Thoughts of the Day

Photo by Sara Fogan

• “Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.” – Dr. Seuss

• “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Boese

• “Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now.” – Hodan Nalayeh

• “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee

• “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

• “In life we cannot avoid change we can only flow with the change.” – Lolly Daskal

• “Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life.” – Eckhart  Tolle

• “Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.” – Alan Alda

• “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” – Maya Angelou

• “May your life preach more loudly than your lips.” – William Ellery Channing

  

 

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

Going for a Cause

(This blog was originally posted on May 4, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

At some time in our lives, just about everyone uses a defense mechanism to cope with a stressful or disappointing experience. These strategies can include denial or displacement of the unpleasant emotion, repression of a memory, substance abuse, regressing to an earlier stage of development or even substance dependency. However these behaviors provide only a temporary perception of control over the environment; eventually, we have to deal with and resolve the primary issue that has triggered the defense mechanism in order to achieve personal growth. To be an effective hypnotherapist, I must recognize which one(s) a client may be using, how and why the device is working in this situation, and when it is preventing desired change and personal growth to occur.

According to John Kappas, Ph.D., resistance to changing a behavior is the first stage of effecting this change. “We do things systematically to avoid change,” said the founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. “Change is a threat to the unconscious mind.” To facilitate change in a client’s behavior—such as helping someone to quit smoking or to lose weight—the hypnotherapist must “buy” the person’s symptoms of defensive behavior and provide some symptomatic relief. But for the problem or unwanted behavior to be truly resolved it is often necessary to go for the cause of the conflict or symptom. “The client may be subconsciously protecting [the cause] by employing defense-mechanism devices,” Dr. Kappas explained.

Usually, many factors combine to create the primary issue or problem, and the client is suggestible to those precipitating factors, the hypnotherapist explained. Consequently, the first hypnotherapy session with a client is the most important component of the therapeutic process, because this is the first opportunity to start working with the client’s suggestibility and “suggest” certain changes in behavior. For example, I might work with a client to desensitize the person to the association of smoking a cigarette while drinking an alcoholic beverage before supper. Or, I would create a new association in which a client would “choose” to write about his or her negative emotions in a journal rather than eat a bowl of ice cream when the person felt angry or sad. But these changes in behavior—social drinking and displacing negative emotions through eating—can and will only occur when the client is ready to recognize the relationship between the emotion and behavior.

“You cannot cure a person by telling him what the problem is,” Dr. Kappas said. “Whenever you hit the cause of the problem, symptoms start to disappear. Once you identify and remove the primary cause of the problem, you must alleviate secondary issues.”

 

           

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

It's Just a Thought

(This blog was originally posted on December 6, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Perhaps someone has said this to you—or you used this expression, yourself—when making a suggestion: “It’s just a thought.” In fact, this statement is probably used most frequently if the reception (openness) to a particular idea seems likely to be rejected. In this case, that particular thought is symbolically dumped or thrown away. “It’s just a thought” is the excuse we make for ever having entertained the idea in the first place.

I have two thoughts about this situation.

On the one hand, most of us have had to deal with some kind of negative chatter (self-doubt) in our mind when we are trying something new or are in the middle of an important project at work: I have never been able to do X before; what makes me think I will be successful at Y? Or, I have no business wearing this outfit; it was obviously designed for someone with a completely different (better) physique. More common, a thought pops into our mind just as we are drifting off to sleep: Did I remember to lock my office door? Does my boyfriend/girlfriend remember that tomorrow is our one-month anniversary of dating? Why is my acne flaring up now? In these instances, it is very helpful to remind ourselves, “It’s just a thought. I can control my thoughts. Since I can control my thoughts, I can put this one aside for a little while and do what I need to do.”

Conversely, our thoughts originate in the subconscious mind. To automatically reject a thought or idea as a way to deflect possible criticism from other people could mean that you miss (or at least delay) the chance to experience a creative opportunity. As Thomas Edison famously stated, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” What if that “thought” you have at your next business meeting could save your failing company millions of dollars and/or several employees’ jobs, create the next great video-game or script for a blockbuster movie, etc.?

Thoughts and ideas are products of our life experiences and feelings about them. The moral of this story is, before you reject one of those throw-away thoughts remember that you can control it and ultimately even use a behavior the idea inspired to benefit you in the future.

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