The Red Box

I am continuing to suspend in-person hypnotherapy sessions with me in my office. However, phone, and Zoom consultations ARE and WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE! 

 

(This blog was originally posted on November 16, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

 

 

Queen Victoria is known for many things. Until very recently, her reign was the longest of any British monarch. During that time there were considerable industrial and scientific advances, including growth of the railroad and building the London Underground, and development of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolutionary development. Her strong work ethic and public persona of prim behavior and proper etiquette became legendary. But when I think about this queen, what comes first to my mind is the Red Box.

The queen reportedly kept a red box on her desk in which urgent documents and communications were supposed to be placed until she could deal with the issue. As it turned out, less important papers such as generic requests for an audience (appointment) with the queen also found their way into that box. Of course, over time the box got very full. The monarch became frustrated and more than a little stressed out about all those things she had to “do.” Finally, her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, looked inside the box and pointed out that a lot of the material inside didn’t belong there at all. Queen Victoria could lighten her workload by addressing only the most urgent matters and postponing or even delegating the rest to him and/or her ministers, secretaries, etc. to handle. Long story short, the queen took his advice and adopted a new and more efficient strategy for managing her monarchy.

Whether she vocally resisted (argued) adopting the new system or immediately accepted her husband’s suggestion to reorganize the contents of that box is probably unknown. However, it is likely that the queen initially found this task daunting and even annoying. Suddenly, she had to change a familiar, relatively simple behavior of putting documents in one place and take more time separating and classifying each item based on specific criteria. Once she got the hang of it this process would prove simpler and more efficient, but she would have to get used to it, first.

Call it what you will, but Queen Victoria’s new and even the intention of her original organizational system sounds an awful lot like the Neurolinguistic Programming technique of “chunking it down.”

If aspects of this tale sounds familiar in your own life that is the point I am trying to make. From time to time, a lot of us—including monarchs!—need help prioritizing assignments, jobs, projects and even relationships to be more efficient and productive in other areas of our lives. We are used to doing things a particular way, and every time we repeat that behavior (“way”) we reinforce it. However, it becomes easier to adopt a new process as we practice doing it for a while—i.e., incorporating these new actions (“knowns”) into the behavioral repertoire to create your new subconscious mental script. It is also easier to make a change when someone we respect or admire (hypno-modality) encourages/helps/teaches us what we need to do to implement the behavior/belief system, as Prince Albert did for his wife in this instance.

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Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. Sara has been voted the Best Hypnotherapist in Santa Clarita, California, four years in a row (2019-2022). For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/

© 2023

 

Coming in for a Tune-Up

(This blog was originally posted on March 8, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Each year, most of us go to the doctor, or take our kids to the pediatrician or our pets to the veterinarian to get a wellness check-up. We take our cars in to the shop for a tune-up. If your profession requires you to renew your professional license to continue working, you might attend a conference to refresh your knowledge and take a written test to update your certification. And so on.

Hypnotherapy is a great tool for “tuning up” our subconscious and conscious mind by reinforcing positive, healthy lifestyle choices and behaviors while you focus on pursuing new self-improvement goals. For example, athletes often describe how they continuously practice and hone their skills until they become muscle memory. Not only does conscious thought become unnecessary to achieve the desired technique, but many say that thinking about what they are doing, at all, is often an impediment to their success. Similarly, dancers continue to practice and review the foundation movements of their art even as they learn and perfect new techniques and choreography. They know that it is equally important to reinforce the subtle, mental nuances of their art as it is to keep their muscles strong and flexible.

 This is also true of everyday activities and habits. If we do not practice the desired behavior or belief system until it, too, becomes automatic. However, when we are confronted with a challenge or stressful situation, it is easy to slip back into those previous, unwanted habits or beliefs simply because they are so familiar and comfortable. A tune-up hypnotherapy session is an effective way to reinforce those positive, healthy and desired behaviors. In hypnosis, the physical body becomes very comfortable and relaxed, which enables the subconscious mind to accept and incorporate message units (information) into new subconscious knowns. The subconscious mind quickly and easily assimilates these hypnotic suggestions because they are simply reiterations of a previous script. In this situation, hypnotherapy is used to reinforce the desired behavior(s) being an automatic response even during a challenging or stressful situation.

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

The Chicago Cubs: World Series Champions (Again) At Last!

(This blog was originally posted on November 3, 2016)

Image courtesy of Microsoft

The Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in the tenth inning of the seventh game of the 2016 World Series to take the title in one of the hardest fought titles I have ever seen. Like so many other people who are not necessarily Cubs fans, I was curious to see how the team would fare. Despite the team’s best efforts over the years to clinch another World Series title, the infamous “Billy Goat curse” had haunted the ball club since their last World Series appearance in 1945. The last time they won a World Series was 108 years ago, in 1908. Why should this year be any different?

Needless to say, my interest in how this team would fare had less to do with being a fan of baseball compared to how they would deal with the pressure of such high-octane competition and a particular subconscious mental script. A curse like the one bestowed on the Chicago Cubs all those years ago is particularly insidious because its effectiveness is derived from people’s belief in it. Apparently, a local bar owner named Bill “Billy Goat” Sianis promised that the team would stop winning games because he wasn’t allowed to bring his pet goat in to watch Game 4 of the World Series at Wrigley Field. (The goat reportedly had a ticket, too.) The curse seemed to have worked because the Cubs didn’t make it back into these championship games until this year. Generations of baseball fans and even baseball players that compose this and other baseball clubs may or may not believe/believed in the curse. And regardless of their belief in it, the very idea of a curse was certainly a convenient explanation (defense mechanism) for why the team couldn’t win, let alone get into, another World Series. 

My question is this: Was that curse really so powerful and effective to undermine the post-season success of this team all these years? Other teams have had long “droughts” between winning and even entering the World Series, and they don’t carry the burden of a curse to explain/excuse their post-season performances. 

The fact that such a negative proclamation even existed likely helped to undermine fans’ and even the players’ own confidence and belief in the Cubs ability to win a championship. If you don’t believe me, consider how much better teams/athletes generally fare when they have a home-field advantage. Just like in Jack Norworth’s iconic song, “Take Me out to the Ball Game,” local fans generally do “root, root, root for the home team.” The positive energy that comes from an excited, supportive crowd cheering, whistling and chanting for their home team cannot be dismissed; athletes truly seem buoyed by the home advantage. Similarly, the negative energy and disdain this crowd projects when the visiting team scores or prevents the local heroes from scoring or ultimately winning, is palpable. (I will address that phenomenon in a future essay.) Of course, this is exactly what the Chicago Cubs did last night.

As I reflect on the excitement and, yes, anxiety-inducing action that took place during the 2016 World Series Games, I do not doubt the power the curse might have had over the team and their fans over the years. Their belief systems and the negative chatter/subconscious mental scripts that fueled and reinforced those beliefs were obviously very powerful. But let’s turn this scenario around for a moment. What if it had simply taken all these years for a World Series-caliber Chicago Cubs team to come into being? 

Now that we all know this baseball team is capable of winning a world championship, hopefully the athletes, future team members, coaches, club owners and fans can store this memory and experience as a new subconscious “known.” The Chicago Cubs played fabulous baseball this season and the cooperation and talent of each player proved once and for all that this is a championship team. I think these past seven (game) days prove that their curse is finally, officially lifted/exorcised/over. So, no more excuses….just play world championship-caliber baseball!

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