Moving On, Part 1

Image courtesy of Microsoft

 

 

                I recently read a quote from Redefining Refuge which really resonated with me: “Cutting people out of your life doesn’t mean you hate them, it simply means you respect yourself. Not everyone is meant to stay.” Think about it: children are born, grow up and eventually move out of the family home. They may attend college, get married and start their own families; or, they choose a vocation and start their career, perhaps moving out of state (or out of the country) to establish their own lives. Changing and moving on is part of living; growing up emotionally as well as physically and chronologically. While these separations are initially hard for both the parents and the “kids,” that doesn’t mean these life transitions should not occur.

                Just as we grow up and outgrow our roles as children in the family home, we can also outgrow the relationships we have forged during the course of our lives. As we mature, it is natural to develop different and separate interests from the ones we shared with our childhood and school friends. We often away from friendships and romantic relationships we have enjoyed as adults. But, why shouldn’t this occur? We continue to grow and mature every minute of our lives. It is not so unusual to discover that the things that you couldn’t imagine liking or wanting to do at seventeen have become sources of profound enjoyment at thirty-seven. If the relationship devolves from friendship and respect to resentment and even physical and/or physical abuse, it is time to cut those ties and move on to a healthier relationship and a safer environment. But knowing this doesn’t make it easier to do. Does it?

                It isn’t just that we continue to feel strong emotions about or bonds to the other person that makes this separation so difficult. Rather, per John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, it is so difficult to “leave” a relationship we have outgrown because we must give up a powerful known in our subconscious mind. This relationship and the person(s) we share it with have become part of our mental script; the longer we have been following this script by interacting in loving and respectful ways with the other person, the more difficult it is to stop following that script. The same is also true if and when we have been following an unloving and disrespectful or abusive script. Even if you do not or no longer have positive feelings about the other person or people, this separation may be painful because you must venture into the unknown experience of being independent from that relationship. Regardless of the quality of that bond, disengaging from it and the habits or behaviors you have practiced during the relationship entails breaking script.

Whatever the cause, letting go of a relationship can be very difficult and painful. In the next blog, I will explain how experiencing grief and the five stages of loss during hypnotherapy can help accept that the relationship is finished. When we are able to say goodbye with love and respect, we can move forward in our lives and so can they.

               

 

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

 

 

Why Being Uncomfortable Feels “Comfortable”

(This blog was originally posted on February 18, 2014)

 

                Consider the expression, “Better the devil you know (than the one you don’t).” If you have done some activity before, you will have a pretty good idea of what to expect (result) this time. Based on this experience, you probably even have a strategy or two for dealing with that or a similar situation. Well, your subconscious mind loves what is familiar, too! According to John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, the subconscious mind even covets physically or emotionally painful experiences; anything that is “known” is deemed familiar or safe. That is how behaviors, including undesirable habits, are created.

People seek my hypnotherapy services to help them change (or get rid of) a habit that no longer works for them. For example, they want to be able to lose weight, to quit smoking or stop procrastinating, to increase self-confidence, and a host of other behaviors. These goals may make sense to the conscious mind, where logic, reasoning, will-power and decision-making reside; but the subconscious mind is not so easily convinced. The SCM is used to doing things a particular way—its way, the comfortable way, the “easy way”—and it resists changing its modus operandi. It doesn’t care that you (and your conscious mind) are worried that your habit of smoking two packs of cigarettes each day is likely to result in a debilitating lung disease. Your SCM quite enjoys eating that pint of fudge-brownie ice cream before bed; this indulgence is so much like reminiscent of the bedtime treats you used to enjoy as a small child. And as for procrastination, well, didn’t Miss Scarlett in Gone With the Wind always promise herself that she would deal with her problems tomorrow? That strategy worked just fine for her, so why shouldn’t it work for you or me?

If you are happy and comfortable doing things the way you have always done and continue to do them, that is fine. You are not ready to change your behavior yet, and your subconscious mind will likely reject any attempts to change this behavior. Remember, however, that any and every habit and behavior you have learned can also be unlearned. Moreover, hypnotherapy is an effective, drug-free and natural way to help you override (unlearn) that previous mental script and change or dump those habits that no longer work for you. Hypnotherapy is a great way to help you start living the kind of life you want and deserve to be living.

 

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

A Primitive Fear

Photo Courtesy of Microsoft

 

                I was born and spent the first few years of my life in the Midwest. I can still remember the way the clouds turned pea-green, almost the color of bile, in a summer sky just before they erupted into a big thunderstorm. There is nothing like the booming and cracking sounds of thunder during one of those Super-Cell thunder storms, and I was terrified of that thunder. My mother would comfort me when I got scared; when I got a little older she taught me how to count the seconds between flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder so I could determine how far away the storm was getting. At the time, this technique gave me an illusion of having control over the weather, I guess. It was certainly distracting—at least until a burst of thunder crackled at the same time a bright fork of lightning lit the sky brighter than the sunniest day. That combination was too much for me and would send me diving under my covers or under a bed for protection.

                Just when I was finally almost over my fear, I happened to watch two television shows that featured a thunderstorm in the storyline. The first was a movie about Frankenstein’s monster, or it had something to do with Frankenstein, but not the original story. I stopped watching the show right after the scene in which a prisoner was hoisted to the top of a mast on a ship during a thunderstorm: lightning flashed, thunder boomed and then only a skeleton remained where the prisoner’s body had been. Equally traumatic for me was an episode of the 1960s’ television series, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. In it, the main characters sit out a tremendous storm called “The Big Train.” During this storm, which occurs every 10 years according to the legend, someone “disappears” and is never heard from or seen again. The family survived the event unscathed, but not my nerves. These shows almost permanently derailed my progress to overcome this fear.

                John Kappas, Ph.D., the founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, postulated that people learn every one of their beliefs and behaviors except for two: a fear of loud noises and a fear of falling. This leaves us plenty of opportunity to learn how to manage these reactions—or not. Maybe. Sort of? Since I completed my hypnotherapy training at HMI, I realize that my original fear of storms was originally a phobia since, at the time, I had never personally experienced lethal danger from a big storm. First, I watched those programs on television when I was probably less than eight years old. I would have been very suggestible at that age since the capacity for logic, powers of reasoning, decision-making and will-power had still not fully developed in my conscious mind. Combine that factor with the natural fear of loud noises with which everyone is born, I was understandably terrified by what I saw happen/heard about happening during big storms. It would be a natural next step to develop a phobia about them. Like kids tend to do, I would try to distract myself from my distress during severe weather with cookies and milk or by eating a bowl of ice cream during a storm. Ironically—and unbeknownst to me at that time—I was more likely exacerbating my symptoms of anxiety when I turned to these sugary snacks for comfort. (For more information about the relationship between nutrition and development of a phobia, check out my January 14, 2014 blog titled “Nutrition and Hypnotherapy.”)

                Another thing that really helped to ameliorate my anxiety during and about storms—which I actually started to do back then—was to learn about how, when and why they formed. When I found out that the sound of thunder is a by-product of lightning and not the other way around, the loud noise stopped scaring me so much. I pored over information about them in Encyclopedia Britannica; I watched documentaries about extreme weather on Leonard Nimoy’s In Search of series. Eventually, after repeated virtual exposure (systematic desensitization) to big storms via television documentaries about them, my fear turned to fascination and even exhilaration when I heard thunder. I learned which precautions I should take during a storm—stay indoors and away from windows, avoid using electric appliances, don’t swim or take a bath or shower, etc., so I could stay safe during them. (I still haven’t worked up the nerve to find out if that legend about The Big Train is more than an urban myth, though.)

                During the summer, even Southern California gets its share of extreme weather. Electric storms typically pop up in the local mountains and deserts, triggering flash floods and warnings about severe weather that could affect nearby regions. Occasionally, these storms also hit valley and beach communities; and on July 27, 2014, lighting killed one person and injured twelve others at Venice Beach when a freak storm blew in from the ocean. That news chilled me to the bone and instantly revived my old anxiety about being caught in thunderstorms. I have even had a few close calls myself. The first time, I was riding in a car when forked lightning almost hit the hood (bonnet) of the vehicle, thus transforming my phobia into a legitimate fear of thunder storms. The second time, a bolt struck a commuter jet I was flying in to Chicago. Obviously, I survived both events and was apparently never in any real danger either time. But the people who were affected by the storm that hit that Southern California beach community a few days ago were not so lucky, and I am truly sorry for their pain and unspeakable loss.

               

 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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/

 

Circle of Life (on Network Television)

Photo courtesy of Fotolia

 

 

                More and more frequently, I notice that the change in weather and the lengthening and shortening of daylight aren’t the only ways I mark the passage of time. It turns out that television is a great time-keeper, too. And that isn’t necessarily a good thing.

                I remember a time when there were only thirteen television channels that audiences could watch, including PBS—which aired Masterpiece Theater, hosted by Alastair Cook, and Sesame Street. Now there are hundreds of channels to choose from, including three that broadcast current and older episodes of Masterpiece Mystery on three different days and times. I can’t even count on both hands the number of reality programs that currently air on network and cable television channels. Did these types of shows even exist when I was growing up?

                Back in my day, the new season of a television series started in September or October and ran through May or early June. Thereafter, networks were inundated with sports broadcasts, reruns from those series and the occasional made-for-TV movie. In the past few years, new “tester” series are aired during the summer. These series only last a few months at most; the lucky (successful) programs get renewed and are even scheduled to continue during the year if they attract enough viewers. Or, not: Sometimes, the renewal means the series will return next year, to keep viewers watching that network until the regular television season begins.

                On the one hand, I always know that it’s summertime because Shark Week returns to the Discovery Channel, usually at the beginning of August. (TV ads to celebrate this annual event should start hitting the airwaves any day.) Apparently the third season of the new series of Dallas will also be back at the end of August. ABC is already advertising the return of their hit series, Scandal, which starts in September, when the show’s summer-replacement ends its season. Reminiscent of seasonal programming when I was growing up, the CW re-runs previous episodes of its hit shows about the supernatural throughout the summer until the new season begins again in October.

Great Britain gets to catch up with the goings-on at Downton Abbey in October. Meanwhile, there are so many opportunities (risks) of catching spoilers about the show on social media until Americans get to see the series in January/February of 2015. I won’t even get started about the frustration of having to wait until who-knows-when to watch the next season Game of Thrones. And when Alison Sweeney, an actress on the long-running daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives recently announced that she is leaving the show for good this season, fans took up a vigil to make sure they wouldn’t miss her final episode…whenever that happens to be. It could be months until that happens, yet they are counting the days until something they don’t want to occur actually takes place.

Even Real Time with Bill Maher goes off the air during the summer, until he returns after his well-deserved summer hiatus in September. Wait. Maher still has one more episode of his series before his break. Why am I moaning about his vacation right now, before he’s even left?

That is exactly the point I am trying to make. Despite the great efforts of network executives and their advertisers, television is not the end-all-be-all source of entertainment and enjoyment in our lives. We are so much more than just a fan/someone who gets caught up in the drama of and behind our favorite television shows. Sure, we feel a twinge of emotional pain when something changes in our entertainment routine. But that is because this routine is familiar and enjoyable. More important the familiarity of watching and looking forward to watching these programs has become comfortable, even comforting. The same is true of the fondness we develop and feel for the characters and talk-show hosts that we see day after day or week after week. We feel like we really know them after all the time (sometimes, years) we have been watching their shows. They are part of and have become a subconscious known, a mental script that our subconscious minds have written about one of the ways we enjoy relaxing and spending our time.

I don’t worry about this separation from my favorite programs anymore. You know why? By now, the experience of bidding a temporary adieu to our favorite seasonal programming is also a known in my subconscious mind. Based on my experiences over the past years, I can comfortably rely on the fact that once again I will likely be curled up in front of the TV watching my favorite programs sometime—probably at the same time—next year.

               

 

 

 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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/

Hypnotherapy for Stress Management

Photo courtesy of Mircosoft

 

                Many things in our lives can trigger a stress response. Driving in heavy traffic, dealing with quarreling children, anxiety about finances, moving, changing jobs and death of or separation from a spouse are just a few incredibly stressful life events. Even typically “happy” occasions such as getting married or having a baby are often overwhelming and, yes, stressful. Fortunately, hypnotherapy and therapeutic guided imagery can help manage that stress so you can get on with living and enjoying your life.

                When people seek hypnotherapy for stress-management, one of the first things I do is help them understand how and why they experience stress and respond in an undesired way in the context of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind. Once they achieve a very deep state of hypnosis, I gradually introduce specific aspects or qualities of those triggers so they can become used (desensitized) to whatever is causing the stress or anxiety. In so doing, this process also creates a new mental script in their subconscious minds that emphasizes a state of relaxation and their ability to control how they perceive and respond to this negative stimulus. I incorporate the clients’ own words in individualized hypnotic scripts to reinforce this state of deep relaxation and increase their motivation to continue to manage/control their stress when they return to an alert and aware state.

I also use therapeutic guided imagery to reinforce this new known (relaxation) and help them block the stress from getting into the clients’ conscious and subconscious minds. For example, they can visualize, imagine, picture or pretend that they are wearing a thick coat of armor or are covered in an invisible shield of energy that repels and dissolves the stressor. Alternatively, the therapeutic concept of a double-bind reinforces the relaxation response, whereby the harder they try to experience stress or any other kind of negative emotion about the stressor the more relaxed they will feel.

Finally, when they are in an alert state, I teach these clients how to recreate the same relaxed and calm demeanor they experienced during hypnosis by activating a subconscious anchor. This is achieved by drawing a deep breath while pressing or rubbing the thumb and index finger together, and then releasing the breath on the word “calm.” The Emotional Freedom Technique (www.eftuniverse.org) is another effective tool to help manage stress.

Contact me today for more information about how hypnotherapy can help you manage stress in your life!

 

 

 

 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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/

Is It Halloween, Already?

Photo Courtesy of Microsoft

 

 

 

What is the clearest indication that time—and the year—is really is flying by? When catalogs for school clothing, Halloween decorations/costumes and Christmas gifts start to arrive! But that begs two questions: Where has the year gone in the first place? And why are we in such a rush for the next season to arrive when we’re barely in the middle of the current one? It’s still July! When did the world start moving so quickly that it wasn’t enough to live in the moment and enjoy (or deal with) whatever is going on in our lives right now? Doesn’t anyone take time to smell the roses anymore?

Time passes no matter what we are doing—or not. Adults notice that time seems to move much more quickly than we remember it doing when we were young children or teenagers. But that is just a perception, not reality. The more activities we have to do and the more responsibilities we have to fulfill, the more message units bombard and even overload our conscious minds. One common and very natural product of this mental overload is “hypnosis.” We are aware of our surroundings as we go about our day-to-day activities and fulfill our responsibilities. However, a very common characteristic of this state is varying degrees of amnesia and/or time-distortion; we don’t necessarily remember every detail of those days which contributes to the illusion of time rushing by or seeming to stand still.

Other than signs in nature that the seasons are changing—hot summer temperatures followed by changing colors of the foliage—the arrival of holiday catalogs is one of the most significant indicators that time is flying by. I understand why vendors send catalogs to promote their wares and attract their customers’ attention about upcoming products. However, it seems like they are arriving in our regular or electronic mailboxes earlier and earlier, typically with several months until the holiday actually arrives. Am I the only one who loses interest and even feels burned-out looking at, seeing and reading advertisement for Jack ’o Lanterns and winter clothing in the middle of July?

Whether you are consciously aware of this or not, these catalogs and their associated promotions induce stress:  Should I buy this item now or wait until it goes on sale? What if the company sells out of it before I have a change to order it? What if so-and-so doesn’t like the gift I selected? The merchant is ostensibly promoting a product that you, the customer, wants/needs/may enjoy and improve the holiday celebration; however, their goal is ultimately to persuade you to make a purchase. The shiny paper, energetic product descriptions and “special deal” marketed in the catalog facilitates those sales by overloading the readers’ subconscious mind and, yes, increasing their suggestibility to buy one or several of those items.

Om.

I can’t turn back the clock to a time when I was younger and the days rolled leisurely by without a care in the world. However, my hypnotherapy training has helped me learn how to relax and slow waaaaay down so I don’t keep rushing mindlessly from event to event during the year. I am more aware of the ways my body benefits from being physically relaxed so I can focus on what I want to do. This relaxed state and increased awareness enables me to effectively resist the temptation of purchasing items I do not need or want while opening my senses to the timeless beauty of the changing seasons. I want to enjoy and celebrate the beauty and bounty that every day has to offer, not just days that the economy and major retail stores dictate are more important or deserve more attention than others. Furthermore, when every day is precious, I am happy to wait to celebrate a holiday until the actual date rolls around on the calendar 96 days from 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®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/



De-Hypnotizing the Hypnotized Client

Dehypnotizing the Hypnotized Client

 

 

                Every now and then, someone seeking hypnotherapy comes in for the appointment already hypnotized. Hypnosis is a completely natural state which every one of us experiences for approximately 30 minutes, at least twice a day—just before drifting to sleep at night and right after waking up in the morning. As I have explained in previous blogs, we are also susceptible to experiencing a natural, environmentally-induced trance at other times of the day. (For more information about this topic, see: “Natural States of Hypnosis,” 12/26/14; “Environmental Hypnosis,” 1/23/14; and “Hypnotized by the Grocery Store,” 7/6/14.) And then there are instances in which we hypnotize ourselves. This is the state (and kind) of hypnosis I will address in this essay.

Psychologist John Kappas, Ph.D. observed that hypnosis occurs when an overload of message units disorganizes the inhibitory process, which triggers the fight/flight response to result in this hyper-suggestible state. Since we are more suggestible to ourselves than any other stimuli in our environment, we can get caught in a pattern of carrying beliefs or behaving in ways that do not work for us, but we continue to act that way because that is what we have always done. For example, someone who continues to accept work that is considerably below the individual’s skill and desired pay-grade may do this because the individual follows a mental script that says this is the best he or she can do. Now, despite expressing a desire to pursue a more lucrative career and possessing obvious skill to do that work, the person doesn’t even try to pursue a different career because he or she believes that original mental script.

To help an already-hypnotized client exit this state, Dr. Kappas advised deepening the person’s state even further and blocking his or her subconscious mind from accepting negative suggestions or influences from the environment. This must be done before proceeding with the regular hypnotherapy session to address the self-improvement goals that the client wants to actualize, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder said. If the client knows when, where and why these negative mental-scripts evolved, I will systematically desensitize the person to the environmental stimuli that trigger the undesired responses/behaviors.

However, if the client does not know how these negative mental scripts evolved, I do not employ age-regression therapy to explore and desensitize the origins of those negative beliefs. (For more information about this topic, see my January 28, 2014 blog titled “Age Regression…and why I Don’t Use This Technique.”) Rather, I use a technique called “rejection-proofing,” wherein I provide hypnotic suggestions to help increase the client’s overall self-acceptance, self-appreciation and self-approval. This process enables the individual to dismiss the negative self-talk (“chatter”) in the person’s subconscious mind and re-write a new mental script to reinforce the positive beliefs about his or her abilities to pursue those goals.

Finally, to increase the person’s ability to control entering the hypnotic state, I target the logical (left-brain) side of the client’s subconscious mind during this and subsequent hypnotherapy sessions. I also teach the person how to count out of hypnosis whenever the individual notices that he or she is naturally entering this state at home, work, driving or any other time.

 

 

 

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/.