Sunday, January 25, 2015

Establishing Personal Boundaries

Favory Alisa II, a Lipizzan stallion
Photo by Sara Fogan
  

My riding instructor owns four stallions. Each horse is well-mannered and trained to go under saddle and be handled on the ground. I have fed, clipped and groomed each one of them. I feel comfortable working with them, and it is exciting for me that I am able to do this because, well, they are stallions. Favory Alisa II (“Amadeus”), a Lipizzan, is not a particularly tall horse, but he is very muscular. He literally oozes charisma, power and attitude no matter what he is doing. Sometimes he goes up on his hind legs and holds a levade (half-rear) for a few seconds, one of the haute école movements for which the breed is famous at the Spanish Riding School. Yesterday I watched him gallop around the turnout arena with his favorite toy, an orange traffic cone, in his mouth. I admit he looked kind of silly doing that and I had to smile. And yet, I know with 100 percent certainty that this is not a horse to be messed with. The other horses on the property know it, too. As I watched Amadeus play, my former trainer’s words echoed in my mind: “He is a stallion and he knows it, and he deserves respect.”
That memory got me thinking about respect in general and self-respect, in particular. Some individual’s possess this quality in spades while others do not. I considered the difference between how I would behave around the Warmblood stallion versus when I handle my current trainers’ stallion. I decided it had to do with my own self-respect. Ten years ago, I was more in awe and a little bit afraid of my former trainer's big bay stud to even consider what I would do if he ever tried to disrespect me, because I never got close enough for that to be an issue. In my mind, that horse was a symbol of all the power and fiery temperament I imagined a stud must possess to be a stallion. The first time I clipped one of my current trainer’s stallions, I had to get over myself and my pre-conceptions about what a stallion really was (a horse) and, more important, what he was and was not allowed to get away with in the context of working with and being around humans. It was a simple arrangement and no different from the one I have with my own gelding: So long as I was handling the stallion for whatever reason, he had to respect me and my space.
Helping my clients to respect themselves and increase their self-esteem is one of the most important things I do in my hypnotherapy practice. Following are 10 things you can do to increase your self-esteem, reclaim your self-respect and earn the respect of other people around you.

1.       Call someone out on the behavior if someone insults you.
2.       Treat other people fairly and expect to receive fair treatment in return.
3.       Hold a person accountable for his or her bad behavior.
4.       Maintain separate own interests, etc. when you are in an intimate relationship.
5.       Confront the issue or problem when a conflict arises.
6.       Stand up to intimidation: Remember who you are!
7.       Stay true to yourself and remain consistent in your opinions, beliefs, and attitudes about the things that matter to you.
8.       Set physical and emotional boundaries with other people. Of course, people can get in to intimate areas of your life but only with your permission and at your invitation.
9.       Ask for what you want.
10.   Let go of a situation that isn’t working out for you or person who has rejected you.

For more information about ways hypnotherapy and therapeutic guided imagery can help you increase self-respect and self-esteem and change those negative thoughts and behaviors that may be preventing positive self-growth, please contact me at (661) 433-9430.

 

 
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/.

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