Thoughts of the Day

Aerial view of Mt. Saint Helen’s

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.

• “You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose, and to do it fearlessly.” – Steve Maraboli

• “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” – Bruce Van Horn

• “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” – Mother Teresa

• “I find that the harder I work the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

• “I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” – Lewis Carroll

• “Peace is the manifestation of human compassion.” – Dalai Lama

• “An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” – Buddha

• “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James

• “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Tony Robbins

• “Being loud does not mean being confident.” – Lolly Daskal

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/.

© 2016     

Protective Posturing

Photo by Rick Hustead

A few years ago, as I was switching channels on the television, I happened to catch a couple minutes of a rodeo competition on RFDTV. As I recall, a rider was climbing onto a very large bull, waiting for the chute to open and begin his round. The television announcer started providing a bit of background about the man, including a very interesting detail. Apparently, the rider had recently recovered from a broken collar bone. However, his posture on the animal indicated that he was subconsciously “protecting” the previously injured area, which could undermine his success during the round, the announcer warned. A doctor had cleared the rider to compete, so the man was obviously healthy, fit and strong enough to ride a bucking bull again. However, the rider’s subconscious mind didn’t completely believe this prognosis, which could undermine his self-confidence and actual ability to ride well and stay safe.

Most of us can probably identify with this phenomenon. Whether we are coming back from a long illness or get hurt participating in a sport or performing a task at work, it’s natural to favor other areas of the body to protect the injured area. Sometimes this means that we assume very strange postures or physical contortions, which ultimately puts undue extra strain on the healthy/intact body part.

We also do this metaphorically to protect ourselves from emotional pain or discomfort, such as following the end of a relationship or loss through bereavement or geographic relocation. We build metaphoric walls around our feelings (hearts), and use sarcasm and even cruel comments to discourage anyone from trying to break through and establish a bond. Have you ever sworn to “never fall in love again” when your true love breaks your heart, or to never buy or adopt another pet after a beloved companion animal has died? These behaviors serve the same purpose: to protect that vulnerable or injured part of ourselves from future pain by blocking off or using defensive behaviors to guard that area from further injury.

In fact, the desire to avoid emotional pain is so ingrained that the subconscious mind has specific strategies to protect us from these risks. According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., an Emotional Sexual individual uses rationality and intellect to distance (separate) him- or herself from a potentially contentious (romantic) situation to protect these vulnerable emotions. The Emotional Sexual person always wants to maintain control, and the best way to do this is to literally “turn off” the feelings or, at very least, to segregate sexual desire from emotional entanglement.

 While a Physical Sexual individual uses his or her body (sex) to protect the person from emotional vulnerability, sex and love are often indistinguishable in this person’s mind. If and when this person feels threatened emotionally—in other words, fears rejection by the partner—he or she tends to become very clingy and needy, trying to keep the lover close by and thus “under control.” Of course, these behaviors only push the other person further away and open fresh emotional wounds.

When it comes to recovering from a broken bone or a broken heart, many times the best course for complete recovery is to step back for a little (or long) while and let that real or metaphoric fracture to heal. Loosen the reins or hold you have on that volatile situation; let it run its course without so much intervention but enough confidence in your ability to either stay the course or safely separate from it to ride or love again another day.

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/.

© 2016

Hyper-Suggestible States: Voodoo

Photo by Rick Hustead

People in hyper-suggestible states tend to want to “retreat” into a trance or disassociate themselves from themselves/the situation if they feel overwhelmed by the stimuli around them. The more suggestible the individual is the more easily he or she will drift into a trance state (hypnosis). This is particularly true of third-stage somnambulists, said hypnotherapist Dr. John Kappas. 

In one of his most interesting video seminars, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder worked with a client to remove the man’s frozen smile and nervous twitch. The client explained that these symptoms developed while he lived in Trinidad, where he had lived for many years. During the course of their discussion, the Dr. Kappas discovered that the client had participated in a voodoo ritual around this time. The hypnotherapist deduced that his client’s natural somnambulistic tendencies kept him in the hyper-suggestible state he experienced during that experience.

In addition to chants/spells, voodoo rituals often include smoking or ingesting hallucinogenic drugs to overwhelm the participant and induce a trance to change the participant’s behavior, Dr. Kappas said. The more suggestible the person is, the more likely he is to go into that trance. Voodoo rituals are unfamiliar and especially frightening to Westerners, who have little first-hand knowledge or experience with its traditions and beliefs, he explained. “If the person believes voodoo spells (curses) work and is already highly suggestible, he may be particularly vulnerable to going along with any behaviors or beliefs the priest presiding over the ritual suggests.”

The small (pin-point) size of the client’s pupils indicated that he was already in a trance state. Therefore, before Dr. Kappas started to work on changing the unwanted behavior (twitch and frozen smile), the hypnotherapist had to de-hypnotize him and get the man out of the original hyper-suggestible state. “You have to recognize that the client is already in-state [and then] re-direct him. Take him in to get him out,” the HMI founder said. Next, Dr. Kappas desensitized the man to the previous suggestions and drew on aspects of hypnotic modality to assume an authoritative role during the hypnotic induction. These steps were imperative to make the client more amenable to following the hypnotherapeutic suggestions to remove the client’s suggestibility to the voodoo and change the unwanted physical behaviors, the hypnotherapist explained.

“You have to recognize the client is already in state, [and then] redirect him. Take him in to get him out,” Dr. Kappas said.

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/.

© 2016

It's Just a Thought

Photo by Rick Hustead

Perhaps someone has said this to you—or you used this expression, yourself—when making a suggestion: “It’s just a thought.” In fact, this statement is probably used most frequently if the reception (openness) to a particular idea seems likely to be rejected. In this case, that particular thought is symbolically dumped or thrown away. “It’s just a thought” is the excuse we make for ever having entertained the idea in the first place.

I have two thoughts about this situation.

On the one hand, most of us have had to deal with some kind of negative chatter (self-doubt) in our mind when we are trying something new or are in the middle of an important project at work: I have never been able to do X before; what makes me think I will be successful at Y? Or, I have no business wearing this outfit; it was obviously designed for someone with a completely different (better) physique. More common, a thought pops into our mind just as we are drifting off to sleep: Did I remember to lock my office door? Does my boyfriend/girlfriend remember that tomorrow is our one-month anniversary of dating? Why is my acne flaring up now? In these instances, it is very helpful to remind ourselves, “It’s just a thought. I can control my thoughts. Since I can control my thoughts, I can put this one aside for a little while and do what I need to do.”

Conversely, our thoughts originate in the subconscious mind. To automatically reject a thought or idea as a way to deflect possible criticism from other people could mean that you miss (or at least delay) the chance to experience a creative opportunity. As Thomas Edison famously stated, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” What if that “thought” you have at your next business meeting could save your failing company millions of dollars and/or several employees’ jobs, create the next great video-game or script for a blockbuster movie, etc.?

Thoughts and ideas are products of our life experiences and feelings about them. The moral of this story is, before you reject one of those throw-away thoughts remember that you can control it and ultimately even use a behavior the idea inspired to benefit you in the future.

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/.

© 2016