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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Hypnotherapy and Grief

There are many kinds of loss, and it is normal to experience grief (sadness) and mourn for the life or even experience when we no longer have it. In addition to the death of a loved one (spouse/partner, child, relative, friend), we can mourn for the passing of a colleague or mentor, pet, home or job, etc. It is common to grieve when a role model passes away, as I described in a previous blog titled, Mourning the Ones We Lost…But Never Knew.

Grief: The affective (emotional) response to the loss/death. There are four recognized stages of grief:

1. Acute: shock, numbness and disbelief that the person has died, followed by pining, yearning, protest or a sense of prevailing numbness.

2. Protest: anxiety, panic, searching behaviors, social withdrawal, acute somatic distress.

3. Depression: The person acknowledges that the loved one can’t/won’t come back and depression symptoms may be experienced (simultaneously with/preceding the protest phase.)

4. Adaptation/restitution: The survivor creates a new identity that is independent of the deceased loved one, establishes new emotional bonds and embarks on a new life.

Mourning: Specific emotional and social behaviors a person manifests during grief. There is no limit to the depth or the amount of time a person may grieve for or mourn a significant loss. For example, Great Britain’s Queen Victoria mourned for her husband, Prince Albert, every day from the day he died until her own death forty years later. Hers is an extreme example of grief and mourning that would require a referral from a licensed medical doctor and/or a licensed mental-health worker to address in hypnotherapy (Business & Professions Code 2908). However, in most situations, hypnotherapy is a powerful forum in which to work through the sadness and practical challenges of bereavement by accessing the person’s subconscious fortitude and resources, thus enabling the person to manage emotional and social deficits of the loss.

Bereavement: The objective state of having lost a loved one. There are three components, or stages, of bereavement. These include:

· Loss-Orientation: The process of “working through” bereavement by focusing on/thinking about the deceased and aspects of the person’s death. Behaviors may include: rumination, yearning for the deceased, confronting/crying over the loss.

· Restoration-Orientation: The process of adjustment to the changes that are consequences of the loss: i.e., attending to tasks previously fulfilled by the deceased and simply carrying on with other “normal” aspects of day-to-day life.

· Oscillation: The process of alternating between Loss-Orientation and Restoration-Orientation processes of grief resolution. This is important because it mediates the potentially severe consequences of bereavement on physical and mental well-being that may result from constantly confronting or avoiding grief.

Following is a summary of some of the ways hypnotherapy can help a person work through and manage his or her grief and bereavement:

· Hypnotherapy provides a “safe” environment (no shame/no blame) in which the person can express his or her feelings about and process the loss.

· Therapeutic guided-imagery journeys and hypnotic scripts are specifically catered to the needs of each client, based on how the person is dealing with the loss/stage of grief, to help the person experience and/or work through the bereavement.

· Hypnotherapy, Imagery, Neuro-LinguisticProgramming techniques to help the bereaved person “chunk down” various tasks or responsibilities that the person finds overwhelming at that time into smaller, more manageable tasks.

· Provides techniques to ameliorate symptoms/behaviors of panic, fear, confusion, anxiety, etc. after the loss and encourage the person to live a healthy lifestyle (nutrition, good sleeping and exercise habits, seek medical advice, etc. when necessary).

· Dream therapy to help the person vent out any emotions, unresolved issues in order to make room for

· Helps the person realize/identify that he or she has options available re: how to process the loss, return to social interactions/seek social, practical or emotional assistance if necessary. Also, increases motivation, self-esteem, and self-confidence about the ability to accomplish tasks that the person may have never had to do outside of the relationship.

In closing, I invite you to check out an excerpt from Pablo Neruda's poem titled The Dead Woman, which I feel is a beautiful illustration of how a person experiences the different stages of profound grief—denial, anger, sadness and despair to its eventual resolution.

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/.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

All in the Family


Galahad when he was approximately 12 hours old Photo courtesy of Sara Fogan

This afternoon while I groomed Galahad I couldn’t help but laugh as clumps of gray hair came off his body. The weather in Southern California is so warm that he already had his first soapy bath at the end of February. It’s not even officially Spring for another few days, but my horse has almost completely shed his thicker winter coat, with the shorter hairs of his summer coat laying smooth and flat against his body. I wondered how much more I looked like my horse with so much of his hair sticking to my sweaty skin and clothes. Never mind. Galahad was thoroughly enjoying the extended grooming/massage session I was giving him. His eyes were half-closed, his neck stretched and a hind hoof cocked. As my trainer likes to say, Galahad is a hedonist like his father was. That works for me. I could groom him like that all day. I love it that much, too.

This observation got me thinking about my horse: his equine family, his pedigree, how similar and different we are as members of different species. My trainer owned and bred Galahad’s parents—the Arabian stallion, Calypso, and the Lipizzan mare, Alisa—nineteen years ago. I did not know either of my gelding’s parents, but I have been told details about each horse and some amusing anecdotes about Alisa’s pregnancy and Galahad’s birth. Although the mare gained weight, she continued to tease Calypso throughout her pregnancy to such an extent that my trainer didn’t even know she was in foal until the vet came out to investigate her tremendous weight-gain. Galahad was born in the middle of the night (as foals often are) a few weeks before he was due, so when my trainer came down to feed breakfast the following morning she was surprised to see four dark legs beside his mother in the stall he now occupies, alone. He was already standing and had figured out how to nurse on his own, and looked at the human on the other side of the stall as if to say, “What?” My trainer gave me the photo I have shared with this blog; this was the first and last time he has ever looked like he didn’t really know what was going on, she says.

As I continued to brush and curry away Galahad’s winter coat, I noticed the flecks of chestnut hairs dispersed throughout his coat. He has a constellation of these marks just above his cheekbones, like the freckles I have in this area of my own face. Otherwise, his once-black coat is gray and getting lighter every year, except for those chestnut flecks. His sire had been a chestnut, with the self-confidence and charisma to go with his status as the foundation stallion of the property. I have been told that Galahad has inherited his father’s confidence and self-assurance. Like Calypso, he is also very protective of his human (me), which he frequently demonstrates by placing his body between me and his pasture-mates when I catch him in the turnout.

Galahad is also like his parents in terms of his tremendous work ethic. He seems to have a lot of pride (and ego) about his training, because you can see it in his body language that when the work is going well, his tail swings gently and the expression on his face can only be described as “soft” and relaxed. How many times have I felt Galahad shift his weight underneath me if I start to lose my balance? His sire used to compensate for my trainer when she had a bad ride, too. She says Calypso’s attitude seemed to be, “I got this, just let me handle it and don’t make me look bad up there!” I can see that in my horse, too. I often get the feeling that he is very careful about what he does when I am on his back; I can usually rely on him to be very sensible and not shy at every little thing when I ride.

Like his dam, Galahad does not like the far corner of the arena where his half-brother, Amadeus, is stabled. If he is going to shy, this is the area where it happens. Like his sire, my horse often grunts when he is working on his right side; although his stride is even going in both directions, it is more work going in this direction and he likes to let me and my trainer know it. Sometimes Galahad also likes to play catch-me-if-you-can when I go out to catch him in the paddock; apparently that was also one of his father’s favorite games.

My horse is the last gift my grandparents gave to me. My late grandfather was kind, loving and chivalrous. He played clarinet and violin, and knew a bit about classical music, but he hated Ravel’s Boléro. My horse also seems to enjoy music—my trainer often has classical music playing in the barn when she is working with the horses or riding. Unlike my grandfather, whenever Boléro comes on Galahad gets an extra spring in his step and his tail starts to sway with the rhythm. This irony is priceless, precious. It’s like my grandparents continue to live through my enjoyment of my horse the same way his own parents live through him. While the individuals never had a chance to meet, their likes/dislikes and behaviors live on through the relationship that Galahad and I share, right down to the last note of music.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Schadenfreude and the Law of Attraction

There is a scene in International Velvet when a horse on a rival Olympic team knocks down a pole and incurs a points-error. When the protagonist’s aunt Velvet sees the error on television, she shouts, “Good!” The opponent’s error has made a little more room for her niece, Sarah, to secure a team gold medal if she can get around the course without making any mistakes. (Of course, she does.) But that doesn’t happen before Velvet’s partner, John, raises an eyebrow and comments, “That’s not very sporting of you!”

Schadenfreude.

I came across this word in the context of the plot in A Trick of the Light, a novel by Louise Penny, which I finished reading a few weeks ago. Basically, it means “deriving pleasure from someone else’s misfortune.” In the book, one of the characters is finally enjoying the critical recognition of her talent at a private show for her paintings, followed by a celebratory barbecue at her home. However, her husband and some friends discover the body of a former friend/enemy their garden the following day. The artist wants to celebrate the success of her show and budding career, but she feels guilty about wanting her art to be lauded even after the crime that happened in front of her home. Perhaps more disturbing to her is the eventual realization that her husband, a successful artist, has actually been jealous of her talent for many years and secretly hoped that the murder might derail her success a little bit.

In addition to the scenarios described above, Urban Dictionary lists several common examples of this experience: hearing someone shout “Hold the door!” while running for an elevator, only to reach the lift just as the door shuts. Or, a straight-A student missing one question on a five-question quiz to bring the test score down to a B (80 percent). How about when the quarterback on the opposing team gets sacked after preventing your team from scoring a touch-down? Another example might be watching the value of a company’s stock shares plummet right after you have been fired. And so on.

It is not uncommon or even unnatural to feel happy about or want to get a small bit of compensation for our own misfortune. But, how “good” does it really feel? Does it make you feel happy? Relieved? Or, do you scramble for all of the reasons why the other person deserved this misfortune or inconvenience so you can justify feeling good about it? Human emotions can be very tricky things. They can be accompanied by physiological sensations such as palpitations, change in breathing, trembling, etc. Sometimes censorial thoughts from the conscious mind (and conscience) intrude on these celebrations, too: Why do I feel good about someone else feeling bad?

Try this simple technique to get a different perspective about what is going on inside and around you: Draw a deep, calming breath and hold this air in your lungs for four seconds. Do not think about the situation, your emotions or why you think/imagine you felt the way you do or did when the situation first occurred. Instead, focus your attention on your breath and someone or something that brings you a lot of love and joy. Perhaps it is your spouse, or your kids, a pet, your job, a hobby, etc. Then, as you exhale, release the breath on the word love. Repeat this exercise several times to reinforce this positive direction of your attention.

In his book, Success Is Not an Accident: The Mental Bank Concept, Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explains how the mental scripts we program into our subconscious mind determine the outcome of our actions. Whether we imagine a positive or negative result, the SCM follows that subconscious mental script to actualize the goal you “want.” When we focus on enjoying the negative outcome another person is experiencing, we may also be reinforcing a subconscious desire for a similar negative event to happen to us. Conversely, when we send out positive, encouraging energy to celebrate another person’s success, we are also telling the subconscious mind, I want success, too! Whether that success includes getting into an elevator before the door closes or celebrating your partner’s triumphant art show, wishing another person well is more likely to attract good things to you than the temporary pleasure of schadenfreude ever could.

For more information about the Law of Attraction, I invite you to read my blog titled Intuition and the Law of Attraction and check out the book resources on this topic in Suggested Reading.