Hypnotherapy and Public Speaking

(This blog was originally posted on April 22, 2014)

 

 

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

 

                 This evening I came across the outline for my first-ever presentation about hypnosis. It had been an assignment for the Speech Craft class that my classmates and I took at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute a couple of months before graduation. In it, we learned all of the fine points of crafting and delivering an effective, impactful speech about some element of our new, future vocation as certified hypnotherapists. My speech was very basic: I included some personal information about me and my educational background in the introduction, and then I focused on how and why I decided to become a hypnotherapist. That should be easy, right? Not so fast.

Reading those notes again, 10 years later, I could still remember how nervous I felt while I composed the draft for that speech. As a rule, I did not like to speak in public. I hated to be the center of attention in any circumstance, as I knew I would have to be when I did my presentation. Finally, the instructor and my classmates would be grading my presentation, a prospect that not only exacerbated my anxieties about public speaking but also of taking tests.

Before I drove to class that night, I made sure that I ate a nutritious meal with protein to keep my blood-sugar level (and mood) stable, which I knew would help to lower my anxiety. I wore one of my most professional-looking skirt suits that always helped me feel confident. Once I was in class, I practiced diaphragmatic breathing to calm my nerves while I waited for my turn to speak.

When the instructor finally called me up to the podium to do my presentation, my mind flashed back to the best advice I have ever received about public speaking. The current director of HMI, George Kappas, M.A., C.Ht., once gave the class a pep talk about public speaking and doing presentations on hypnosis and hypnotherapy to the general public. He reassured us that each of us would probably know more about this topic than anyone else in the room. He told us to relax and even suggested that we probably wouldn’t (shouldn’t) even need or want to use notes or note cards to prompt our speeches because, again, we would already be the experts on this topic. So when I stepped up to the podium that night, I took his words to heart and allowed myself to own the room. Since this presentation was about me and my experience, I could be (and was) completely confident that I was the expert in the room about this topic. That night, I was finally able to overcome a personal challenge. To my surprise, I even created a new “known” in my subconscious mind: public speaking was fun!

Looking back, this class turned out to be one of my favorites on the hypnotherapy-certification program at HMI. First, the assignment made me face and overcome my fear and discomfort about public speaking and taking tests. Second, the experience of having to do a presentation gave me an invaluable opportunity to experience the efficacy of techniques that I now also use and teach to my clients to help them overcome similar fears and anxieties.

 

 

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

Toxic Worry

“Worry is love. How will your children know you love them if you don’t

worry about them?” -- Anonymous

 

 

 

                When I came upon that quote a few weeks ago, I knew I had to address this sentiment in a blog. Have you ever loved someone so much that it is physically painful to imagine anything or anyone hurting that person? Have you ever loved someone so much that, to assuage this worry (i.e., self-inflicted pain), you tried to control and even micro-manage the other person’s activities to prevent this misfortune to such an extent that neither of you could live your own, authentic life?

                Not only does this preoccupation cause anxiety in the person who is doing the worrying, it also induces stress in the object of our affection. It is can feel difficult to breathe, let alone live, when we feel as though someone else is dictating how we are going through our lives. And here is another thought to consider: if energy attracts like energy, worrying (negative energy) about a possible disaster can attract that which you are trying to avoid (negative outcome). Now imagine this dynamic in the context of toxic worry. While you are so concerned about your loved one’s well-being, your mind starts to wander to those dark scenarios in which some kind of emotional or physical disaster befalls that person. And then you might become anxious or stressed out because you’re worried that your worry caused whatever happened. And, so on.

Stop it.

While I was completing my hypnotherapy certification at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, one of my favorite instructors, the late Marc Gravelle often warned us about the perils of “toxic worry.” It is characterized by the trap (never-ending circle) of wondering “What if X happens…?” and then even worrying about being worried about that dilemma. I believe that the anxiety people often feel about whether their loved ones fully appreciate the depth and sincerity of this devotion falls into this kind of toxic worry.

Loving someone can be a beautiful experience, but it is not possible, nor should it be possible, to control whether that person reciprocates that sentiment. In an ideal world, parents love their children and want/work hard to keep them safe and secure. Parents’ behavior influences their children’s developing suggestibility and personality, as well as teaches (directly and by example) how to negotiating various life challenges and even moral dilemmas. But perhaps the most import part of raising a child is allowing that youngster to live and experiment (within reason) so that he or she can eventually leave the family home and live as an independent adult.

There is no way to guarantee that the information, wisdom and example you provide will completely protect your child from any of the possible misfortunes that you are worried might affect him or her. In fact, some of our greatest life lessons are those painful or challenging ones we all have to go through at some point. Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and avoid the trap of toxic worry about possible consequences of a situation that have not and may not even arise. Instead, spend that valuable time talking to and teaching your child to behave and follow the morals and ethics that are important to you. Take an emotional step or two back and remove yourself from the very center of your child’s life to give him or her that opportunity to prove that the youngster deserves your trust and can/will make good decisions. You may well find that your willingness to allow your child to live his or her life will not only alleviate your toxic worry, but will also motivate him or her to want the guidance you long to provide.

 

 

 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/.

© 2014

 

Continuing Education

(This blog was originally posted on March 9, 2014)

Photo by Sara Fogan

 

                Have you ever wondered where a champion athlete goes after she wins an Olympic medal? If she is still competing, she goes right back to her coach to continue training. She may also brainstorm with teammates or participate in (or teach) a clinic to improve her technique or learn new skills in order to continue to excel in her sport.

                On March 8 and March 9, 2014, I audited The Dressage Life symposium at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Southern California. Charlotte Dujardin, the 2012 British Olympic gold medalist in dressage and reigning world champion in the sport, was the featured clinician. She and her former trainer, International Grand Prix champion Judy Harvey, were here to share their expertise with six accomplished equestrians and their equally impressive horses to work through specific training issues. They were there to observe, praise/critique, correct and motivate each rider to continue improving in her sport. Ms. Dujardin treated everyone with respect, humor and a little tough love—including Hilda Gurney, a former Olympic bronze medalist in dressage and popular trainer in Southern California, and her mount, Wintersnow.

                It wasn’t really a surprise that Ms. Gurney was there, but the incredible opportunity to watch these two champions cooperating to achieve a common goal did give me goose bumps. After all, in another context, they would have been competing against each other for the same title. But here they were teacher and student, and even champions will go back to school in order to remain in the game and stay at the top of their class.

                “It’s wonderful to watch two Olympians work together,” Ms. Harvey commented at the end of their session. She added that Ms. Dujardin benefitted from her student’s experience as a competitor in dressage, while Ms. Gurney would have been inspired and motivated by her teacher’s enthusiasm and technical skills.

                “I still learn and watch [and visualize] other riders to get better at what I do,” Ms. Dujardin explained during a Q&A session during the clinic. She recounted a time when she used to have a really tough time doing a half-pass at the trot. Then, right before a major competition, she found a catalyst to overcome this block: while observing a former Olympic gold and silver medalist, Isabelle Werth, practice this movement, she finally “got” how to do it. Dujardin explained how mentally replicating every detail of Werth’s practice ride during an imaginary ride on her own horse, Valegro, enabled her to finally ride the half-pass in her own competition later that day.

 “Sometimes, watching someone else and visualizing what they do helps me to understand what I need to do to understand what I am doing wrong and correct technique if I feel stuck,” she said.

 

 

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 Aggressive Behavior

(This blog was originally posted on March 31, 2014)

Photo by Sara Fogan

                You must repeatedly remind your teenage son to end a phone conversation with his friend so he can pick up his younger sibling from band practice before he finally snaps the phone shut and stomps out of the room. When you ask your spouse to make a stop on the way home from work to pick up the food you ordered for supper, the response is a loud sigh and a sarcastic comment: “Sure, it’s not as if I don’t have enough to do during the day.” Maybe you consistently forget to return a novel you borrowed from your friend, even though you see each other just about every day at school or work. Sound familiar?

These behaviors are examples of passive aggression, a common form of defensive behavior. It is not exclusive to males or females, and it can be manifested at any age starting from very early childhood until the end of the person’s life. It can start at age 18 months to between two and five years old, when a child starts to differentiate from the parent or caretaker in a subconscious bid to become more independent and autonomous. The more the adult tries to exert authority over the youngster, the more resistant the child becomes: You say yes, the child says no. If the parent does not provide options or alternatives for the desired behavior, but simply demands the child to do what he or she has been told, the youngster doesn’t have a chance to experience the desired autonomy. The child may then exert his or her independence by forgetting to do something or make jokes or sarcastic comments in front of other people as a way to express frustration about the situation. Over time, this tactic becomes a “known” in the subconscious and, eventually, the preferred problem-solving strategy and technique.

With the exception of reactions to fear of falling and fear of loud noises, passive aggression—like all other behaviors—is learned; therefore, it can be unlearned. When I work with a client to overcome this “resistant lifestyle,” I will first explore the different emotional triggers for the client’s behavior, such as tone of voice/words used of the person making a request, the time of day the client is most likely to respond this way, etc. Then, while the person is in hypnosis, I will systematically desensitize him or her to these triggers and teach a relaxation response that can be substituted for the previous “known” behavior (passive aggression).  Finally, I may incorporate some hypnodrama and therapeutic guided imagery or visualization techniques to give the person a chance to rehearse expressing his or her needs in these specific situations. Over time, by practicing the relaxation response and communicating what he or she needs at that time, the person can establish these behaviors as a new known response in other similar situations.

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

Physiological Benefits to Quit Smoking

 (This blog was originally posted on April 9, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

 

                People have various motivations to give up cigarettes when seek hypnotherapy to quit smoking. With increasingly tighter restrictions on the areas people can smoke in public, it is becoming more difficult and uncomfortable to light up when they are out of the house. Some people hate the smell of smoke in their hair and on their skin and clothes. Others decide that the financial burden of purchasing cigarettes is no longer worth the enjoyment of smoking. (A pack of cigarettes costs more than a gallon of gasoline in most locations in the United States; and health and life-insurance policies can be more expensive for people who smoke.) But the primary motivation people quit smoking is to improve their health. Here is a list of the specific physiological benefits and improvement to your health that you will enjoy after quitting smoking, and an estimated time frame in which these benefits are realized since smoking your last cigarette.

·         20 minutes: Blood pressure, pulse rate and body temperature return to normal/natural level.

·         8 hours: Carbon monoxide level drops to normal level; oxygen level in the blood increases to normal.

·         24 hours: Chance of heart attack decreases.

·         48 hours: Nerve endings start to re-grow, and ability to taste and smell improves.

·         72 hours: Lung capacity increases and bronchial tubes relax.

·         2 weeks-3 months: Improved circulation and increased lung function (up to 30%); it becomes easier to walk.

·         1 month-9 months: Decrease in coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue and shortness of breath. Also, cilia begin to grow back in the lungs, which increases their ability to clean, handle mucous and reduce infection in the lungs.

·         5 years: Decrease in lung-cancer death rate for the average smoker (one pack per day): from 137 per 100,000 people, to 72 per 100,000 people.

·         10 years: Decrease in lung-cancer death rate for the average smoker (one pack per day) to 12 per 100,000 people. This rate is almost the same as that for someone who has never smoked. Other benefits include replacement of pre-cancerous cilia and decrease risk of other cancers associated with smoking: bladder, esophagus, kidney, mouth and pancreas.

Hypnotherapy is an effective tool to help you achieve your goal of becoming a permanent non-smoker. This is because hypnosis enables you to communicate with your subconscious mind to reprogram your previous mental scripts about wanting and needing to smoke, with ones that reinforce your decision, motivations and ability to stop smoking. I offer a 6-week, smoking-cessation hypnotherapy program that is good for people who smoke one or more pack of cigarettes a day. During this time, you will learn how to resist the triggers of your psychological and physiological addiction to nicotine while you gradually stop smoking altogether. I also record and provide a customized stop-smoking track for you client to listen to in order to reinforce this new behavior (lifestyle of a permanent non-smoker). If you are ready to quit smoking, I am here and ready to help you!

    

 

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

 

Just Say No!

(This blog was originally posted on April 23, 2014)

 

 

 

Elton John sings, “‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word.” That may be true; but ‘no’—the key word in assertiveness, in my opinion—is right up there in the Number Two position of difficulty for so many people to say, especially females. I often wonder why that is. Perhaps it has to do with the texture of the words, themselves. The definite, hard consonant “n” and then a long “o” gives the pronunciation and enunciation of no a cold, harsh sound. In comparison, the sometimes-vowel “y”, short “e” and the soft, drawn out “s” when we say yes create an almost musical or lyrical sound. Yes is a nice word to hear and say.

This point brings me to the implication and connotations associated with each of these words. From early childhood, we learn to associate positive emotions and experiences—such as presents, treats and rewards, with yes; whereas adherence to strict rules, criticism and/or punishment tend to go with no. What child has not categorized a parent, guardian or teacher who says yes a lot as being “nice,” compared to the adult who expects Johnny and Sue to be on their best behavior and do their homework before they get to go outside to play? Even in adulthood, it is natural to prefer the company of someone who does what we like and want them to do, compared to an individual who will not go along with our plans or desires just to please us, if doing so won’t benefit the other person. In the heat of the moment, it is impossible to understand the motives and inner fortitude of people who can say “no” without blinking an eye and refuse to back down: how come they are so stubborn?  Sometimes, we even resent them for their willingness to stand up and fight for their beliefs, especially when this stance blocks or interferes with our plans. And yet, these are the people many of us secretly admire and want to be like.

Self-confidence and self-esteem are key components behind the willingness to say yes and the ability to say no. Neither trait is automatic, nor are they mutually inclusive: It is possible to be very confident but have very low self-esteem (self-value), and vice versa. When I work with a client to help the person become more assertive, one of the first things I do is assess and, if necessary, increase the person’s self-confidence and strengthen his or her self-esteem. This work is imperative because it shores up the person’s defenses against negative self-chatter and suggestibility to other people’s criticism as he or she works to achieve this vocational and avocational self-improvement goal. Next, I use relaxation and therapeutic guided-imagery techniques in hypnosis to help the person rehearse using the assertive behaviors. This exercise not only creates a new known in the subconscious mind that he or she can be assertive, it reinforces the person’s confidence that he or she can use this new skill effectively and successfully in the real world.

No isn’t so hard to say, after all.

 

 

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

 

Hypnotherapy and Insomnia

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

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

 

                Insomnia is described as an inability to sleep through the night. It may be manifested as a difficulty falling asleep or waking up frequently during the night so the person does not have a restful sleep. Physiological causes of insomnia can include hunger or a drop in blood-sugar level. However, the most common cause of insomnia is worry, which makes this condition one of the easiest behavior problems to treat, said Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D.

                When I work with a client to improve the person’s quality and quantity of sleep, the first thing I do is to help the person enter a deeply relaxed state of calm and comfort. When the individual is in hypnosis, I help him or her to deepen this sensation of comfort and dozy relaxation through breathing and progressive relaxation exercises. I also establish one or two physical anchors (e.g., the finger press) that the person can use to activate this relaxed, dozy relaxation when the person climbs into bed for sleep. I incorporate the client’s reasons/desire to sleep through the night and his or her suggestibility—physical (direct and literal) or emotional (inferential) to craft a customized suggestion for sleep. The ideal sleep suggestion is one that will induce the client to sleep “quickly, soundly and deeply throughout the night and will awaken in the morning feeling completely rested. The mind will be alert and active,” Dr. Kappas said.

                Post-hypnotic suggestions to drift into sleep include reinforcing the person’s sensation of feeling deeply relaxed, comfortable and free of stress. Using therapeutic guided imagery, I may also help the client to create a special box or safe in which to store or “lock away” any worries or concerns in order to get a good night’s sleep. (I reassure the client that he or she can always “unlock” the box and take out those issues to work on in the morning, if they haven’t already resolved themselves during the good night’s sleep.) I will also provide a final suggestion that the person will release in a venting dream any and all of the stresses or worries that have previously prevented the client from enjoying a sound, deep, full night’s sleep.

Following are some other practical suggestions to help sleep through the night:

·         Do not to watch television or play video games an hour before you plan to go to sleep (these activities can mentally arouse you too much to sleep).

·         Do not to take any sleep aids or drink alcohol to help you nod off: sleep aids can inhibit REM sleep and dreaming; and you are likely to wake up again once the alcohol has worn off.

·         Have a bedtime snack that includes some form of protein. A piece of roasted turkey or a glass of milk is a great choice because both of these items contain tryptophan, which is believed to induce sleep. Eating something before bed will also reduce the likelihood of becoming hungry during the night, which is associated with insomnia.

·         While you are in bed, practice diaphragmatic breathing. Draw a breath through your nose, deep into your lungs, hold it for four seconds and release through your mouth. Repeat this breathing four or five times until you feel your body has released any of the remaining tension that you have been holding onto during the day.

·         Once you are in bed, if your mind is still whirring from the day, count backward from 100 as you preparing to fall asleep. “Counting will help to put [you] in a completely relaxed and restful state that will facilitate falling asleep,” Dr. Kappas explained.

·         Systematically tighten and then relax specific groups of muscles in your body, starting with the muscles in your face and neck, then down to the shoulders, back, arms, hands, abdomen, waist and hips, thighs, feet and toes. As you do this exercise, visualize, imagine, picture or pretend that every area that you stretch and relax makes you feel progressively relaxed and sleepy. It is perfectly fine if you drift off to sleep before you complete this exercise!

 

 

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