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.

• “You can focus on what’s tearing you apart, or on what’s holding you together.” – Zig Ziglar

• “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” – Buddha

• “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” – Thomas Edison

•  “The most important trust issue that we face, is learning to trust ourselves.” – Lolly Daskal

•  “Happiness is not the absence of problems. It is the ability to deal with them.” – Steve Maraboli

• “Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.” – PemaChödrön

• “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

• “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.” – Proverb 

•  “Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge.” – Deepak Chopra

• “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” – Wayne Dyer­

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

Dealing With Triggers

Photo by Rick Hustead

Does the sound of your spouse chewing a piece of gum drive you up a wall? Do you experience an unbearable craving for a cigarette as soon as the dinner dishes are cleared away? Do you break into a cold sweat at the thought that one of your primary duties as best-man will be to make a speech or toast for your buddy and his new wife on their big day?

These are just a few examples of “triggers”: i.e., events or situations that evoke a strong emotional and even physiological reaction. For example, the sound of the first bars of a song you shared with a former partner may now bring up more negative emotions—anger and/or sadness—about the lost relationship and the person you once loved. Whether you change the station on the radio or skip over the song on your playlist, the damage is done and the distress is real. Suddenly your day, which seemed like it was going so well you heard those bars, is well on the way to being a total loss.

There are actually a few things you can do to salvage this situation. First, and most important, breathing/activating a subconscious anchor is an excellent way to calm down, relax and defuse a trigger. As horseman Monty Roberts reminds his students, “Low adrenaline equals high learning.” (This applies to humans and equines.) Breathing naturally helps to relax the body and lowers adrenaline floating around in the blood-stream that otherwise jack up our anxiety and energy level. I help all of my hypnotherapy clients find and create a subconscious anchor during one of their first sessions with me, which they can use right away—wherever and whenever they need it—to return to a comfortable, calm and relaxed state. Relaxation is the key to your being able to use the logic and reasoning parts of your conscious mind and effectively, confidently deal with a stressful or negative situation.

Systematic desensitization in hypnosis to various triggers of the negative association (e.g., your ex’s memory) is a great way to reduce stress and anticipatory anxiety about encountering unwanted reminders in your environment. I use this technique with many hypnotherapy clients to help them deal with various issues such as resisting a sugary or high-calorie snack, smoking, overcoming anxiety about public speaking, etc. Therapeutic guided-imagery journeys and role-playing exercises such as talking to the person or object that causes this distress to build self-confidence and practice successfully resolving the specific conflict give you the “edge” in a real-world encounter. Remember, the subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is real and imaginary. When you practice walking calmly, confidently away from the person who broke your heart or politely reject that second helping of Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing while you are in hypnosis, the SCM thinks it is doing these things in real time. The end result is that the behavior will be easier and more comfortable—even feel more natural—when you do it for real.

The Emotional Freedom Technique is another very useful strategy for dealing with anxiety and other negative feelings or reactions that come up when you encounter a specific trigger. This process involves lightly tapping specific areas of the body (head/face, chest, hands, etc.) to essentially disrupt and defuse negative energy in the body and re-wire the mind to make a positive response or reaction. I often teach EFT to my hypnotherapy clients to give them an extra tool with which to manage stress and anxiety when they are faced with (or know they will encounter) an issue that triggers this negative emotional state.

As always, it is important to make sure that you eat nutritious food that contains protein, drink plenty of water and avoid caffeine to keep your blood-sugar level even. As I explained in my blog titled The Origin of Fears and Phobias, when the blood-sugar level suddenly dips the body automatically defends itself by substituting adrenaline for glucose (sugar). The bloodstream carries this hormone to the organs, muscles and glands to activate the fight/flight response and become hyper-sensitive to negative stimuli that already induce anxiety, nervousness, fear and even create a phobia.

For more information about how to deal with stress-inducing triggers in your life, please contact me at calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com or call (661) 433-9430 to set up an appointment. I also invite you to read my previous blogs titled Dealing with Frustration and Release and Let It Go.

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

Packing Things Away

Photo by Rick Hustead

Now that it is officially Spring, I have no excuse to postpone my Spring cleaning. Specifically, to go through my closets and dresser drawers and separate the clothes I still wear from the ones that just take up storage space. The thing is, even the items I haven’t worn for years have a lot of sentimental value and I just don’t want to get rid of them yet. Fortunately, I had a very enlightening conversation with Linda Hammond, one of my friends (and Network Referral Group partner) about how to handle this issue.

Linda is the group’s interior-design “guru.” In addition to having fabulous taste in color pallets and furniture placement, she also has practical solutions for just about any (and every) home-decorating/organization crisis to come along. Today’s informal topic was what to do with all the things I didn’t want to be without, even though I haven’t thought about (let alone worn) one of those items in ages. Her simple solution was simple. First: organize the clothes into “must have,” “don’t want” and “can’t part with” categories. The articles I wanted to keep would obviously be re-folded/placed on a hanger and put back where I found them. The stuff I didn’t want anymore (or no longer fit into) would go into a box to donate at a nearby Goodwill or similar outlet. Finally the items I couldn’t bear to part with (yet) would be placed in another box to store just out of reach but accessible if I really, really can’t get rid of them yet—but one day. That plan sounded do-able and I thanked her profusely for the suggestions.

When I thought about our conversation later in the evening, I was struck by how practical this plan was and its similarity to some of the strategies I help my hypnotherapy clients develop to address an uncomfortable issue.

1. Chunk it down (divide the items into discrete categories or groups to deal with individually). This is a neuro-linguistic programming technique in which the person divides a big task or concept into several smaller ones in order to better manage/handle it.

2. Begin separating or detaching from the items you’re not quite ready to part with by storing them in an out-of-the-way place where you can get to them if necessary but will take some effort to retrieve. Whenever you think about or remember that you still have them, do a quick inventory of whether these objects still have the same sentimental value or are you ready to release this attachment so someone else can enjoy them. As Linda said, it’s okay to hold onto these items and there should never be any pressure to absolutely discard them; but the time may eventually come when it is and feels okay to say goodbye and send them on their way with love.

3. Evaluate how much of this attachment to the garment is genuine (sentimental value) or habit. For example, I have owned (but rarely worn) an old Cricket sweater since 1989. Do I hold onto it because I still hold fond memories of the year I bought it? It is more likely that I have kept the sweater because I’m not sure what to do with it and I’m just a little bit afraid that I might miss it when it’s gone. That anxiety goes right back to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind: The subconscious mind is afraid of what it doesn’t know. I have actually owned that Cricket sweater more than half of my life, but the perceived pain isn’t separating from a beloved item of clothes (which I haven’t worn since I bought it). No, the anxiety and discomfort comes from the idea of not having it anymore.

I hope this information and tips are helpful to you as you embark on your own Spring-cleaning/donation rituals. It certainly helped me to write this blog: the decision is made and sweater is staying. At least until next year.

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

Handwriting: Under Pressure!

Image courtesy of Microsoft

The April 25, 2016 installment of The Family Circus cartoon strip featured one of the characters, Billy, working on a homework assignment. When his mom asks why he is pressing so hard, the little boy explains that he wants his teacher to know that he means what he is writing. I knew right away that I had the topic for today’s blog. In addition to addressing what is literally meant in the written word, this scenario also addressed the (literally) unwritten part of communication that is so often ignored: what we mean by the words we use and what the reader understands or infers.

Let’s start with handwriting. As I have explained in my previous blog titled What I Look for in an Informal Handwriting Sample, handwriting—a manifestation of what we consciously think—is motivated by a subconscious ideomotor (automatic physical) response. In addition to the various characteristics of writing such as the form of the letters, letter slant, and straightness of the lines of writing, pressure of the sample is also very important. In fact, this is one of the first things I consider when I analyze handwriting. The presence or absence of significant pressure of the writing suggests that the person invested more or less “feeling” in what he or she wrote. This is identified by checking for the presence or absence of indentations on the opposite side of the page. These are comparable to reflections of the writing sample that can be seen and/or felt on the reverse side. Sometimes you can see the deep formation of the letters or even pin-holes of light where the pressure was so strong that it actually made tiny tears in the paper.

The second feature that interested me about this cartoon is about suggestibility. In the cartoon, Billy tells his mother that he wants the teacher to know (see) that he means what he has written by the amount of pressure he used to write his essay. This is a trait of a Physical Suggestible: I mean what I say and I say what I mean. His apparent emotional investment in writing this assignment is to appear honest or, at least, that he has completed the assignment to the best of his understanding when he answered the question. (By the way, all young children possess Physical Suggestibility.) However, the teacher may not equate the pressure of the pencil on the paper the way he intends her to do. For example, if she is an Emotional Suggestible she might infer that the deep indentations in the paper indicate that Billy was frustrated or even angry about doing the assignment in the first place. Or, she may interpret that the force of his writing reflects his deep interest about the essay topic or questions. If Billy’s answers are wrong or if he misunderstood the question he was supposed to answer in the assignment, the teacher may believe that her student was expressing frustration about what he has been asked to do. Then again, she may not even notice or care about this feature of his writing and grade the assignment simply on the accuracy or correct interpretation of the boy’s answers.

When I ask someone to provide a handwriting sample for analysis, I instruct the person to write about personally meaningful topic to get a good sense of the ideomotor response being activated. Copying information off of a document or providing the rhyme used to memorize position of letters on a keyboard activates only the conscious mind and does not reveal very much about the person’s subconscious behavior and personality. I don’t know how old Billy is in this sketch, but he looks very young. Even if he is writing an essay, the amount of original thought and analysis he puts into what he is writing, versus stringing related facts into a series of sentences, would depend on his age. It is more likely that Billy’s writing sample constitutes parroting back information versus sharing a new idea that would bear more insight into his subconscious mind. Finally, you can see in that he is writing on lined paper. Ideally, a handwriting sample is done on plain (unlined) paper so I can get a good picture of the natural slant of the person’s writing and width of their margins, etc.

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

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Photo by Rick Hustead

According to John Kappas, Ph.D., Emotional Sexuals do not get hung up in a failed relationship for as long or the way a Physical Sexual is likely to do. Physicals focus their lives on a relationship and a loving commitment. Once the relationship becomes physically (sexually) intimate, they tend to plan the future and have high expectations for commitment with the partner.

“The Physical Sexual female subconsciously thinks, ‘Would he make a good husband/father of my child? Could I spend an eternity with him?” The Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder explained. If the other person is a good candidate for such a relationship, this evolution of the partnership will happen naturally.  However, if the relationship seems to be failing or if the other partner (typically an Emotional Sexual) rejects the person’s advances, the Physical Sexual will panic about losing the person and cling even more. When the Physical Sexual backs off a bit—perhaps even making the Emotional Sexual jealous—the relationship tends to start up again.

When the relationship is finally over and the Physical Sexual leaves for good, the person doesn’t go back. However, the person’s fear of the emotional pain resulting from this separation and the fact that self-worth is so closely tied to the relationship makes it difficult to make this final break, Dr. Kappas observed. This fear and the person’s lack of confidence that he or she can survive without the partner will subconsciously motivate the person to hold onto the dead relationship. However, it may be prudent to let the relationship go if you’re not getting what you want or need, he advised.

Since people continue to evolve over time, you should become involved with another person with whom you can grow in this way, Dr. Kappas said. Don’t hold onto a relationship that’s not going anywhere for you and replace expectations about getting married and having a partner with that partner, specifically. “You need to separate what you want for yourself. You have to project availability and attainability. Lovers are not forever, but for now or tomorrow.”

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