Recipe for Success, Part 2

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).

In Part 1 of this blog, I explained why subconscious resistance to changing those familiar—albeit unwanted—behaviors can keep us stuck there. In today’s blog I describe the Recipe for Success to help you stop the self-limiting subconscious mental script and help you achieve your self-improvement goals.

1.       Believe that you are 100% successful at what you want to achieve. Everything that happens to you is an expression of the subconscious signal you send to the universe. As you change the previous programming of this script by changing those old beliefs, the Universe will send you new opportunities.

2.       Daily Reinforcement. According to Dr. Kappas’s Theory of Mind, every one of your current beliefs and action reinforces what you learned from the time you were born until you were about eight years old. If you are battling homeostasis, you must battle it daily by practicing the new beliefs and behaviors you want to replace the old, obsolete ones.

3.       Ideomotor Response. Handwriting daily affirmations and goals/achievements in the Mental Bank Ledger is a great way to reinforce those new behaviors. (I teach my clients how the Mental Bank Concept helps to replace their obsolete subconscious mental script  with one that will help them achieve new goals and provide their first ledger to get them started!)

4.       Symbolic Language. Dr. Kappas chose monetary and numeric symbols (e.g., the $) to represent success and growth because numbers are an important part of how the subconscious mind works.

5.       Hypnosis. The hypnotherapist facilitates a natural process that occurs at least twice each day during the “Magic 30 minutes” after waking up in the morning and just prior to drifting off to sleep at night. These periods of natural hypnosis are when a person is most suggestible to changing or adopting a new behavior/belief. (This is why you are encouraged to do the Mental Bank right before going to sleep at night.) Similarly, the hypnotic suggestions given during hypnotherapy also “ride the wave” into the subconscious mind to effect the desired change.

6.       Precognitive and Venting Dreams. The majority of change does not happen in the office during the hypnotherapy session. Rather, the hypnotherapist plants the seed for this change that grows over time, starting in sleep. For example, during hypnosis I drop in a hypnotic suggestion that my client will have a venting dream to release any attachment to the unwanted behaviors. Meanwhile, the person can gain insight and benefit from dreams that occurred during the precognitive stage of sleep about how to resolve any conflicts that have prevented achieving the desired goal.

SPECIAL OFFER!

I am currently offering a 10 percent discount on all hypnotherapy for smoking-cessation sessions. This offer is good through January 31, 2017 and is not exchangeable for cash. For more information and to set up an appointment, please contact me at (661) 433-9430 or send an e-mail to calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com. I look forward to hearing from—and working with—you soon!

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/.

© 2015

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

Dreams and Phobias

Photo by Rick Hustead

An individual works through events and conflicts that he or she experienced earlier in the day by venting them out in early-morning venting dreams, Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained. A dream recurs if the subconscious mind does not resolve the issue/content through this process. Furthermore, a recurring dream can cause a phobic reaction if its content induces anxiety. When this occurs, the individual may subconsciously resist sleeping or if the person only sleeps very lightly to avoid having the dream again. Paradoxically, avoiding sleep also reduces the possibility of venting the original issue that keeps showing up in the disturbing dream. 

In addition, a person may incorporate stimuli that he or she experiences during sleep—such as the sound of a barking dog or a slamming door—into the content of a dream. Low blood-sugar levels are associated with the development of phobias, so it is also reasonable to conclude that someone whose blood-sugar level drops during sleep may develop a phobia about a recurring dream. In this case, the person’s nutrition must be addressed to ameliorate the phobic response in addition to helping the person resolve the issue(s) presented during the dream.

You’ll still have to solve the dream and the subconscious motives and fears that aren’t being expressed consciously, Dr. Kappas said. “[Dreams] send signals when something is wrong. These signals must be taken into consideration. Even though the signal (dream) is fantasy, the event that precipitated it is real.”

During this process, the hypnotherapist should provide plenty of suggestions to help the person vent the original fear in addition to desensitizing the client to specific content of the recurring dream. “It might frighten you a bit, but that’s okay because it’s the last time you will ever dream it. You will feel the dream fading and disappearing,” Dr. Kappas advised.

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/.

© 2017

The Systems Approach in 'Art'

(Spoiler Alert: I reveal an important plot detail in this blog. Please

do not read this essay if you plan to see the it!)

What would you do if one of your best friends spent a fortune—€100 million to be exact—to invest in a painting? Not just any painting, mind you; this one is a white pallet painted white and features a bunch of tiny diagonal white lines all the way across. The artist is famous for his Avant Gard subjects and this piece is characterized (in the catalog, anyway) as a “one-in-a-million” collector’s item. Be that as it may, anyone’s willingness to pay so much money, let alone actually liking the painting—is beyond your comprehension. But this is exactly what your friend has done, and all hell has broken loose.

This is the plot of Art, a comedy by Yasmina Reza and currently running at The Old Vic Theatre in London. It stars Tim Key (Yvan), Paul Ritter (Marc) and Rufus Sewell (Serge) as three longtime friends whose relationship literally melts down when Serge purchases the painting in question. Somehow, an essentially blank canvas sparks new and reignites old resentments. Petty irritations with each other (and their respective romantic partners) bubble to the surface until Marc makes a stunning confession: he always considered his friendship with Serge as one of mentor and mentee. He cannot understand or even forgive Serge (the mentee) for drifting so far out of his influence to have bought, let alone actually like that painting, an attraction that Marc doesn’t even understand. Needless to say, Serge is stunned and hurt to learn about the true nature/basis of his relationship with Marc. Can this friendship be saved?

This dilemma is best characterized through the Systems Theory model. Here, changes in one person’s behavior can affect the basic structure of the relationship or system with other people in the relationship, thus creating resistance within it. Even a tiny change in the social/emotional system will affect every part of the entire system. In other words, you cannot separate one component of the system from the sub-total or entire system.

In Art, the presenting issue is one friend’s (questionable) investment in a painting. However, the true conflict is actually each man’s perceived lack of control over the personal areas of their own and each others' lives in contrast with their successful professional ones. According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., no matter what a person’s problem or issue happens to be, the systems approach infiltrates all areas of therapy. Even if only one of these men sought hypnotherapy to work through this conflict about Serge’s painting, it would have to be dealt with within the context of the person’s friendship with the other men. Therefore, the hypnotherapist must address components in his work, relationships, family past, the hypnotherapy he is receiving, plus specific aspects of that conflict in the friendship. Unless these other issues are taken into account, the overall therapy won’t be successful and only the issue being addressed in therapy would be “treated” (improved or eliminated) without achieving genuine resolution of the conflict, Dr. Kappas warned.

A final caveat: In legal, ethical and practical terms the hypnotherapist would not and could not hypnotize Serge to stop liking the painting unless he wanted to do so. To remain friends with him, Marc and Yvan need to accept their friend’s attachment to the painting, or their relationship will eventually, naturally dissolve.

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/.

© 2017