Don't Second-Guess Yourself

(This blog was originally posted on February 25, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Our ability to remember facts and information is astounding. Millions of pieces of information enter the human brain each day; some of it is processed and internalized as memory and the rest is “dumped” as irrelevant (unrelated, unfamiliar, an “unknown”) to the “known” facts we have already stored in the subconscious mind. Other pieces of information get buried so deep that we’re surprised we actually know or knew it in the first place until someone asks the right question and jars that little nugget loose from its storage area. Or, we recently learned the information but it isn’t immediately accessible to the conscious mind, which sends us into a panic and then self-recrimination for not having “remembered” what we were supposed to know.

Students recognize this phenomenon as a version of “tip-of-the-tongue syndrome.” It often happens in moments of stress, such as during a test. Musicians and actors experience a similar experience if they suddenly blank out or forget a portion of the music they are supposed to play or a line of dialog they need to recite. This can also occur during moments of leisure or recreation. Even though the stakes are comparatively lower, the perceived pressure of getting an answer right or hitting the right note and not let anyone down can produce a lot of pressure.

This evening, I met some friends from my professional network group, NRG, for a meal at a local restaurant and play a game Trivial Pursuit. There were approximately nine teams in the restaurant, including ours. I admit that my knowledge about many of the topics was not as good as a few of my teammates. What surprised me most of all was when I realized I knew—or thought that I knew—an answer to a question even though I have no knowledge or expertise in the topic. Another time, even though I was positive that I had the correct answer, I immediately started to doubt my certainty and lost a bit of confidence when it was time to submit the response. Everyone is counting on you; you said you know this answer. You lived in England for seven years, you should know this answer. Quick, quick, the moderator needs the answer!

Fortunately, thanks to my hypnotherapy training and years of helping clients overcome this exact same challenge, I was able to talk myself down from the panicked ledge I found myself on. I knew that I knew the answer, and that the first answer I gave was most likely the correct one. I had to trust my subconscious mind to produce the information about this topic that I had stored there. I knew that if I wavered, if I continued to question and re-examine my reasons for suggesting that response, I was more likely to give the wrong one. It had been so easy, when I heard the question, to come up with what I knew and believed in my bones to be the correct response. I had to trust that gut instinct, and go with it. I was right. (The answer was United Kingdom or Great Britain. I can’t remember the exact question, but it had something to do with 10 Downing Street being the residential headquarters of the place of government for which nation.)

Another question later in the game was about the United States Stock Exchange. The acronym NASDAQ popped into my mind right away. One of my friends also playing the game was much more knowledgeable about stocks and investments, so everyone deferred to his expertise to provide the correct answer. The term he provided sounded reasonable and right. Wrong. If I had given my answer and my teammates had agreed to submit the response, we would have won that point. But I hadn’t spoken up because I doubted that I might, just possibly, be right.

This experience was a good reminder that the human brain acquires and processes so much information that even the most unlikely tidbits and facts may very well be stored in the subconscious mind. We just need to give ourselves permission to take that deep breath (or several) and take a leap of faith, or trust, or whatever, that we do know what we’re talking about. Sometimes, often, we know even more than we think or know that we know.

For information about this topic, I invite you to read my blogs titled Hypnosis and Memory Recall and Hypnosis to Overcome Test Anxiety.

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

Holiday Baking

(This blog was originally posted on December 22, 2014)

Photo by Sara Fogan

                I imagine that a lot of people have kept busy baking—or preparing to bake—treats for the holidays in the past week or so. I sure have!

    

            As I have gotten older, opening gifts has become less of an event for me than selecting, wrapping and giving presents. Especially baking holiday goodies: cookies, cakes, side dishes for the main meal… Whatever can be prepared with love and specific attention, I am totally there to do it. For me, this is the part of holiday cheer that really makes me smile and, well, puts me in the holiday spirit.

     

           Perhaps my enjoyment comes from the known of these activities and behaviors. Of course, certain family favorites are on the menu every year: Gingerbread men and sugar cookies cut out into various Christmas and Chanukah shapes are a given. (Nothing says Christmas like Gingerbread men, right?) Then come the chocolate-chip cookies, peanut-butter cookies and assorted other flavors per my craving. After watching my mom baking goodies and fussing with holiday decorations/preparations during my childhood, I came to associate the delicious smells emanating from the kitchen with the love and attention she put into it. Over the years, sifting flour, measuring sugar, cracking eggs, pouring the chocolate-chips into the batter, cutting out the shapes of gingerbread men all became ingrained in my mind as a subconscious known.

Every so often a new goodie would be added to the repertoire: lemon bars and “peppermint bark” are recent family favorites. But I remember how almost resistant I was to adding those new treats to my baking repertoire. Not because I thought it would be too much work, but because they were new (unknown) and not yet part of the family tradition. Yummy as I knew those new treats would be, I was a little reluctant to try a new recipe. What if the recipe was too complicated? What if the finished product didn’t look like the cookie in the picture? Yes, it was fear of the unknown; ultimately, thankfully—with a lot of practice making them—all of these recipes have worked out very well.

Now, rather than strictly follow a recipe I can rely on my subconscious mental scripts for holiday baking. Since I have been following this same behavior for so many years, I know I can trust my instinct (muscle memory) to adding just the right amount of a specific ingredient to the mix. Even more important, after “experimenting” with different versions that have come out of the oven over the years, I know what I can substitute (or not) and the recipe will still make a delectable treat.

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

Suggestibility and That Jerry Lewis Interview

Photo by Rick Hustead

On December 19, 2016, actor Jerry Lewis sat down to do an interview with journalist Andy Lewis from The Hollywood Reporter. One of the goals was to discuss, among other things, the contributions that Lewis and his nonagenarian colleagues continue to make to entertainment. Since the seven-minute clip aired, it has been dubbed “a train-wreck” and “the most painfully awkward interview of 2016.” Throughout those seven minutes, Lewis provided primarily monosyllabic (yes/no/why?) responses to questions or a “Why should I?” and so on. During the course of the interview, the journalist’s and the performer’s voices start to betray more than a hint of frustration. People watching Jerry Lewis’s THR interview on-line or listening to excerpts during various radio or television programs might have laughed or squirmed in sympathy for the interviewer.

I was immediately fascinated.

The first time I watched and listened to the interview I wondered and suspected that Mr. Lewis is a physical suggestible because he answered each direct question with a yes or no answer. As I have explained in previous blogs about emotional and physical suggestibility, this person receives information differently. For a Physical, message units are taken in literally and directly: an object is this or it is that; a direct question is answered directly and literally. Conversely, someone with emotional suggestibility automatically infers meaning or significance to a question or comment, and is likely to provide more details than necessary when answering it. Andy Lewis might have been able to elicit additional information or conversation from his subject with more or differently phrased open-ended questions. However, even when he tried this tactic, his subject stayed true to this one-line-answer patter.

Hmm. Someone with physical suggestibility and/or a physical sexual personality also like to talk, to provide explanations and make sure he is understood. That is why, for example, a physical suggestible typically provide a lot of details or back-story when working up to his main point in a conversation. A physical sexual individual tends to be comfortable and relaxed and even enjoy being at the center of attention, which Mr. Lewis does not seem to like at all (on this occasion, anyway). An emotional sexual personality is more likely to provide more direct or even terse responses (written or verbal), as Jerry Lewis does during this interview. An emotional sexual also prefers to avoid being center of attention or even noticed much in the first place, which seemed to be what was going on in this case.

Based on what I saw in this interview, I believe that Mr. Lewis is an emotional sexual personality with emotional suggestibility because he does elaborate on some of the yes/no information he provided. When he answered the interviewer’s questions with another question (“Why?”), these responses suggest that he was evaluating/analyzing every word he was asked and making a case-by-case decision how much information to provide.

As a final note, one of the rules of handwriting analysis is that the way a person writes is a reflection of his behavior and personality traits. It is a snapshot of your mood at the time the sample is produced. It would be interesting to compare how much of Mr. Lewis’s behavior during those seven-plus minutes would show up in his handwriting.

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