Two Sides of the Same Coin, Redux

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

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 yesterday afternoon while I watched the Super Bowl 50. Unlike their disappointing Super Bowl outing against the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Denver Broncos gained control of the football early on and never really allowed their opposing team, the Carolina Panthers, to get it back. This year the Broncos kept a respectable point advantage and kept powering through the game. It was as if each interception, each sack, each block of the opposing side added another layer of confidence to the Broncos’ players. I knew that Denver was not a heavy favorite to win the game. However, the sentimental poignancy of Broncos Quarterback Peyton Manning possibly retiring from the NFL with a second Super Bowl championship was very alluring. (I admit it: I wanted that for him, too.) Coming from a “football” family—dad Archie Manning played in the NFL and younger brother Eli Manning is a quarterback for the New York Giants)—achieving this goal would be a very satisfying (possible) finish to his storied career.

A few days ago I had heard that Cam Newton, the Quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, was finishing high school senior when Peyton Manning won his first Super Bowl Championship in 2007. While I watched the game yesterday, I wondered what it was like for this young quarterback to be competing against the man who could very well have been a onetime role model and career inspiration. Did Newton have or model pass/play strategies that he once saw the former Indianapolis Colts Quarterback use to score one of many touchdowns? At nearly 40 years old, Manning is like an energizer bunny that just doesn’t seem to run out of energy. While his fans cheer, how intimidating must it be for a much younger athlete like Newton to wonder: how much advantage his strength and skill will I have and need to out-play equally talented and much more experienced player? Was the scenario like the famous scenes in Seabiscuit, where the horse only needed to look into his competitors’ eyes to sufficiently intimidate any opponent to make a virtually unchallenged run for the finish line? This kind of pressure can definitely feel soul-destroying.

At the end of the game, the Denver Broncos had more spring in their step on the field and on the sidelines while the Carolina Panthers were stuck in an endless loop of that first scrimmage—just as their opponents had been two years ago. Once again, 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 Panthers was sacked or the football was intercepted, everyone on the team seemed to deflate a little bit more while their opponents got that much bigger.

The Denver Broncos had learned hard lessons from the experience of their disappointing play in the 2014 Super Bowl, while the Carolina Panthers had only played in one Super Bowl (2004). It would be completely understandable and expected that the novelty of the Big Game experience and the competitive presence of a record-breaking quarterback to send the Panthers into a kind of subconscious experiential overload. Despite their obvious talent and seeming lightning-quick speed, this time the Panthers weren’t able to effectively defend against the opposing team’s “defense” against them.

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/.

© 2016

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.

• “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” – The Imitation Game

• “Success is never final and failure never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” – George R. Tilton

• “You say I dream too big. I say you think too small.” – Anonymous

• “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.” – Aristotle

• “A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” – Hugh Downs

• “Intuition is knowing without knowing how you know.” – Healing Art Forms Institute

• “It helps if you remember that everyone is doing their best from their level of consciousness.” – Deepak Chopra

• “Fools take a knife and stab people in the back. The wise take a knife, cut the cord & free themselves from the fools.” – Unknown

• “If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.” – The Random Path

• “Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, remember how far you have come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome.” – Unknown

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

All about Emotional & Physical Sexuality, Part 3

 

In my previous blogs titled All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 1 and All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 2, I described characteristics of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s cornerstone therapeutic model, Emotional and Physical Sexuality. Once you understand how behaviors and motivations of the respective partners affects a relationship, this model can help improve the relationship or even amicably separate from a partner if the relationship has run its course. The Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder used this model to successfully help thousands of hypnotherapy clients to negotiate conflicts in their romantic and personal relationships.

Following is a summary of how the Emotional Sexual and Physical Sexual partner behaves in a relationship.

Emotionals vs. Physicals

•  Emotional Sexual individuals don’t like to confront their partner. Physical Sexual individuals have no problem asking for or “demanding” what they want and need.

• Guilt controls the Emotional Sexual partner. The Physical Sexual partner feels actual, physical pain during a break-up, but when the relationship is over an Emotional “seems” to move on to a new relationship. (A bad break-up can take the Physical out of the dating game for a very long time in some cases, or subconsciously “chooses” another Physical partner because the previous experience with the Emotional lover/end of relationship was so traumatic.)

• The Emotional Sexual partner has 3-day cycles for sexual receptiveness. Day “3” is optimal for sexual intimacy/likelihood of the Emotional Sexual to solicit sexual contact from the partner. On day 3, the Emotional Sexual is most “Physical” (sub-dominance).

• Sex and the relationship are two different/separate things for the Emotional Sexual partner. The Emotional Sexual can compartmentalize: “It’s ‘just’ sex” with a mistress.

• Sex and the relationship are the one and the same for the Physical Sexual partner. A Physical Sexual person can’t imagine being sexually intimate without “feeling” an emotional connection with the other person.

• BOTH the Emotional Sexual and Physical Sexual partner wants control in the relationship but go about getting it in different ways. For example, the Physical Sexual partner shouts/pouts/makes demands for more attention. Conversely, the Emotional Sexual Partner freezes out/ignores the Physical Sexual partner, which makes the Physical Sexual partner become even more needy—shouting/making demands until one of them walks away from the relationship or reconciles the difference.

The subconscious goal of the Physical Sexual partner is to raise the Emotional partner’s subdominant (Physical Sexual) trait in order to receive the affection and attention that he or she needs and craves. Similarly the subconscious goal of the Emotional Sexual partner is to lower the Physical Sexual partner’s physicality in order to give the Emotional more “space” to feel desire and come forward. To reduce negative tension and increase physical desire between the Emotional and Physical Sexual partners, Dr. Kappas recommended that each individual “give a Twinkie” (a metaphoric treat or favor) in the form of a desired behavior, from time to time. For example:

• The Physical Sexual partner can give the Emotional partner “space” to do his/her own thing for a little while or be an asset to the Emotional partner’s career.

• The Emotional Sexual partner can send love notes to the Physical partner, have flowers delivered, etc. to show that he/she is thinking about the other person even when not in the mood for physical intimacy.

• Understanding the 3-day cycle and planning intimacy around this is “giving a Twinkie” as well. Physical partner is usually responsible for this gesture because the Physical is most likely to feel/be sensitive to Emotional partner’s inadvertent rejection on Day 1 and Day 2 of the sexual cycle.

• The Emotional partner has 3-day cycles for sexual receptiveness. Day “3” is optimal for sexual intimacy/likelihood of the Emotional to solicit sexual contact from the partner. On day 3, the Emotional is most “Physical” (sub-dominance).

• Cubicle release: The Emotional Sexual wants a strong sensation/ultimate sexual experience to really “feel” intimate with the partner. 1 ejaculation vs. 3 ½ for the physical partner, who can ejaculate in smaller volumes to have many experiences.

• “Buy the symptoms” of the opposite behavior: When the Emotional is cycling, it’s not about you (the Physical partner). It’s about cycle days, so give the Emotional partner the space to come to you (the physical partner). If the Emotional partner only encounters the Physical partner on a cycle day, he/she can feel even more physical. This good experience shortens the length of time between cycle days.

References:

1.       Kappas, Ph.D., John G. Relationship Strategies: The E & P Attraction. Panorama Publishing, Tarzana, California. © 1992.

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