cilia and decrease risk of other cancers associated with smoking: bladder, esophagus, kidney, mouth and pancreas.

Hypnotherapy is an effective tool to help you achieve your goal of becoming a permanent non-smoker. This is because hypnosis enables you to communicate with your subconscious mind to reprogram your previous subconscious mental scripts about wanting and needing to smoke with ones that reinforce your decision, motivations and ability to stop smoking. I offer a 6-week, smoking-cessation hypnotherapy program that is good for people who smoke one or more pack of cigarettes a day. A two-hour intensive session is also available for people who smoke fewer than five cigarettes per day. During this time, you will learn how to resist the triggers of your psychological and physiological addiction to nicotine while you gradually stop smoking altogether. I also record and provide a customized stop-smoking track to listen to and reinforce this new behavior (lifestyle of a permanent non-smoker). If you are ready to quit smoking, I am here and ready to help you.

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

Fire as Metaphor

(This blog was originally posted on January 31, 2017)

The element of fire is also an effective metaphor in hypnotherapy. For many of us, fire represents passion in an emotion: love, anger, hate, jealousy. It can also symbolize dedication, enthusiasm, excitement, desire: “There is/I’ve got a fire in my belly.” When an event or interaction triggers an emotional reaction, this response may flare intensely for a little while until enough time has passed to temper that initial interest. Until that happens, it can feel like a battle is going on in our mind and heart to handle the sudden overload of feelings, perceptions and reactions to control our behavior. Sometimes we win that battle. Sometimes we do not.

Like fire, emotions can be and feel very powerful to the point where we feel or literally become overwhelmed by their heat and force. A tiny spark can smolder for hours, days or even years before erupting into a conflagration. Similarly, perception of a thoughtless word or action can dig into the subconscious mind and trigger an inexplicably hostile response (parataxic distortion) that is more a reaction to a previous interaction than the current one. Nonetheless, to stay consistent with the fire metaphor, once this metaphoric match is struck the verbal and emotional explosion can feel overwhelming to all parties involved.

I tap into metaphors for all four elements—water, air, earth and fire—to inspire and encourage my clients’ desire to change an unwanted behavior while simultaneously reinforcing their strategies to control previous automatic responses to behavioral/emotional triggers. Because the element of fire can be so volatile, it is useful to reference the power and stability of earth and the cool, reflective characteristics of water to reframe an emotional reaction or response. Similarly, when a client needs extra motivation to change that unwanted behavior once and for all, the energy of fire is ideal to re-ignite the person’s dedication to achieving that goal.

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/.

© 2018