Default to the Known

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has

practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee

(This blog was originally posted on May 2, 2017)

 

Photo by Rick Hustead

During my tenure as managing editor of Black Belt magazine, I became very familiar with this refrain/admonition: “You fight the way you train.” It didn’t matter that you have practiced your martial art for thirty years and have a tenth-degree black belt in that style. If your training and competitive expertise are in point-sparring versus contact fighting, chances are you will still be in trouble when it comes to defending yourself against someone who jumps you in an alley. The problem isn’t bad technique; you just defaulted to your subconscious “known,” your comfort zone. Over the years, your repeated training to pull your punches to not make actual contact with an opponent ultimately over-rode the natural instinct to connect a devastating punch or kick with the attacker’s body to defend yourself.

I keep this philosophy in mind when I help my hypnotherapy clients achieve their self-improvement goals by creating a new subconscious mental script to facilitate their desired behavior change. By the time they contact me for hypnotherapy, chances are they have been practicing that unwanted action or belief system for many years. No matter how many times they tell themselves they absolutely, positively do not want to smoke one more cigarette or eat another piece of sugary/fried food, this message is coming from the Logic/Will-Power/Decision-Making and Reasoning faculties based in the Conscious Mind. No matter how much you want to get rid of that negative habit, the Subconscious Mind will have a different perspective.

All those memories and positive associations (pleasure) with doing the “unwanted” behavior are stored in the Subconscious Mind, and the Critical Area of the mind, which is positioned in both the Conscious and Subconscious areas—is a great gate-keeper to prevent change in this status quo. For the Subconscious Mind, change—even desired change—equals pain, and it will fight very hard to prevent change from occurring. To our frustration, this usually means succumbing to temptation to smoke just one more cigarette or polish off your child’s left-over fries, and we go back to practicing those actions we want to stop once and for all.

The great thing about hypnosis is its effectiveness to overhaul or even delete those mental scripts that keep us in that loop of practicing unwanted habits. When you are in hypnosis, I can talk directly to your subconscious mind and, using your motivations, reasons and goals for the behavior change, rewrite that negative script to facilitate desired behavior changes. Once these new mental scripts are in your Subconscious Mind, resistance to making these changes melts away and are replaced by consistent repetition of new, healthy actions and belief systems to reinforce and achieve your self-improvement goals. With hypnosis, we can create a new “default” behavior and connect that metaphoric punch with the desired target: achieving your self-improvement goal!

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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

What You Can (and Cannot) Expect from Hypnotherapy

(This blog was originally posted on October 20, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

                I would like to clarify a couple of things about hypnosis and my role as a certified hypnotherapist. First, as I explain on my website, hypnosis is a natural, drug-free and highly effective therapeutic modality that has been used for centuries to help people change mental scripts for unwanted beliefs or behaviors that no longer work for them. Whether you want to lose weight, quit smoking, increase your self-confidence, overcome a fear or phobia, or achieve just about any vocational and avocational self-improvement goals, hypnosis can help you get it done.

                My goal is to help each and every one of my hypnotherapy clients to achieve his or her vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. I participate in continuing-education courses throughout the year to fine-tune my therapeutic skills and learn new techniques that I can apply in my practice. Between sessions with my clients, I make myself available to answer any questions or discuss an issue that may have come up during the week via a follow-up phone call, e-mail correspondence or both. I provide a recording of the hypnosis component of their therapy for them to listen to during the week and even give them “homework” assignments to help reinforce the new behavior until their next hypnotherapy session. These assignments may include breathing/relaxation exercises to practice, maintaining their Mental Bank program by writing in their Mental Bank ledger each night before bed, reading specific articles or watching online videos about related hypnotherapeutic techniques that are available via the Hypnosis Motivation Institute online video library.

                I work with my clients to achieve their stated goals; when they have accomplished what they set out to do, we typically part ways until they want to work on something new. I generally do not need to explore unrelated issues or discuss experiences that occurred long ago in my clients’ lives unless they state or believe that event pertains to their presenting issue or affects how they currently lead their lives. Having said that, hypnotherapy is not an overnight miracle “cure” for anything and everything that ails or distresses you. By the time most people come in for hypnotherapy, many months or even years have passed since the unwanted belief or behavior was created. Meanwhile, their subconscious mental script has had plenty of time to nurture and reinforce that unwanted habit. Although hypnotherapy is also generally a shorter-term therapy than many traditional psychotherapeutic modalities, it will likely take more than one hypnosis session to change and/or permanently remove that behavior.

Finally, California law allows me to provide hypnotherapy as a complementary or alternative treatment to help my clients to achieve vocational and avocational self-improvement goals (Business and Professions Code 2908). For example, I am certified to help people manage pain and individuals who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder to deal with a myriad of physical and emotional symptoms. However, I may only do so with a referral from a licensed medical doctor or mental-health professional; I must receive a referral from both of these health-care providers to work with a client who has PTSD. I ethically and legally cannot and will not address some issues (e.g., age regression therapy to identify possible past abuse) or diagnose medical or mental-health symptoms. If I feel that your issues are or become beyond my scope of expertise as a hypnotherapist, I will refer you to a licensed medical doctor or psychologist for further evaluation and/or treatment.

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/.

© 2018

Recipe for Success, Part 1

Photo by Rick Hustead

  

People often come in for hypnotherapy to change or adopt a behavior that will help them achieve a specific goal or succeed at a particular endeavor. Contrary to popular belief (and the stories we tell ourselves), Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D. asserted that such success had nothing to do with intelligence, working hard, being nice or deserving, etc. Rather, success (or lack thereof) boiled down to the mental “programming” a person received and how that program was reinforced in daily life (behaviors).

Dr. Kappas attributed the difficulty to change or re-program these behaviors to homeostasis, whereby a person tends to only go so high before hitting a metaphoric “ceiling” to this success. Silently, suddenly self-sabotaging behaviors start to happen to keep the individual stuck in the same (comfortable and familiar) life patterns he or she is trying to change or improve. It is easier and oftentimes more socially rewarding to stay the same or resist change (see Systems Approach in Hypnotherapy). Fortunately, there is also a metaphoric “floor” to this resistance, at which time the person goes so low that he or she is motivated to make a positive change and break out of this negative or limited cycle.

In Part 2 of this blog I will describe the Recipe for Success to help you stop the self-limiting script and help you achieve your self-improvement goals.

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/.

© 2017