In Memoriam...Then and Now

Photo courtesy of Microsoft
 

 

                I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when TWA Flight 800 fell from the sky and into the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Long Island, on July 17, 1996. I remember thinking, “Planes just don’t explode for no reason. It must have been terrorism or sabotage!” Right away, reports started coming in that eye-witnesses claimed that they saw something streak through the sky up to the doomed jetliner right before it exploded. There were no survivors, but there were a lot of questions—and suspicions.

Some people believed (and still do) that a missile brought down the plane. The United States government, CIA and FBI ultimately rejected that theory and attributed the cause of the tragedy to mechanical error. In 2004, bestselling author Nelson DeMille re-examined the cause and possible cover-up/conspiracy about the explosion in his novel, Night Fall. To this day, that is my favorite one of his thrillers. Perhaps the story really resonates with me because I was (metaphorically) “there” when the plane went down and, like the protagonists in this novel, I never quite bought the mechanical-error explanation why that plane blew up. Last night, I even put my copy of Night Fall on my bedside table, intending to start re-reading it today in honor of those lives lost in 1996.

And then I heard that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 really was brought down by a missile over Ukraine. It is probably just coincidental that the Malaysia Airlines tragedy happened today, on the anniversary of another mid-flight explosion that is still so painful to recall. Another coincidence? The context in which I received this news was eerily similar to how I found out about the TWA Flight 800 explosion in 1996. Since I was living in England at that time, I heard about it on the radio first thing on a Thursday morning, many hours after it happened. Today—also Thursday, but the same date (July 17); this time—I was watching the news. But it is incredibly spooky to me that while there is no physical evidence that TWA Flight 800 was shot down, there is no question that someone fired a missile at a passenger airliner today.

There are no words to express my sadness and horror about this senseless tragedy. I hope and trust that the respective authorities and governmental agencies will be respectful, compassionate and patient when they contact relatives of the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to confirm that their loved one was on that plane. I hope that these authorities are able to return the passengers’ bodies to their families, soon. I hope that they conduct a complete, fair and lawful investigation of the explosion so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice.

I hope that the family, friends and acquaintances of those who lost their lives today will always remember the love and joy that they felt and shared during their lives. Terrorists may have stolen lives today, but they did not and cannot take the love and happy memories that those people have shared with the people they care about.

May you rest in peace.

 

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/.

Survival Skills

 As an undergraduate student studying psychology, I learned about the human instinct to prevail and survive. It made sense to me that animals would be attracted to sweet flavors, which usually indicate that the food would be a source of nutrition such as mother’s milk or sweet grass. Similarly, they learned to associate bitter or sour flavors with physical discomfort and danger/death, and would not ingest those substances. After being bitten or stung by another predator or venomous creature, the animal would learn and remember to stay away from whatever hurt or made it sick (provided it survived the encounter in the first place). The species would thrive or perish depending on how well its members taught these survival skills to their offspring and how well their young learned these lessons.

                When I was training to earn my certification in hypnotherapy, I got a better insight into why this theory didn’t always apply to humans. Don’t get me wrong: basically, people want and strive to survive and thrive, whenever and wherever we can. However, we also have an uncanny ability (habit) to undermine or sabotage our well-being. Sometimes, we even metaphorically watch this train wreck while it is happening, knowing what is going wrong but unable or unwilling to change the deleterious behavior that is causing the disaster. For example, we want to be “right” when we have an argument even at the expense of being happy or comfortable. We are willing to risk emotional pain or even physical injury to prove that point to others and ourselves.

                If you succumb to a nasty case of food poisoning at a picnic because you ate a tuna-salad sandwich that has been sitting in the summer sun all afternoon, you will anchor that experience in your subconscious mind. For better or for worse, you may never eat a tuna-salad sandwich again because even the briefest memory of how sick the spoiled mayonnaise made you feel. However, if you turn the situation around to look at the lesson you learned from this experience, you would also know that you should (and always will) avoid eating these sandwiches after they have been sitting out in the hot sun. And yet, people are often willing to jeopardize their physical and emotional well-being and sacrifice their self-interest in so many other ways.

John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind explains why people may continue to practice self-destructive behaviors even when they consciously do not want to repeat those patterns. According to the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder, when the subconscious mind accepts a particular situation or behavior as familiar and known, this mental script becomes a behavioral default. It doesn’t matter that your doctor has warned that you are likely to succumb to a lung disease if you don’t quit smoking cigarettes right now (not to mention the physical discomfort you have from symptoms of the disease). You have been smoking since you were 13 years old and your SCM recognizes this behavior as familiar, relaxing and comforting (if not comfortable.) It doesn’t matter that you were raised to respect other people and their opinions even when they differed from your own. You were also told from a very young age that you must fight for and defend what you wanted and believed, and never give up your advantage. It is no surprise to you or anyone in your social circle that you will have no qualms about fighting with words or fists—whatever it takes—to prove your point. It doesn’t matter that the logic, reasoning, will-power and decision-making faculties in your conscious mind are screaming at you to finally, once and for all, leave your physically abusive spouse. Once the mental script in your SCM kicks in to remind you how secure and even safe you feel in that relationship, it will likely override your intention to seek sanctuary at a shelter and the abusive cycle will begin again.

What does it take to convince ourselves that we can feel comfortable and relaxed in a relatively stress-free environment? Why isn’t it enough for us to be content with what we have (emotional and physical health, amenities to survive) and be willing to learn the important lessons from consequences of behaviors that didn’t work out so well for us? Chances are that the answer is a new mental script.

 

 

 

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/.

 

Dealing With Frustration

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

 

                What frustrates you? Being stuck in rush-hour traffic? Having to chase your dog around the neighborhood to catch him after he jumped the fence? Sleeping through your alarm and being late for work? Pop-up ads that block the computer screen and impede your work until you figure out how to get rid of the advertisement? The list goes on. Following are some practical relaxation and visualization skills that you can use to help you relax when you experience stress during such moments of frustration.

·         Diaphragmatic breathing. Draw a slow, deep breath through your nose; hold it four three or four seconds and then release the air through your mouth. Breathing this way not only relaxes the tension in your physical body; it also provides a tangible example (proof) that you can control a specific physical behavior. Repeat this exercise several times until you notice that your pulse/heartbeat returns to its normal (resting) rate.

·         Let your conscious awareness of the situation help you out. According to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, your subconscious mind is likely following a mental script about how it thinks you “should” respond or behave when you are frustrated. When you are in a situation with which you regularly associate anxiety and frustration, you are likely to experience these negative emotions as soon as your SCM recognizes similar themes in that environment. Practice diaphragmatic breathing while you focus your attention on specific physical characteristics (message units) of the stimuli you experience around you. What do you see, hear, feel, taste or smell? Directing your conscious attention to these individual details in this way will not only help to relax you by distracting your attention away from the source of your stress or frustration. It will also inundate your SCM with these new message units and help to create a new, different (innocuous) mental script about this formerly stress-inducing environment.

·         Focus on your options/solutions. As Gil Grissom, one of my favorite characters from the original cast of CBS’ hit series, CSI, used to say: “There is always a clue.” Once your physical body is relaxed and your mind is calm, you can turn your attention to finding solutions to the problem that is causing your stress. Once your subconscious mind has created new associations (knowns­) between feeling calm and your ability to focus, it becomes easier to create new solutions for reducing your frustration or even access previously proved (success) mental scripts to manage your frustration.

·         Be polite and gracious to the people around you. Good manners go a long, long way to preventing the development of additional social/emotional stress in your environment. For example, if there is a long line at the drug store when you go to pick up your prescription, you can be pretty sure that other people, including the clerk, are also experiencing frustration about the wait. The simple physical action of smiling at the people around you transforms your negative energy/emotion into a positive response. As Dr. Kappas liked to remind his clients and students, it is impossible for two opposite emotions to exist at the same time. In addition, positive emotion has stronger energy than a negative emotion such as anger or frustration. When you smile, you not only convert the negative energy but also (metaphorically) invite solutions that will resolve your problem, including another person offering to help you out.

Finally, hypnotherapy and therapeutic-guided imagery are great tools to help you learn to relax and manage/control stress and frustration. I will teach you simple breathing and relaxation exercises that you can use to help reduce stress and create a hypnotic script to help manage your frustration during specific situations. I will also give you a recording of your hypnosis to keep that you can listen to and reinforce the relaxation techniques that we worked on during your hypnotherapy session.

 

 

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/.

 

Stop! Negative Self-Talk

(This blog was originally posted on January 17, 2014)

 

 

                From time to time, in a moment of frustration or anger or even fear, we say something negative and hurtful to someone very close to us. The incident that sparked the outburst may turn out to be inconsequential, but in that instant there is nothing more important or urgent than giving that other person a piece of our mind for causing so much trouble in the first place. We can always apologize and make amends to the other person once tempers have cooled down and the issue is resolved. But, what if the person you are so mad at is you? Do you apologize for the hurtful things you have said or thought about you, to yourself?

                According to John Kappas, Ph.D., the subconscious mind works on expectation and imagination. Over time, we learn to expect others to respond to and interact with us in a particular way based on our previous experience with those individuals. We also learn to internalize the message or emotion we perceive in those interactions, which can affect self-confidence and self-esteem. No matter what the “message” is, as you hear and repeat it to yourself your subconscious mind starts to internalize and believe that message. If people in your social circle constantly bombard you with criticism and negativity, perhaps it is time to change who you hang out with. If you are the one trash-talking yourself, it is time to rewrite your mental script to be ­­­more loving and accepting of yourself.

                During hypnosis, I teach my clients simple breathing and relaxation techniques by which to dial down or even turn off the negative self-talk. I also desensitize my clients to the stimuli that typically trigger their self-criticism and self-reproach. Finally, I use therapeutic guided-imagery techniques to enable my clients to find solutions for those situations and then visualize, imagine, picture or pretend that they have successfully resolved a conflict with self-confidence and self-love.

 

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/.

I Wear One. Do You?

Photo by Rick Hustead

When Geeves and I posed for this photo, we weren't planning to
move or go anywhere...but I put on my helmet just in case!

 

 

 

                Yesterday (July 12, 2014) was International Helmet Awareness Day 2014. Local tack shops and equestrian catalogs offered promotional discounts on riding helmets to encourage riders to invest in and encourage use of this important safety equipment.

                Helmets are probably the most important equipment that equestrians use when they ride and work around horses. You don’t absolutely need a saddle to ride a horse. Many people, including Gaia Horsemanship founder and instructor Ellen Cochrane, can and do forgo a bridle and reins (http://www.gaiahorsemanship.co.uk/) when they ride. I would love to do that one day, too. But ride without protective headgear? No. Way.

When I was about 10 years old, someone I know went temporarily blind after falling off of a pony. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. That was my wake-up call, as well as that of everyone else where I rode at that time. From that day on, I (and everyone else at the stable) wore protective headgear. For me, putting on a hard hat before I get on a horse is as automatic as fastening my seatbelt when I got into a car. Much of the professional and amateur equestrian community received their big wake-up call about helmet awareness when former Olympian Courtney King-Dye sustained a traumatic brain injury after she came off a young horse during a schooling session in 2010. As I recall, she wasn’t even working on particularly advanced dressage movements at the time; the youngster stumbled, she fell off and landed beneath him. King-Dye wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time and fractured her skull and suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of the accident. If an experienced and talented Olympic rider could get hurt like that, so could any of us.

Like so many things in life, it is very difficult to change a known behavior that we have been doing for most of our lives. After all, there is something very romantic and liberating about the image of galloping a horse with your hair billowing out behind you. I just can’t imagine doing that anymore. After witnessing a fall that temporarily blinded someone very close to me, and hearing my dad (a retired neurologist) constantly telling me how dangerous horses and riding are (yes, they can be), I err on the side of caution. In fact, caution is an early and very well-established known in my subconscious mental script.

                In light of Ms. King-Dye’s accident, in 2013 the United States Equestrian Federation (www.usef.org) decreed that all dressage competitors from introductory to Grand Prix must wear approved GPA titanium helmets at local and national competitions. (There went my fantasy about wearing the coat and top hat.) Even though the international show organization, Fédération Équestre Internationale  (FEI), does not currently have a similar mandate, riders are seen sporting helmets more and more frequently at the international competitions. Charlotte Dujardin, the dressage champion at the 2012 Olympics, won team (United Kingdom) and individual gold medals, and she wore a helmet instead of the traditional top hat. In fact, she was the only competitor I saw who made this choice, although she certainly didn’t have to. I think that must have been another game-changing moment for the Riders4Helmets campaign: If an Olympic champion chooses to wear a certified helmet in competition, so can you.

                I confess that I was really looking forward to the day when I would be a good enough a rider to be eligible to compete in the Prix St. George (and above) dressage classes. Not just because I wanted to ride canter pirouettes, tempi changes, passage and piaffe, but also because I wanted to be able to wear the top-hat-and-tails that dressage fashion riders sport in these upper-level competitions. (By the way, that is the only “fashion” or look that really interests me.) However, I am not prepared to sacrifice my health and well-being and (hopefully) many more years of enjoyment working with and riding my horse to wear a garment that would not protect me if the worst ever happened.

For more information about Courtney King-Dye, the Riders4Helmets program and the role of protective headgear in preventing riding-related TBI, read http://www.dressage-news.com/?p=5307,  http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140709/PC20/140709363 and http://www.dressage-news.com/?p=9828.  

 

 

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/.

© 2014

Theory of Mind in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

(Warning: this blog may contain spoiler information about the film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Please do not read any further if you have not yet watched and plan to see the movie.)

Photo by Microsoft

 

                I remember the day a science teacher told my high-school physics class that mosquitos can see colors on the light spectrum that humans can’t ever imagine and certainly are not capable of seeing themselves. I don’t know how Mr. Kirby knew this fact, or even if it was true. But the comment has stuck with me all these years and even created a great context for tonight’s blog.

                The entire time I watched the movie, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, I couldn’t help but consider the cinematic and dramatic themes of the film in the context of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind. To be honest, my curiosity about the ways in which this theory would apply to Dawn was the primary reason why I wanted to watch it. When I was very little, my family used to watch the Planet of the Apes television series, but I never saw 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes and knew very little about it except James Franco starred in it. Therefore, I was able to watch to the sequel with no (well, few) expectations about what it would be like except for the suggestions of the plot that had been featured in countless television advertisements. Let’s just say that my expectations about what could/might/would happen—and why—were very consistent with the knowns in my subconscious mind.

                According to Dr. Kappas, the subconscious part of the mind is uncomfortable about and resistant to doing new or different things even when the conscious mind (logic, reason, will-power/free-will and reasoning) says that it’s okay to do so. The SCM likes and wants to stick to what is familiar, comforting and safe: i.e., what it knows. Going back to my science teacher’s comment about mosquitos’ visual perception, it is very difficult if not impossible to even imagine doing something that we have never done before. The writers, director and producer used plenty of imagination and computer-generated effects to bring the story to vibrant life on the screen; however, they were still limited by the scope of their own “known” experiences.

Long story short: as humans, we have no real experience or idea what apes feel or think beyond what biologists have already observed these sentient creatures doing. Even then, how much can and do humans really know and understand about these animals’ emotions and motivations? Since apes do not speak English—or any other human language, as far as we know—the sound of their “voices” could only be as realistic or fantastic as the imaginations of the cast and crew that created the sound of those words.

Dawn also emphasizes the importance of trust in the human-human, ape-ape and human-ape bonds. As I described in a previous blog, “7 Keys to a Successful, Long-Term Relationship (February 14, 2014), this concept is a very important part of successful human partnerships/relationships. However, it is a human word. I am not saying that apes (or any other non-human animal) do not have trust or a similar construct in their social relationships; but why should our word be theirs? Once again, consider Dr. Kappas’ Theory of Mind: trust is a known in the SCM of the humans who made the film; but, also, the apes in the film who say this word were the ones who apparently had the most contact with humans in the previous film.

In another example, the animals that had experienced non-violent relationships with humans in the past were willing to trust the people currently in their midst because their known was a positive association with people. Conversely, those who had negative experiences with humans expected to receive pain and be tortured or killed because that was the mental script (known) of these animals. The same is true of Dawn’s humans: the people who associated the apes with causing a pandemic that decimated the world’s population (and their families) with danger. Those who knew and understood the biology/science about the virus seemed to empathize with the simians’ point of view and just wanted both species to get along.

I will probably revisit the themes in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in a future blog. Meanwhile, please let me know what you think of these observations when you have seen the movie. What do/did recurring characters seem to learn from their old and new relationships and circumstances in this movie and in Rise of the Planet of the Apes? I would love to read and learn about other connections you find between this film and the ways characters in this film respond to the relationships and circumstances in each of these movies.

 

 

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/.

© 2014

Passive Aggression and the Fear of Success

Photo by Sara Fogan

                 Passive-aggressive behavior is one of the most common ways that we sabotage ourselves. According to developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, this behavior usually starts very early in life: between the ages of 3 and 6 years old (although as young as 18 months is possible). During this time, which Erikson characterized as the play-age/loco-motor stage of development, a child is learning the difference between right and wrong behavior, on his or her way to learning to become independent.

                To facilitate healthy development at this stage, Erikson believed that children should be encouraged to be creative and use their imagination when they play. In addition, they should be allowed to play adult roles and assert their individuality by taking initiative and doing things on their own. Otherwise, they may develop a sense of guilt and believe that everything they do is “wrong.” When children are not allowed or is discouraged from expressing their feelings, they may try to punish their parents for causing this discomfort. When they continue this behavior as adults, however, they become the object of this punishment, Erikson warned.

“A passive-aggressive person first believes that asserting himself will cause him pain, so he backs off from people who challenge him,” John Kappas, Ph.D., explained. However, even if the individual initially seems very passive and cooperative, the objective in this behavior is to teach someone a lesson. Passive-aggression is self-sabotaging and is at the passive-aggressive person’s expense, such as quitting a job before being fired, the founder of Hypnosis Motivation Institute (www.hypnosis.edu).

For example, even if a person wants to have a successful career in a specific vocation, he or she may find reasons to not pursue this goal. The individual may decide that it is taking too long to achieve that goal, even though the person is already very good at this job. It may even be true that he or she could earn more money doing something else instead of wasting precious time learning pre-requisite skills to advance and achieve the desired career. But that is what the conscious mind—the area of will-power/free will, decision-making, reason and logic—says. This is what the subconscious mind, which still follows an early-life mental script, says: “You will never be good/talented/smart enough to do that.” This belief is the actual reason why the person will actually walk away from that “dream” job.

My role as this person’s hypnotherapist would be to change his or her mental script by helping to increase his or her self-confidence and perception of self-worth. I would also help the individual change the passive-aggressive tendencies to assertiveness by setting realistic career goals, following through with goals and reinforcing his or her new self-confidence (behaviors and beliefs). Finally, I would teach my client about the Mental Bank Concept and incorporate it in the person’s daily life to reinforce these new behaviors and perception (belief) of self-worth.

For more information about passive-aggressive behavior, read my March 31, 2014 blog titled “Passive-Aggressive Behavior.” You can also find out more about how the Mental Bank process works in my July 7, 2014 blog titled “Mental Bank Concept” or go to http://www.hypnosis.edu/streaming/#Mental-Bank-Program.

 

 

 

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/.

© 2014