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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Emotional and Physical Sexual Personality: Examples in Popular Songs

To minimize risk of exposure to and spread of the COVID-19 virus and COVID-19 variants, I am continuing to suspend in-person hypnotherapy sessions with me in my office. Meanwhile, phone, and Zoom consultations ARE and WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE!

(This blog was originally posted on May 1, 2018)

Photo by Rick Hustead

The cornerstone of Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s hypnotherapy practice is his concept of Emotional and Physical Sexuality. In my blog titled, All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 1, I described the characteristics of these personalities and the importance of knowing a client’s sexual personality as a way to understand, predict and even mold his or her behavior. I provided more information about each personality—in particular, their priorities and goals in the context of a romantic (sexual) relationship—in the follow-up blog titled All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 2. In today’s blog I will present relationship perspectives in three songs (“scenarios”) that may give you a lyrical insight about how Emotional Sexuals and Physical Sexuals might behave at the end of a relationship.

· “Buy Me a Rose,” by Kenny Rogers. In this song, Kenny Rogers represents the Emotional Sexual partner in a relationship. Remember, an Emotional Sexual generally does not feel comfortable expressing his feelings for a lover or spouse (the same is true for Emotional Sexual women). Consistent with this personality, he shows the love he feels for his wife by working hard to provide a good home and lifestyle for her. Since an Emotional Sexual’s core values are financial security/work; hobbies; friends and family; and the relationship, in his mind the relationship is going great because he is providing for her so well. However, since he does not verbalize his emotions or even show affection by calling her from work to say hello/I love you, or even bring her flowers from time to time, their marriage is not really so great.

· “Wrecking Ball,” by Miley Cyrus. Sung from the post-breakup perspective, the lyrics describe a post-mortem of all the extreme and excessive clinging behaviors with which a Physical Sexual overwhelms and often alienates her Emotional Sexual lover. For example, when Cyrus describes how she “came in like a wrecking ball”—full of emotion and demanding attempts to get closer to her partner—you can almost imagine a hurricane-force ball of energy hurling at you. Meanwhile, the other partner keeps pulling away from her until she is burning with rejection. The heart-breaking line in the bridge of the song is when she concedes, “Instead of using force/I guess I should have let you in.” If she had taken a step (or several) back and given him some space—the metaphoric “Twinkie”—the relationship might not have imploded. (Although this song is sung by a woman/her perspective, it is also applicable to a Physical Sexual man in a similar situation.)

· “Just Give me a Reason,” by Pink featuring Nate Ruess. For me, this song represents the dynamics and communication (or miscommunication) between Physical Sexual and Emotional Sexual partners as their relationship starts to unravel. The lyrics trace the trajectory of their early attraction in the romance to a plateau stage in the relationship, where the passion and urgency of new love has worn off. The Physical Sexual female notices that her partner is talking in his sleep and no longer seems as attentive or interested in her compared to what is going on in his life. Meanwhile, the Emotional Sexual male is confused about her insecurity about their relationship: “Your head is running wild again/my dear we still have everythin’.” As the title of this song suggests, the outlook for this couple seems bright, though, because both partners want to work through their insecurities and misunderstandings to save the relationship.

Although the three songs I have chosen for this essay seem to emphasize stereotypical male/female roles, it is important to note that Dr. Kappas’s theory of Emotional and Physical Sexuality is not based on male/female behaviors. A man can be a Physical Sexual and a woman can be an Emotional Sexual. For example, in her hit “Ex’s and Oh’s,” singer Elle King is the Emotional Sexual partner whose (Physical Sexual) lovers are pining and cursing her name after she ends the relationship.

This is also a sliding scale, so no one will be 100 percent Emotional Sexual or 100 percent Physical Sexual. Rather, we each possess characteristics of both personalities but tend to be more “dominant” in one or the other category.

For fun, consider the lyrics of your favorite relationship song in the context of Emotional and Physical Sexual personality. You may find an entirely new perspective or understanding of the song.

Special offer

To thank the community for naming me the Best Hypnotherapist in the Santa Clarita Valley for 2021, I am offering a 10-percent discount on all single, a la carte hypnotherapy sessions. The discount is not eligible for the two-hour introductory session. This offer is valid through September 30, 2021 and may not be combined with any other promotion or exchanged for cash.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. Sara has been voted the Best Hypnotherapist in Santa Clarita, California, three years in a row (July 2019, September 2020, July 2021). For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

Monday, August 9, 2021

A Great Honor, for the Third Time!

About Calminsense Hypnotherapy ®

By Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht.

My “Thank You, Santa Clarita” ad, which appeared
in the 2021 Best of Santa Clarita publication of The Signal

Thank you so much, Santa Clarita, for voting me the Best Hypnotherapist in this community for the third year in a row! I am so touched and honored by this tribute.

I have been working as a Certified Hypnotherapist and Master in Therapeutic Guided Imagery in the Santa Clarita Valley since I graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, the first nationally accredited college of hypnotherapy, in 2005. I use a combination of hypnosis and therapeutic-guided imagery techniques to help my clients achieve a variety of vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. All therapy is conducted in a safe, comfortable environment, and I follow the standards for complete confidentiality as outlined in the ethical guidelines of the American Counseling Association for the conduct of counseling therapists are observed at all times. Please note that some specialty hypnotherapy goals require a referral from a licensed medical and/or mental-health professional for me to work with you.

At birth, the mind is essentially a blank slate. A newborn’s subconscious mind is hard-wired with only two reactions: fear of loud noises and fear of falling. Everything other belief, behavior and habit is learned, especially during the first eight years or so of your life. Even as you grow up and continue to learn and experience new things, these early lessons and associations help to create a subconscious mental script. That script is stored in the subconscious mind and used as a reference for everything you do from that moment on. The fantastic news is that you can replace or change the beliefs, behaviors and habits that no longer work for you, with hypnotherapy. You just need to decide to make that change. I can help.

Hypnosis has been used as a therapeutic tool for centuries. It is not a vehicle of remote mind-control. During hypnosis, your body is very comfortable and completely relaxed. You are conscious, alert and very aware of what is going on around you, perhaps more so than during your normal “waking” state. You will hear and be able to respond to everything. You cannot and will not be made to say or do anything that conflict with your personal, ethical standards and desires.

For more information about hypnotherapy, visit my website: www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com. To make an appointment with me, call or text (661) 433-9430 or send e-mail to calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com.

Special offer

To thank the community for this award, I am offering a 10-percent discount on all single, a la carte hypnotherapy sessions. The discount is not eligible for the two-hour introductory session. This offer is valid through September 30, 2021 and may not be combined with any other promotion or exchanged for cash.

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Default to the Known

“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

(This blog was originally posted on May 2, 2017)

Photo by Rick Hustead

During my tenure as managing editor of Black Belt magazine, I became very familiar with this refrain/admonition: “You fight the way you train.” It didn’t matter that you have practiced your martial art for thirty years and have a tenth-degree black belt in that style. If your training and competitive expertise are in point-sparring versus contact fighting, chances are you will still be in trouble when it comes to defending yourself against someone who jumps you in an alley. The problem isn’t bad technique; you just defaulted to your subconscious “known,” your comfort zone. Over the years, your repeated training to pull your punches to not make actual contact with an opponent ultimately over-rode the natural instinct to connect a devastating punch or kick with the attacker’s body to defend yourself.

I keep this philosophy in mind when I help my hypnotherapy clients achieve their self-improvement goals by creating a new subconscious mental script to facilitate their desired behavior change. By the time they contact me for hypnotherapy, chances are they have been practicing that unwanted action or belief system for many years. No matter how many times they tell themselves they absolutely, positively do not want to smoke one more cigarette or eat another piece of sugary/fried food, this message is coming from the Logic/Will-Power/Decision-Making and Reasoning faculties based in the Conscious Mind. No matter how much you want to get rid of that negative habit, the Subconscious Mind will have a different perspective.

All those memories and positive associations (pleasure) with doing the “unwanted” behavior are stored in the Subconscious Mind, and the Critical Area of the mind, which is positioned in both the Conscious and Subconscious areas—is a great gate-keeper to prevent change in this status quo. For the Subconscious Mind, change—even desired change—equals pain, and it will fight very hard to prevent change from occurring. To our frustration, this usually means succumbing to temptation to smoke just one more cigarette or polish off your child’s left-over fries, and we go back to practicing those actions we want to stop once and for all.

The great thing about hypnosis is its effectiveness to overhaul or even delete those mental scripts that keep us in that loop of practicing unwanted habits. When you are in hypnosis, I can talk directly to your subconscious mind and, using your motivations, reasons and goals for the behavior change, rewrite that negative script to facilitate desired behavior changes. Once these new mental scripts are in your Subconscious Mind, resistance to making these changes melts away and are replaced by consistent repetition of new, healthy actions and belief systems to reinforce and achieve your self-improvement goals. With hypnosis, we can create a new “default” behavior and connect that metaphoric punch with the desired target: achieving your self-improvement goal!

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. In July 2019 and in September 2020 she was voted the Best Hypnotherapist in Santa Clarita, California. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Client Cooperation

(This blog was originally posted on March 6, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Whether you want to change a behavior to improve your health or you simply want to learn how to relax, hypnosis is an effective, natural and drug-free tool that facilitates behavior change by accessing the subconscious mind. However, you must want to change your behavior in order for hypnotherapy to work.

As I explained in my blog titled Be the Author of Your Life, “suggestibility” is how we communicate and learn. Even though you can be suggestible to many people, you are most suggestible to yourself. Therefore, I incorporate the specific words/expressions you used to describe your emotions and motivations/desire to effect the desired change when I craft your hypnotic script (suggestions). This means that you will be hypnotizing yourself.

Many people wonder if hypnosis will really work—and how it can work—on someone who has a razor-sharp mind and such a strong will (i.e., a stubborn streak) like theirs. Even though it is natural to subconsciously resist the process of becoming hypnotized at first, these initial doubts may even help to deepen your relaxation and comfort once you enter the hypnotic trance. However, you will not successfully change your behavior if you do not want to make this change.

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Hypnotherapy and Eating Disorders

(This blog was originally posted on July 11, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D. advocated addressing the emotional problems that caused the eating disorder when working with someone who suffered from anorexia nervosa or bulimia. The hypnotherapist believed that this process would alleviate the symptoms of the disease in order to address them directly. However, he warned against specifically mentioning the client’s bingeing and purging behaviors because these would be inferred during the hypnotherapeutic process. “If you’re not bingeing and purging, you’re not as concerned about the weight,” Dr. Kappas said.

Therapy with someone who is suffering from an eating disorder is a long process which may take many sessions to overcome, Dr. Kappas warned. Furthermore, it is may take many sessions for the hypnotherapist to build rapport with the client to address these issues.

When working with someone who has an eating disorder, he recommended changing the client’s suggestibility from herself to the therapist in order to facilitate treatment. “[She must] turn over conscious control to the therapist to take control of the unconscious process,” Dr. Kappas explained. While she is in hypnosis, provide suggestions to increase the client’s perception of having self-control, feeling better about herself and being calm, he advised. “Think of yourself feeling good physically, emotionally, psychologically. You’re becoming important to yourself. You’re beginning to control old habits and compulsions. You’re not controlled by old habits.”

Meanwhile, the hypnotherapist and other members of the client's medical/psychological team should monitor the person's eating and bingeing behaviors. “If they get worse, the hypnotherapist] will have to move in and attack the behavior," Dr. Kappas said.

As I explained in my blog titled, Eating Disorders Are Not an Extreme Diet, anorexia nervosa and bulimia are very complicated, dangerous conditions that can cause severe physiological destruction and even death. The symptoms and etiology (medical/psychiatric origin) of each are addressed in the Diagnostics and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a basic reference guide for various psychiatric disorders. Typically, these conditions are out of scope of my or most other certified hypnotherapists’ professional expertise to address in hypnotherapy (Business and Professions Code 2908).* To do so, I would need to receive a referral from the person’s (licensed) medical doctor and/or mental-health worker to work with the individual. Even then, my input as a hypnotherapist would be only to help the client fortify her or his self-confidence and self-esteem and reinforce new healthy-eating behaviors recommended by the person’s medical and psychiatric team. Ultimately, the treatment (management) of anorexia nervosa and bulimia is often a lifelong process which must be done under such medical supervision.

*California law allows access by California residents to complementary and alternative health care practitioners who are not providing services that require medical training and credentials. The purpose of a program of hypnotherapy is for vocational and avocational self-improvement (Business and Professions Code 2908) and as an alternative or complementary treatment to healing arts services licensed by the state. A hypnotherapist is not a licensed physician or psychologist, and hypnotherapy services are not licensed by the state of California. Services are non-diagnostic and do not include the practice of medicine, neither should they be considered a substitute for licensed medical or psychological services or procedures.

Monday, July 26, 2021

Eating Disorders Are Not an Extreme Diet

(This blog was originally posted on June 9, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

“I have it on very good authority that the quest for perfection our society demands can leave the individual gasping for breath at every turn. This pressure inevitably extends to the way we look. Eating disorders, whether it be anorexia or bulimia, show how an individual can turn the nourishment of the body into a painful attack on themselves.”

– Diana, Princess of Wales

Recently, singer Meghan Trainor took her music label to task for altering her image. Apparently, the company digitally slimmed her waistline in the video of her song, “Me Too.” Trainor was happy and confident with her talent and her body image. Apparently, the record company had a different idea, which is why the tweak was ordered in the first place. Long story short, the video was promptly taken down and replaced with the original version, sans photo-shopped images and exactly how the singer wanted to be presented.

But not everybody has the opportunity or resources (internal or otherwise) to determine how to present him- or herself and be perceived by others. With so many magazines and movies/television programs featuring uber-slim models and actors/actresses, it is not surprising that we integrate the message that this is how they should look. After all, that is the image the media and clothes designers want to promote. NBC’s popular weight-loss program, The Biggest Loser, makes the process of losing weight into a competition. In this case, the “winner” is the person who has dropped the most weight within the duration of the series (just a few months). Is it really surprising when someone takes these popular images and subconscious suggestions about the importance/value of looking like the beautiful people featured in the magazines, to an extreme? Apparently, there are websites devoted to the various ways a person can lose weight—including fasting and purging—and there are various dietary “supplements” available to suppress appetite and facilitate weight loss.

An eating disorder is not an extreme version of a diet or extreme over-eating at a meal. There are three basic categories of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa; bulimia; and compulsive eating. In the context of this essay, I will address just the first two. Each is a very complicated, dangerous condition that can cause severe physiological destruction and even death. The symptoms and etiology (medical/psychiatric origin) of each are addressed in the Diagnostics and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a basic reference guide for various psychiatric disorders. Typically, these conditions are out of scope of my or most other certified hypnotherapists’ professional expertise to address in hypnotherapy. To do so, I would have to receive a referral from the person’s (licensed) medical doctor and/or mental-health worker to work with the individual. Even then, my input as a hypnotherapist would be only to help the client fortify her or his self-confidence and self-esteem and reinforce new healthy-eating behaviors recommended by the person’s medical and psychiatric team. Ultimately, the treatment (management) of anorexia nervosa and bulimia is often a lifelong process which must be done under such medical supervision.

Click here to watch the late Princess of Wales’s entire speech about eating disorders.

Thursday, July 22, 2021

Motivational Inertia

(This blog was originally posted on April 12, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Fotolia

Some days vibrate with so much energy in the environment it is literally impossible to sit or stand still. We are enthusiastic about everything going on around us and can’t wait to get in on the action, ourselves. In our enthusiasm, we accept requests to take on new projects or tasks. Our mojo is so strong, we are confident that we can—we will—accomplish even Herculean feats, and we do just that. Indeed, as Sir Isaac Newton’s Law of Motion states, “An object in rest tends to stay in rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion.” The same is true of human behavior, too. You have probably heard or know of the expression, “Ask a busy person” to do a task. This law applies here because someone who is already active, even frenetically busy, can somehow always find a way to do one more thing.

And then there are other days when it seems like nothing can motivate or inspire us to do anything, at all. We sit at our desk at work shuffling papers, organizing the filing cabinet, checking e-mail and re-reading the first paragraph of the document that’s been sitting on our desk since the morning. We take repeated treks to the break room to get another cup of Joe, hoping that a not-so-brisk walk down the hall and more coffee just might kick-start our energy enough to do something productive. It doesn’t.

The problem is, when you are rewarded in some way for not doing a behavior, the subconscious mind may create a new mental script to support this new known (source of pleasure or comfort) in your life. The reward may be inferred, such as your boss didn’t yell at you to get back to work; or maybe your employer just accepted your subpar-quality project without comment. If you already follow a subconscious mental script that is programmed for you to always do your best work, you may breathe a sigh of relief that you got away with it today but get back to working hard tomorrow. Conversely, if you generally have difficulty motivating yourself and did not suffer any negative consequences not working so hard today, you may conclude that this behavior is really okay. The more times you are able to avoid doing a task or project, or get away with producing an inadequate product, you will reinforce this behavior and ultimately create a new mental script that compels you to not do something. (For more information about this process and John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, read my blog titled, Why Being Uncomfortable Feels Comfortable.

Following are some suggestions to help you get moving when you find yourself “stuck” in motivational inertia:

“Chunk” it down. This Neuro-Linguistic Programming technique is very effective because it enables you to break down whatever you are working on into manageable tasks that can easily be accomplished.
Use the Emotional Freedom Technique to break through the conscious blocks that are preventing you from settling down to or focusing on your work.
Take a brisk walk around the block. Consistent with Newton’s Law of Motion, once you start moving your body, it is easier to keep it (and your mind) active. Ten or fifteen minutes’ of exercise is a great way to raise your energy so you can be and feel more alert when you get back to work. Not only are you likely to discover that you are better able to focus on your job but this productive time spent away from your desk has even inspired some new ideas as well as your motivation.
Watch what you eat. When your blood-sugar level drops, you are vulnerable to experiencing physiological symptoms such as headache, nausea and weakness, as well as increased levels of anxiety and irritability. Furthermore, in his work with people who developed phobias, Dr. Kappas observed that low blood-sugar levels could trigger a phobic response and increase the person’s suggestibility. If you are already stressed out because you have a lot of work to catch up on, have a healthy snack or meal that includes some form of protein, which will help to mediate your mood. Also, avoid caffeine, which can exacerbate those symptoms and increase anxiety.
Hypnotherapy! Hypnosis and therapeutic guided imagery are effective, natural and drug-free modalities with which to motivate you (or re-learn how it feels to be motivated to do what you want and need to get done.