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.

• “Instead of asking, “What’s the problem?” ask “What’s the creative opportunity?”  – Deepak Chopra

• “The way we see the problem is the problem.” – Stephen Covey

• “A moment of patience in a moment of anger saves you a hundred moments of regret.” – Unknown

• “A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open.” – Frank Zappa

• “All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

• “There’s no substitute for a great love who says, ‘No matter what’s wrong with you, you’re welcome at this table.” – Tom Hanks

• “Ability without determination is futile.” – Lolly Daskal

• “Sometimes the things we can’t change end up changing us.” – Anonymous

• “When someone dies, you don’t get over your grief by forgetting. You get over through grief by remembering.” – Unknown

• “A great attitude becomes a great mood, which becomes a great day, which becomes a great year, which becomes a great life.” – 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/.

© 2016

What I Look for in an Informal Handwriting Sample

Image courtesy of  Microsoft

In my previous blog titled Stepping Up to the Plate, I described how I gave an impromptu presentation about handwriting analysis for my Network Referral Group partners during our weekly lunch meeting. In today’s blog, I will share the list of basic criteria I examine when I do basic handwriting analyses at fund-raiser events and during hypnotherapy sessions.

This list does not include the hundreds of other individual characteristics that I also study when I do a formal handwriting analysis for clients or as part of an employment-screening process.

•          Handwriting is an ideomotor (automatic, subconscious physical) response of the subconscious mind that reflects the behavioral and personality traits of the author.

•          You cannot tell sex/sexual orientation, age, handedness or future of the writer by his or her handwriting.        

•          I use handwriting to indicate personality traits and behavior tendencies that may be addressed during hypnotherapy.

•          Handwriting reflects the mood of the writer at the time the sample is written. I analyze handwriting in that context.

•          Handwriting may indicate health issues. For example, I saw evidence of one of my former boss’s appendicitis in his writing in the form of a tiny gap in the lower right quadrant of the oval letters in his writing. After the appendix was removed, this gap disappeared.

Note: I am less interested in the content of what you write than the shape, etc. of the letters in the sample. Here are some basic handwriting characteristics I look for:

·       Straightness/waviness of the base-line;

·       Left, right, upright slant of the letters;

·       Presence and size of left, right, top and bottom page margins;

·       Shape of the m and n indicates the writer’s Suggestibility;

·       Presence of an end-stroke passing through the baseline on the y and g (at the end of a word) indicates the writer’s Sexual Personality;

·       Entanglement of letters/beginning and ending strokes between lines of writing

·       Space (or lack of) between letters in a word, between words and between lines of text;

·    Similarity/difference between the writing in the body of the sample and the person’s signature;

·      Pressure of the writing on the page and even the choice of writing implement used;

·      Form of oval letters/roundedness of letters, which indicates suggestibility about specific issues (e.g., body image, self-esteem);

·       Connecting strokes.

For more information about handwriting analysis, check out the following blogs: Handwriting Analysis for Hypnotherapy; And Your Handwriting Says; And Your Handwriting Says, Part 2; Handwriting Analysis: Doodles; and When Illness Shows Up in Your Handwriting. If you are interested in getting a formal analysis of your own handwriting, please contact me at (661) 433-9430 or send an e-mail to me at calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com.

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

Stepping Up to the Plate

Image courtesy of Microsoft

Every now and then, we have to do something at work or at school that makes us feel a little uncomfortable. For many of us, that task has something to do with public speaking or doing a presentation in front of a bunch of people. This happened to me today at my business-networking luncheon. To my surprise, I found myself more excited than nervous about getting up there and talking to the other members of the Network Referral Group of Santa Clarita about one of my favorite things to do: handwriting analysis. 

Last week, I volunteered to do presentation when another member discovered he couldn’t attend the meeting. The topic was an easy choice for me, since I already spent the previous Sunday afternoon doing handwriting analyses at Happy Pets veterinary practice. One of my friends and NRG partners is a veterinarian and owner of the practice; I accepted donations for a slush fund that helps financially strapped clients pay for veterinary care in exchange for a brief handwriting analysis. I knew this topic would be interesting and entertaining for the other NRG members to learn about since we all write (or print) in our professions. Furthermore, most people are curious about themselves. Handwriting is a great way to tell a lot about someone’s personality in a short time and with very little effort on the part of the writer or the handwriting analyst (me).

One of the things I learned and have always remembered from the Public Speaking class in my hypnotherapy certification was how to stay confident and relaxed during a presentation. I can still remember how George Kappas, M.A., C.Ht., the director of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, gave my class that pep talk about this topic. He encouraged us to look forward to every opportunity to promote our hypnotherapy practice this way, reminding and reassuring us that we would know a lot more about this topic (hypnosis) than anyone else in the room. We would be the experts in the room and should “own” the topic with confidence, he enthused. And then the final zinger: We already knew so much about this field that there was no reason for any of us to even need notes during this kind of presentation, except perhaps the briefest topic guideline. 

So when I went to the front of the room this afternoon, I did not really need to think about which material I would present during the next ten minutes or so that were allotted to me. I had a few props to help me: a printed handout for everyone to describe the writing features I examine and a white board to provide “illustrations” of those characteristics. While I held a copy of the handout in my hand for quick reference, I only glanced at it once to determine which material I felt I needed to cover in the remaining minute of my talk. Then, I invited questions and even did an impromptu mini-analysis of someone’s writing before the meeting was adjourned.

And George Kappas was right: I didn’t need notes, after all, and I did have a lot of fun doing the presentation about a topic I know so well. If necessary, I would be happy to step up again to do another presentation about some aspect of my work as a hypnotherapist. Indeed, I’m already getting ideas about what I can talk about next time. I can’t wait!

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

Unwitting Victims of Hyper-Suggestibility

Victims of Hyper-Suggestibility?

Just when I was starting to worry that I still had no idea what to write about for today’s blog, inspiration struck when I heard a news report about a very unusual prank that happened yesterday in Minneapolis. Apparently, someone called a Burger King restaurant under the guise of warning the workers that there was a dangerous gas leak that could blow up the building. The caller reportedly advised the manager that this disaster could be prevented by smashing all of the windows to ventilate the building and clear out the gas. Ultimately, the workers broke all of the windows as the caller instructed them to do. At least one person reportedly went along with this action out of fear and, significantly, because everyone else was doing it.

The hosts of a popular radio show I was listening to immediately started to crack up and even make jokes about the employees who fell for this prank. I, on the other hand, felt sorry and a little sad about what happened to these workers. After all, they took this drastic action in the belief that it was the correct and even heroic thing to do to save their place of employment. Answering a phone call in which the person at the other end of the line warns that you are at risk of being caught in a gas explosion would make most people nervous and hyper-suggestible.

Based on what I know about suggestibility and behavior, this is how the scenario played out in an employee’s subconscious mind:

·         The work environment in a fast-food restaurant is usually very busy. Even if there weren’t throngs of customers present when the call came in, the employees were probably still in a state of natural hypnosis. In addition to dealing with the public, the repetitive action of flipping burgers, packaging the meals and counting change (stimuli overload) would make anyone extremely suggestible.

·         In addition, the smell of food cooking might or even the time of day when the person “typically” eats could have triggered a hunger response in one or more of these individuals. As I wrote in my previous blog titled Nutrition and the Development of Phobias, low blood-sugar levels, which are associated with hunger can exacerbate or even cause a person’s presenting problem (behavior or belief). Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., reported that it is also common for a person to experience psychological symptoms such as depression, paranoia, irritability and memory problems when blood-sugar levels drop.

·         The three principles of hypnotic modalities also played a role in influencing the employees' reaction. First: The purported identity of the person on the phone was a posing as a firefighter (authority). Second: The potential validity of the warning of an impending explosion, unless the employees followed the caller’s instructions (the message). Third: The official-sounding voice and the terrifying content of this warning ultimately influenced (overload) how the employees responded to this threat. Most people trust firefighters: they rush into burning buildings to save lives, they rescue kittens stuck in high trees. The fallout from the 2010 gas explosion that took out an entire neighborhood in San Bruno, California, is still being felt in that community. So when a fireman contacts your place of business to help you avert a similar tragedy, wouldn’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? At least, at first?

·         Finally, the collective worry and panic that this threat would come true became its own destructive force. Have you have ever found yourself standing up and joining other fans do “the wave” at a sports event, without knowing why you’re doing it? Have ever wondered at the influence that one fussy toddler has, to be able to inspire just about every other baby in a room to join in the cacophony of screaming? Anxiety breeds anxiety, and when threat to life, limb and financial security are involved natural skepticism that would have otherwise prevented such an extreme reaction often goes out the window. In this instance, this metaphor became a reality.

Yes, logic, reasoning and good judgement probably would have made at least one of these employees question the veracity of this warning. But when you are working at a busy fast-food restaurant for minimum-wage pay and suddenly learn that your source of income—and you—could blow up “unless,” it’s a little easier to understand the employees’ reaction. Unfortunately, the collective hyper-suggestibility of these individuals also made them the brunt of two cruel jokes: that of the original prank caller(s) and the radio hosts.

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