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Thursday, March 9, 2017

How the Law of Attraction Can Work for You!

“Before you can transform your wallet from poor to rich, you’ve

got to transform your spirit from poor to rich.” – Robert Kiyosaki

Photo by Rick Hustead

Yesterday as I drove home from my weekly business luncheon with the Network Referral Group, I wondered when I could expect to hear from a marketing executive who had promised to contact me that afternoon. My phone rang less than a minute later; it was the call I had been waiting for.

This was not a coincidence.

Less than an hour earlier, I did a lunchtime presentation about the Law of Attraction and how it works, for the other NRG members. The talk went very well and I was still basking in a state of optimism and confidence about how this information would help me and my colleagues attract more clients in the coming week. Here are some highlights from my presentation which can help you achieve the business, romantic, etc., success you are trying to attract. This information is based on what I learned during a certification course I recently completed about this topic, taught by Joe Tabbanella, C.Ht., through the Hypnosis Motivation Institute.

Visualize the outcome. How will you look/feel/behave with you have achieved your goal? Really get into the imagery about your desired result. Really see yourself experiencing and enjoying it and what it will mean for you. Remember: The subconscious mind does not know the difference between fantasy and reality, so this kind of imagery exercise will reinforce the experience of having what you want to attract, in your subconscious mind.

Ask yourself: Why do you want “X”? How will actually obtaining this thing or person that you want to attract help you feel just as good as you do right now, in this visualization/imagery exercise about having attained it?

Give yourself permission to have and enjoy this state of abundance and success. A lot of people reinforce and believe a subconscious mental script they learned at a very young age which discourages or even disparages success. It is important to believe that this old script is just a story you have told yourself, like a fairy tale; it is not written in stone. You can rewrite the ending by choosing to believe your power to create the positive outcome you want and deserve.

Get yourself (subconscious mind) into a state of having and receiving what you want to attract. A caveat: If you focus more on something you want to avoid vs. what you really do want in your life, you will inadvertently attract the thing you do not want. So be positive and specific where you direct your intention!

Structural Tension and Psychic Alignment: Structural tension occurs when, using visualization, your subconscious mind gets so into that state of receptivity—truly enjoying the experience of receiving your goal—that your physical body starts working to actualize it in real life. Psychic Alignment refers to the way in which the structural tension attracts this goal: The more you believe it and the more real its attainment is in your subconscious mind, the harder your conscious mind will work to make sure it happens. Once you feel so good, so energized, so excited in your belief that this success will be yours, the question that remains is when, not if, it will happen.

It may take some time to realize your goal through this process. Sometimes it is fairly quick, such as my example of answering a phone call I had been waiting for right after I thought about the person I wanted to talk to. Other times, it can take days, weeks or even years to come true, with various diversions and setbacks along the way. I have wanted to be a therapist since I was eight years old, but it took almost 30 years, and a seven-year stint in magazine publishing before this happened. The idea of becoming a hypnotherapist never entered my mind until I met a representative from HMI in 204 who invited me to participate in a free, month-long course at the college. The rest, as they say, is history, and I love and am so excited about my vocation as a certified hypnotherapist.

For more information about this topic, I invite you to read my other blogs titled: The Power of Thinking; Intuition and the Law of Attraction, “Extra” Sensory Perception and the Law of Attraction; and Just What I Need When I Needed It. If you would like to start using principles of the Law of Attraction to in your life, call me at (661) 433-9430 and set up a hypnotherapy appointment with me today!

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/.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Horse Ownership: It's an Honor and a Privilege

(This blog was originally posted on February 10, 2016)

Photo by Sara Fogan

Many years ago, I attended a case conference where Hypnosis Motivation Institute instructor Lisa Machenberg described how she helped someone to regard even the negative, inconvenient aspects of car ownership in terms of being a privilege. Apparently this individual was procrastinating about getting new tires for his car because not having a vehicle for one morning would be inconvenient and expensive. His justification for not doing anything to facilitate the repair was: “Hey, the car is still drive-able, so what is the rush?”

Ms. Machenberg said the client eventually became motivated to get the tires changed when they explored the benefits—independence, convenience, the enjoyment of driving—and the potential consequences of not taking the car in. The greatest inspiration for him turned out to be the potential financial burden of having to pay for additional repairs to the body of his or another person’s car if a flat or blown-out tire caused a crash. At this point in the conversation, she said, they discussed how the benefits of car-ownership is as much a privilege as taking good care of the vehicle is a responsibility. This message became incorporated in the hypnotic script she created for his hypnotherapy. It also so resonated with me in terms of how I feel about owning a horse that I use it as a kind of mantra to keep persevering in my riding and how I take care of him, as well as to remind Galahad how much I love and appreciate him.

As most equestrians (and even non-riders) know, riding and owning a horse is an expensive investment of time, money and emotion. Depending whom you ask, it can be a toss-up which one of these resources is most expensive at any one time. Despite their strength, size and speed, these animals are actually more fragile in some ways than they seem. For example, the extreme changes in summer-like temperatures we are experiencing in Southern California pose a greater risk of colic. (Who else has the barn veterinarian’s phone number on speed dial this week?) A training mishap can result in a pulled muscle, tendon or ligament for horse or rider. As the price of hay gets higher every season, finding a good deal on what we feed our equine partner also becomes more challenging and frustrating. After a heavy rain we must determine that the footing is good enough to turn the horse out to play or ride without risk of injuring the animal. Then there is the herculean effort it will take on our part to clean the gray gelding up after he enjoys rolling in the fresh mud that it looks like his original black coat has grown back. And so the list goes on.

By the time we’re done riding and have completed all the barn chores at the end of the day, all we want to do is get in a hot shower or bubble bath and wash the dirt and stress away. But, wait. The horse still needs to be properly cooled out, cleaned up and “tucked in” before we can do any of the other stuff. And that is what I mean by responsibility and privilege of owning a horse.

There is a common expression around most barns: If you don’t have time to groom, you don’t have time to ride. When I was a teen-ager, all I wanted to do was get on a horse and go, go, go; grooming afterward was not something I looked forward to and, in all honesty, I probable did a barely acceptable job. At that time, I didn’t have my own horse and there was always someone at the barn who would do the “dirty work” that students like me didn’t like or want to do. But my attitude did a complete 180-degree turn when I grew up and got a horse of my own.

I like to believe that the more time I spend grooming and hanging out with him or just watching him play with the other geldings in his herd, are opportunities where we do the most bonding. This is the time where the responsibility of horse-ownership truly is a privilege. Yes, riding is great and it is a lot of fun. The reward and pride I feel for both of us when we finally get those 20-meter circles round and circles is immense. But nothing is as wonderful, to me, as feeling my horse stretching his neck closer and into the curry comb while I massage the dust and dirt out of his coat afterward.

There is nothing like the sound of his teeth crunching on a slice of apple or carrot when I reward him for working so hard for me during our lesson in the arena. There is nothing like hearing my trainer praise Galahad about his progress and improved skills after she finishes schooling him. There is nothing like how happy and proud I am when Galahad is able to calmly walk past barking dogs or that new donkey at a neighbor’s property during one of our neighborhood strolls. His calm demeanor at those moments are testament to his temperament as well as the time spent working to increase his self-confidence and trust in me when he feels challenged or threatened. There is nothing like the relief I feel when the veterinarian gives my horse a clean bill of health, or after Galahad’s hooves are trimmed or he has been wormed. And, yes, there is nothing like the satisfaction I feel each month when I pay for his board and training, or even when I pay dues to renew his insurance and breed memberships.

Like the client described at the beginning of this essay, horse ownership—like car ownership—is undoubtedly an incredible privilege. Horses bring so much joy, fun and pleasure to our lives that the time, physical effort and expense seem inconsequential. Knowing that one of these big (or small), powerful prey animals will cooperate, trust and even seem to seek our companionship is a wonderful honor to anyone who has an equine partner in his or her life.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Hypnosis and Suspension of Disbelief

Photo by Rick Hustead

I remember when I first learned about “Suspension of Disbelief” during my second-period Honors English class in high school. At some very deep level I think I always understood that not all stories or action in movies made sense; this concept answered a lot of questions about why people, including me, are willing to buy into something that does not make sense. But we believe it—or at least go along with it—nonetheless.

Suspension of Disbelief entails intentionally (or unintentionally) ignoring glaring conflicts or holes in logic in a movie or book to continue enjoying the story without interruption. It doesn’t seem to matter that a key concept in the plot could literally stop the story in its tracks if we think too much about why it doesn’t make any sense. If we are invested in the characters and/or the story, we may choose to ignore those pesky details that threaten to derail our enjoyment of the plot. Indeed, at this point it is easy to just turn off (ignore) the Critical Area of the subconscious mind that keeps pointing out those problems and settle back into the action on the page or screen. Does this sound familiar? Hint: It is possible and common to drift into a trance-like state (hypnosis) when we are caught up in a good book, movie/television program, sports event, etc.

For example, when I watched the Season Four finale of Sherlock, the plot was so convoluted and intricate that I wondered how the episode made it out of the editing booth. So much of it made no sense (to me, anyway), even when the mystery was solved and the clues explained. Probably my being such a fan of the new incarnation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic sleuth and his cohort played a big part in ignoring the questions running through my mind throughout the story. It was also fascinating to watch Sherlock Holmes get taken in and thrown off guard by what was going on around him. (I think he was hypnotized, to be honest.)

I had less patience for the lapses in logic that I noticed in the movies Poltergeist (1981) and Gravity (2013). To be honest, I was completely on-board with just about every suspenseful and creepy part of the film. The protagonists sliding across the linoleum kitchen floor, chairs stacking themselves into a pyramid on the kitchen table, being sucked into a television screen, even that attack by a murderous oak tree… None of those scenes fazed me. The film was basically ruined for me, though, when the Freeling family did not evacuate their home the second they got their little girl back. Who would stay in that house after having to retrieve your young child from a malevolent spirit—a spirit that had taken her to another dimension, at that? For the record, I didn’t buy the idea that a modern housing tract could or would be knowingly built over a cemetery without someone involved with the project blowing a very loud whistle about that. My interest in Gravity drifted right away when Sandra Bullock’s character was caught in a debris storm in which pieces of a destroyed space station whizzed by her at 30,000 miles an hour without sustaining any injuries. Logically, wouldn’t exposure to this type of catastrophe be fatal? I would have thought so, anyway.

The reason why some stories “work” for some people and not others has a lot to do with the viewer’s or reader’s willingness to suspend disbelief when necessary to move the plot along. The second something no longer makes sense or challenges an existing belief system, however, the magic is lost and the dreamlike state is broken. So long as the Critical Area of the subconscious mind is actively processing, questioning and discarding those message units, you are unlikely to fall for that theatrical magic. The instant it perceives this information as a threat to your existing Subconscious Mental Script or belief system(s), as the late actor, Bill Paxton, famously said, it’s “Game Over” and back to disbelieving reality you will go.