Getting Out of Your Own Way

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

It is often easier to succeed at a task if you stop over-analyzing
what you need to do and just go out there and do it.

                We tend to be the biggest “block” to our personal success. For some reason, the more we want to succeed at something and the harder we try to accomplish our goal, the further out of reach that dream seems to get. Why is that?

Quite simply, we may be doing too much, “trying” too hard. We micromanage our behavior (activity) and over-analyze what we think we should be doing and how a task should be done to such a degree that, when the time comes to actually take action, we forget how to do it. We dream, we hope, we aspire to greatness. We set goals and lay down the groundwork—the foundations—that will make this success possible (we hope). But when we face challenges and even setbacks along the way, we become frustrated, angry and discouraged about our likelihood to succeed or achieve that goal. Sometimes we even consider giving up on that dream or project and start something new.

Does this scenario sound familiar? Star Wars fans know the scene in which Yoda famously counseled Luke Skywalker during his training to become a Jedi Knight: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” All of our machinations and preparations for success are meaningless if we don’t finally, at last, just go out and do what we have been working so hard to achieve. Trying is not doing. At the end of the day, the most effective way to achieve a goal is to stop planning and thinking about all of the things that might go right or wrong when you finally get around to doing it. Just take a deep breath (or several) and go for it. Get out of your own way and just let your body and subconscious mind do what it already knows how to do.

               

 

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/.

© 2014

 

The Benefits of Cross-Training

Photo by Sara Fogan

Olympian Gina Miles applies her expertise in three discrete
equestrian disciplines as part of her training and competitive repertoire.

                To get really good at something, you must often learn and practice other skills that will complement and improve your primary vocation or avocation. We typically hear and use the term “cross-training” to describe this philosophy in a sports or athletic context. For example, many professional football players lift weights to increase strength, run to improve endurance and even take ballet and/or gymnastics to learn how to jump and tumble in a safe way. Gina Miles, an equestrian who won a silver medal in eventing (“combined training”) at the 2008 Olympics, must focus on three discrete equestrian disciplines—dressage, cross-country and show jumping—as part of their training and competitive repertoire.

                Even if you are not a professional athlete, you can still apply this philosophy of learning new and related skills to improve your “performance” at work. If you are a project manager or supervisor at work, you probably have to participate in specialized workshops and attend conferences to learn, master and maintain the skills you will need to do your current job. A reporter must maintain a standard of writing and communicating to the reading/viewing audience, in addition to keeping up with current events and research skills to produce an accurate report.

                The great thing about cross-training in these contexts is that learning and mastering new skills is a great opportunity to increase your self-confidence and self-esteem. The more skills you possess, the better equipped you will be to apply these abilities to achieve goals/solve problems in any area of your life. Your conscious mind possesses the logic, reasoning, decision-making and will-power to learn those new skills; your subconscious mind internalizes this information in that will enable the conscious mind to apply the skills and succeed in your new goal. Best of all, the excitement and pride you feel when you master these new skills creates a new, powerful “known” message in your subconscious mind: I can do this, too!

 

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/.

©2014

Don’t Pack More Thank You Can Carry

Photo courtesy of Microsoft


When you pack for a vacation, remember to leave any
negative associations/expectations about your trip at home.

 

As I have mentioned in my blog on January 8, 2014, it is very important to devote some time every day to relaxation and chilling out. Your conscious mind and physical body need down time the same way your subconscious mind needs REM sleep and dreams to process information and work through stress while you sleep. With President’s Day upon us, tomorrow marks the start of a three-day weekend for many Americans. Some people will take advantage of the long weekend to go away for a few days of rest and relaxation. Others may opt to take a “staycation” and spend quality time at home with friends and family. And still others may choose to take the next few days to spend quality time alone, going to a health spa to meditate and recharge their emotional batteries.

While you prepare for the weekend, consider which items you absolutely need and want to bring with you and those you can (and should) leave behind. Plane/train/boat tickets, money and I.D., change(s) of clothes, toothbrush and toothpaste are obvious items you will need to bring along. If you plan to go skiing or snowboarding, you will probably also want to pack your sports gear for the trip, too. Just as there is limited carrying space in a suitcase, the trunk of your car and in the storage compartments of airplanes, trains and tour buses, I believe that there should also be limited room for the mental scripts that you bring with you on your vacation. “Necessary” items to include in this kind of mental script are: positive emotions and energy about the trip, optimism and alternative strategies or options if you must make an unexpected change of plan. What you do not need to bring on your trip are negative memories/associations with your travel destination and negative emotions (e.g., frustration, pessimism, etc.). If possible, you should also leave your job at home, too.

If you have any anxiety about or negative associations with your vacation destination—for example, if you haven’t been on skis since you had that bad spill two years ago—check out my suggestions for increasing self-confidence in my blog on January 12, 2014. I also provide a generic breathing and relaxation exercise in my blog on February 4, 2014: Here, I teach you an effective technique to replace negative associations with positive ones as you exhale and inhale your breath, respectively.

                I hope you have a wonderful and safe weekend, wherever you go and however you spend it.

 

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/.

© 2014

Handwriting Analysis for Hypnotherapy



Photo courtesy of Microsoft

Your handwriting is a reflection of your personality and the
subconscious motivations that drive your behavior.

 

                Handwriting is a manifestation of what we consciously think, but it is motivated by a subconscious ideomotor (subconscious physical) response. The way you write—the shape and size of each letter, whether you connect the letters and even the speed of your writing—are literally a reflection of your behavior and personality traits.

At the beginning of their first hypnotherapy session with me, I ask my clients to write a few sentences that describe their reasons/motivations for seeking hypnotherapy to change a specific behavior. Handwriting does not reveal the age or gender of the writer; nor will it enable me (or anyone else) to determine whether the person is right- or left-handed or to predict the writer’s future. However, handwriting will reveal the person’s mood, personality traits, suggestibility and subconscious motivations at the time of writing this sample. I analyze specific characteristics of the writing, not the content of what is written, per se, to identify, confirm or negate the writer’s specific personality traits and how those traits affect behavior.

I use these observations, plus the information that the client provides for me during the pre-hypnosis component of the consultation, to create a powerful hypnotic script that will help the person achieve specific, vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. Handwriting analysis is also useful to help a client identify other issues (e.g., stubbornness, low self-esteem/self-confidence) that may be impacting the presenting issue, and which the person may want to address during this or a future 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/.

© 2014

Breath Exchange

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

The act of breathing is a great metaphor for hypnotherapy.

 

Slow, deep breathing is an important component of my hypnotherapy work. Breathing this way not only relaxes the physical body; it also provides them a tangible example of their ability to control a specific, physical behavior. Breathing is also a relevant metaphor for the idea of releasing old habits or beliefs and replacing them with the new, desired behaviors and mental scripts that they believe will improve their lives in some way. Following is a simple imagery exercise that you can do at the end of the day to help you relax and let go of any negative emotion or tension in your body before going to bed:

Start by taking a slow, deep breath through your nose. Visualize or imagine that you are drawing cool, clean air all the way into the bottom of your lungs. Hold this breath for the count of four, three, two, one… This air that you have inhaled is filled with tiny molecules of relaxation, calm, comfort and confidence that travels from your lungs and moves throughout your body.  

On zero, release the breath slowly through your mouth. Visualize and imagine that you are releasing with this breath any tightness or tension that you have been carrying around in your body; you are releasing any negative emotion (e.g., anger, frustration, etc.) that you no longer want or need to carry inside of you. Just let go of all of those negative emotions and physical tensions, allow them to dissipate in the atmosphere where they can no longer affect you or anyone else.

Repeat this exercise several times as needed until you feel completely relaxed and start drifting into sleep.

 

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/.

© 2014

 

Because…That’s What You Like

                In last night’s episode of Sherlock, that ever-perceptive and insightful sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, pointed out the obvious to his good friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson: Watson had experienced certain stressful, potentially traumatic and even life-threatening events during his life because he had invited those situations to occur. Even his choices of friends (Sherlock) and life partner were being dictated by these subconscious messages, preferences, choices that Watson kept making over and over again because, basically, that is what the good doctor liked.

                Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained this behavior in his Theory of Mind: Each person’s subconscious learns and adopts behaviors and ways of thinking from a very young age. By the time you are about 5 years old the blueprint of your future beliefs and behaviors is established, based on what you have learned during these early years of your life. For example, if you like (or even hate) to eat a particular kind of food, it is likely that you were given this or a similar item as a youngster. You associate the experience of eating this item with memories about how it tasted, if you like the taste, who served it to you/who was with you, etc. Other behaviors and interests (preferences) are learned in a similar way: Some people prefer to stay at home on a Friday night and curl up with a good book or watch something on television, instead of going to a party with their friends. Others enjoy skydiving and participate in various high-adrenaline sports; they think nothing of skiing down a “widow-maker” slope. Some people enjoy the hustle and thrum of having a busy social life while living in the center of a bustling city. Others prefer a quiet family life in the suburbs.

These are extreme examples of personalities at either end of a spectrum, but the drive or motivation behind these preferences comes from the same place: the subconscious mind. This is the place where you store and reinforce your beliefs and behaviors by doing what you do—without thinking about it—every time you say, think or do that behavior. Even if you do not consciously like or enjoy the belief or behavior that you reinforce, by now it has become comfortable, familiar (pleasure) to you—even if it is not “pleasurable.” According to Kappas, everyone carries the association and enjoyment (or not) of our “known” behaviors and beliefs throughout your life or, until you are motivated to change this belief or behavior.

I help my hypnotherapy clients to change their various unwanted behaviors; hypnotherapy works because and when the person wants to make this change. Your subconscious mind may know what you really want, but in your conscious mind you have the will-power, decision-making, reasoning and logic to literally change your mind.

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/.

© 2014

Two Sides of the Same Coin

 

 

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

Are you able to turn a stressful situation
into an advantage?
 

                It is easy to go off course during a project. You don’t know what to say when someone asks you a question during a presentation at work. You forget how to play a piece of music at a recital for which you have spent months rehearsing. Time seems to stop as that crucial event and the split second in which “it” occurred are burned into your mind and memory, forever. But time continues to march on and, you still have your life to lead and that project/performance/game, etc. to complete. When your focus is disturbed, are you able to maintain your composure and carry on as if nothing is changed? Will you use the disruption to your advantage, or will you freeze and miss out on later opportunities to recover because you are still focused on what has already happened?

                I saw both scenarios play out tonight while I watched the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos lost control of the football to the Seattle Seahawks in the first 10 seconds or so of the game. Seattle quickly took advantage of their “advantage” and kept powering through the game. You could see their athletes’ confidence grow with every play. Football players are big guys, anyway; however, Seattle’s players literally seemed to get physically bigger every time they scored a point or got an inch closer to the end zone. They had more spring in their step on the field and on the sidelines. Conversely, the Broncos were stuck in an endless loop of that first scrimmage. I could see the frustration and disappointment on the team’s faces and, more importantly, in their demeanor. Each time a pass was intercepted or one of the Broncos missed or dropped the football, everyone on that team seemed to deflate a little bit more and their opponents got that much bigger.

 

                Two sides of the same coin.

 

 

 

                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/.

© 2014