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| Photo courtesy of Microsoft |
What
frustrates you? Being stuck in rush-hour traffic? Having to chase your dog
around the neighborhood to catch him after he jumped the fence? Sleeping
through your alarm and being late for work? Pop-up ads that block the computer
screen and impede your work until you figure out how to get rid of the
advertisement? The list goes on. Following are some practical relaxation and
visualization skills that you can use to help you relax when you experience
stress during such moments of frustration.
·
Diaphragmatic breathing. Draw a slow,
deep breath through your nose; hold it four three or four seconds and then
release the air through your mouth. Breathing this way not only relaxes the
tension in your physical body; it also provides a tangible example (proof) that
you can control a specific physical behavior. Repeat this exercise several
times until you notice that your pulse/heartbeat returns to its normal
(resting) rate.
·
Let your conscious awareness of the situation
help you out. According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John
Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, your subconscious mind is likely following a
mental script about how it thinks you “should” respond or behave when you are
frustrated. When you are in a situation with which you regularly associate
anxiety and frustration, you are likely to experience these negative emotions
as soon as your SCM recognizes similar themes in that environment. Practice
diaphragmatic breathing while you focus your attention on specific physical
characteristics (message units) of the stimuli you experience around you. What
do you see, hear, feel, taste or smell? Directing your conscious attention to
these individual details in this way will not only help to relax you by
distracting your attention away from the source of your stress or frustration.
It will also inundate your SCM with these new message units and help to create
a new, different (innocuous) mental script about this formerly stress-inducing
environment.
·
Focus on your options/solutions. As Gil
Grissom, one of my favorite characters from the original cast of CBS’ hit
series, CSI, used to say: “There is
always a clue.” Once your physical body is relaxed and your mind is calm, you
can turn your attention to finding solutions to the problem that is causing
your stress. Once your subconscious mind has created new associations (knowns) between feeling calm and your
ability to focus, it becomes easier to create new solutions for reducing your
frustration or even access previously proved (success) mental scripts to manage
your frustration.
·
Be polite and gracious to the people around
you. Good manners go a long, long way to preventing the development of additional
social/emotional stress in your environment. For example, if there is a long
line at the drug store when you go to pick up your prescription, you can be
pretty sure that other people, including the clerk, are also experiencing
frustration about the wait. The simple physical action of smiling at the people
around you transforms your negative energy/emotion into a positive response. As
Dr. Kappas liked to remind his clients and students, it is impossible for two
opposite emotions to exist at the same time. In addition, positive emotion has
stronger energy than a negative emotion such as anger or frustration. When you
smile, you not only convert the negative energy but also (metaphorically)
invite solutions that will resolve your problem, including another person
offering to help you out.
Finally, hypnotherapy
and therapeutic-guided imagery are great tools to help you learn to relax and
manage/control stress and frustration. I will teach you simple breathing and
relaxation exercises that you can use to help reduce stress and create a
hypnotic script to help manage your frustration during specific situations. I
will also give you a recording of your hypnosis to keep that you can listen to
and reinforce the relaxation techniques that we worked on during your
hypnotherapy session.
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/.
