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Tuesday, September 7, 2021

The Best Time to Write Affirmations

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 January 6, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

A lot of people write affirmations to reinforce positive behaviors and attitudes that they have adopted to change and improve their lives. I write affirmations, and I encourage my hypnotherapy clients to do this as well.

The best time to write affirmations is 30 minutes after you wake up or 30 minutes before you drift off to sleep. These times are important because this is when your subconscious mind is most receptive to these messages. The subconscious mind does not know the difference between fantasy and reality, negative and positive, so be sure to use positive imagery and words that will reinforce your positive behaviors and attitudes. I also advise my clients to not watch or listen to the news or any programs/broadcasts that may contain negative or violent messages/imagery before bed.

Special Offer: Discount on the First Hypnotherapy Session for Active/Retired

Military Personnel & First Responders

Special Offer: 25 percent discount (that is $50!) off the first hypnotherapy session for all active/retired military personnel and first responders (police, fire-fighters, EMT/paramedics, ambulance personnel, emergency dispatchers, ER physicians and nurses, COVID-19 Ward staff).

This offer may not be combined with any other discount or discount package. It is not redeemable 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/.

Friday, September 3, 2021

Getting Control in the Relationship

(This blog was originally posted on April 4, 2016)

Image courtesy of Microsoft

When it comes to relationships, Physical Sexual and Emotional Sexual partners have very different needs and desires. A Physical Sexual controls the Emotional Sexual partner with guilt. Relationships are very important to this personality, and if the relationship ever seems to be in jeopardy the Physical Sexual will do just about anything to rescue and preserve the relationship.

Whereas the Physical Sexual experiences very little guilt, the Emotional Sexual partner is laden with it, observed Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder Dr. John Kappas. Therefore, to maintain control in the relationship, the Physical Sexual partner must never release that hold until the person gets what he or she wants, he advised. The Physical Sexual is also easily hurt, such as in instances of betrayal, and can be vindictive. “They really hold onto that hurt,” he said.

Conversely, the Emotional Sexual controls a Physical Sexual partner by rejection or withholding emotion. The Emotional Sexual tends to be defensive and protective, and generally has difficulty expressing his or her true feelings, Dr. Kappas explained. Furthermore, the Emotional Sexual also gets over failed relationships fairly quickly. This personality tends to need more spare and does not place as high a priority on relationships as the Physical Sexual tends to do. The more the Emotional Sexual withdraws to create more space for him- or herself in the relationship, the more desperate the Physical becomes to reconnect. Paradoxically, this behavior only irritates the Emotional Sexual partner, and he or she tends to withdraw from the partner even more.

Sex is another area where the Emotional and Physical partners tend to try to control each other, the hypnotherapist pointed out. Both male and female Physical Sexual partners crave closeness after intercourse, but an Emotional Sexual male wants to get his orgasm over with and move on to something else. Whereas a Physical Sexual female wants her partner to “prove” that he cares about her through intimacy, a Physical Sexual male can control his partner through his release (ejaculation), Dr. Kappas said. Finally, the Emotional Sexual female wants to figure out how to manipulate or control her Physically Sexual male partner.

“It’s a lot easier for a hypnotherapist to work with couples where there’s an Emotional Sexual female and a Physical Sexual male, because it’s easier to ‘mold’ the Emotional Sexual female than it is to mold the Emotional Sexual male. Plus, she suffers a lot of guilt,” Dr. Kappas said.

For more information about how to address the Emotional Sexual and Physical Sexual personalities’ response to rejection, I invite you to check out my blog titled, Dealing With Rejection in Hypnotherapy.

Special Offer: Discount on the First Hypnotherapy Session for Active/Retired

Military Personnel & First Responders

This offer may not be combined with any other discount or discount package. It is not redeemable for cash.

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Dealing With Traumatic Memories

(This blog was originally posted on April 20, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

“Negative moments get remembered. Traumatic ones get forgotten.”

– Leaving Time, Jodi Picoult

One of the great things about the mind is its capacity to help us deal with a painful or even traumatic event in our lives. On the one hand, the plasticity of the brain enables us to adapt to an uncomfortable environment and learn lessons from that experience to avoid getting into a similar situation in the future. On the other hand, the mind also naturally knows how to block out and even forget the memory of that event so we can continue to function and fulfill daily activities to facilitate our basic survival. In other words, this kind of case-specific amnesia functions like a life-saving balm.

For example: someone contacts me for hypnotherapy to overcome an intense fear of driving and being in a vehicle following a serious car crash. This person knows the facts about what happened but does not remember anything about the collision or the moments immediately afterward when firefighters had to cut him out of the vehicle with Jaws-of-Life equipment. That is okay. I do not need to know these details to create an effective hypnotic script that will help to increase the client’s comfort and self-confidence while driving or being in a car. In fact, this gap in the client’s conscious awareness of the crash facilitates the physiological and psychological healing process as he works toward achieving the avocational self-improvement goal of being comfortable behind the wheel.

Consequently, I do not use age-regression hypnosis to help a client access a repressed memory following a traumatic event. Doing so would be similar to ripping a scab off of a deep abrasion before the original wound has had a chance to heal. If and when the person is emotionally, physically and even spiritually ready to address what happened, these memories are likely to return organically in spontaneous flashes of recollection or through dreams. If and when that happens, I can use various hypnosis, therapeutic guided imagery and neuro-linguistic programming techniques to help the individual become desensitized to and deal with how these memories and consequences of this event. It may also be necessary to refer the client to a licensed mental-health provider and/or a physician for additional assessment and care if this issue falls outside of the scope of my expertise as a certified hypnotherapist.

Special Offer: Discount on the First Hypnotherapy Session for Active/Retired

Military Personnel & First Responders

This offer may not be combined with any other discount or discount package. It is not redeemable for cash.

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Slow Down to Speed Up!

(This blog was originally posted on September 28, 2014)

Image courtesy of Microsoft/Bing

Have you ever noticed how it takes twice as long to complete a task when you rush to get it done? Whether it is finishing a homework assignment or a big project for work, somehow something goes wrong at the last, worst possible moment and totally messes up your projected deadline. What if you could avoid all that hassle in the first place and meet your deadline with time to spare?

The Automobile Association of America has a great television advertisement that perfectly illustrated this point. In it, someone in a flashy car speeds past another vehicle. At first, it seems like the driver in the second car gets ahead, but then he is stopped at an intersection with the driver in the original car waiting for the light to change. This pattern is repeated the same way several more times until the message becomes clear: driving fast and recklessly doesn’t get anyone ahead; in fact, it may cause more inconvenience (and waste more gas) than the apparent rush is worth. Similarly, in an episode of the police drama, Rookie Blue, one of the characters reminded an officer he had trained why he once insisted she take a sip of coffee or a bite of her sandwich before getting out of the squad car. Sergeant Shaw wanted her to take those extra couple of seconds so the other officer could mentally prepare herself for dealing with regardless of the situation she would be facing outside. The crime scene would still be there, he explained, but the officer needed to calm down and plan what she needed to do to apprehend the suspect or else risk getting seriously hurt or even killed making the arrest.

Often, when we are under pressure to complete a task, we rush through or even skip important steps so we can get the job out of the way and move onto other more interesting or “fun” things. Monty Roberts, an award-winning horse trainer and author, often advises: “Give yourself fifteen minutes and it will take an hour; give yourself an hour and it will take fifteen minutes.” In other words, when we work carefully and conscientiously—focusing only on the task at hand—we are in a better position to get the job done quickly and usually on the first try. However, when we rush through the job to meet a self-imposed or official deadline we are more likely to neglect important steps to complete the task which may ultimately undermine it.

An unintentional byproduct of rushing to complete a task is that we can put ourselves into hypnosis. Consider John G. Kappas, Ph.D.’s definition of hypnosis: “Hypnosis is created by an overload of message units, disorganizing our inhibitory process (Critical Mind), triggering our fight-flight mechanism and ultimately resulting in a hyper-suggestible state, providing access to the subconscious mind.” When we rush around trying to meet a deadline, our minds are already whirling practically out of control as we consider what we need to get done and if/how many steps we can get away with “leaving out.” Even if we do not intend to take a short-cut to finish the task, in this naturally induced hypnotic state we may neglect an important step because our subconscious (not conscious) mind has taken over the behavior. We have literally “escaped” into hypnosis to avoid the anxiety and stress we feel trying to complete that project.

Unfortunately, the stress we consciously and subconsciously tried so hard to reduce or avoid is likely to reappear, and be even more intense, when we rush to just “get it done.” When we take those extra few seconds or even an entire hour, at the end of the day the fastest way to accomplish a goal is to slow down.

Special Offer: Discount on the First Hypnotherapy Session for Active/Retired

Military Personnel & First Responders

This offer may not be combined with any other discount or discount package. It is not redeemable for cash.

Thursday, August 12, 2021

When Physical Problems Show up in Your Handwriting

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

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

Handwriting reveals a lot about a person’s behavioral tendencies and attitudes, including propensity for stubbornness or over-analysis, levels of self-esteem and self-confidence, empathy and extroversion/introversion (see my blog titled All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 1). It can also reveal if the writer is experiencing any physical or emotional issues. When a stick-figure “body” is drawn over a letter, the body-part that is affected will show up as a weak (faint) or wriggling stroke or line in the corresponding area of the letter. For example, when my former editor had appendicitis, the lower-right quadrant of all of the oval letters in his writing—o, a, b, g, p—were faint or had a tiny gap, until after his surgery and he was healed. A potential problem may also be reflected if the corresponding area of the letter is very thick and/or has a trailing line (end-stroke).

In accordance with the California Business and Professions Code 2908, if a client mentions a symptom or behavior that is out of my scope of expertise as a certified clinical hypnotherapist, I always refer the person to a licensed medical or mental health professional for further evaluation. I do not use handwriting analysis to diagnose medical or mental-health issues and always defer to the expertise of the professionals in those fields to provide diagnostic and continuing care.

That being said, following are some examples of how a physiological or psychological issue may be revealed in a handwriting sample:

If the person has a problem with the feet or legs, the writing will show a break (gap) in the stem or at the bottom of a loop. Weakness in the upper or lower torso will be reflected in a corresponding break in the upper- or lower-middle part of the loop, etc.
Affecting words or symptoms of a specific disease, such as cancer or arthritis, will be written at a downward angle (baseline slant). This indicates that the person is trying to get rid of an illness or condition. Negativity and pessimism are also manifested in downward-angle writing.
The tendency to squeeze letters in a word close together, presence of a check-mark (√) at the base of the stem and has a weak/faint “i” in the writing suggests that person is holding back sexually.
Emotional/Psychological problems are revealed in openings (gaps) at the bottom of a letter—especially an “o” and an “a”—which indicate incongruent behavior.

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.

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Emotional and Physical Sexual Personality: Examples in Popular Songs

(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

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.