Thoughts of the Day

Photo by Sara Fogan

      Every now and then I like (and need) to take a few moments and remind myself about what is really important to me, in my life. If you follow me on my Calminsense Hypnotherapy Facebook page you may have seen some of these quotes before on this page, or will in the future. Many of these Quotes of the Day are beautiful examples and illustrations of the work I do as a hypnotherapist, so I will probably draw on them in future essays.

• “Life is a vending machine. The more you smile, the more candies you get from it.” – Anonymous

• “No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our lives are made. Destiny is made known silently.” – Agnes de Mille

• “You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.” – Eckhart  Tolle

• “Real difficulties can be overcome. It’s only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.” – Theodore N. Vail

• “How you treat yourself will set the standard for how others will treat you.” – Steve Maraboli

• “Stop believing everything you think.” – Lolly Daskal

• “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

• “Perfection is a road, not a destination. Every time I live, I get an education.” – Burk Hudson

• “The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness.” – Wayne Dyer

• “Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” – Oprah Winfrey

 

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/.

© 2016

Do You Know What You are Inhaling?

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

When people contact me to help them stop smoking, one of the most common reasons to quit is to improve/preserve their health. Perhaps they have a persistent cough (emphysema), chest pain (angina), lower stamina, etc. They know that tobacco and smoking cigarettes is bad for them, but they don’t always know why. Following is a list of six toxic ingredients contained in filtered cigarette smoke:

·         Ammonia. This chemical is in toilet-bowl disinfectant.

·         Carbon Monoxide. This chemical is in your car’s exhaust.

·         Formaldehyde. Undertakers use this to embalm bodies before burial.

·         Hydrocyanic Acid. This chemical is the poison used to execute prisoners in the gas chamber. It is also used in combination with Nitric Acid (below) to melt gold.

·         Nitric Acid. Miners use this chemical to test gold.

·         Tars. Researchers use this product to create cancer in laboratory animals when testing the toxicity of cigarette smoke.

For more information about how quitting smoking will improve your health, I invite you to check out my blog titled Physiological Benefits to Quit Smoking. 

Special Offer: Mention this blog and save 10 percent when you book hypnotherapy sessions with me to quit smoking! That is a $75 value for the six-week program or $25 for the 2-hour smoke-buster* program. This offer is only valid through July 11, 2016. For more information and to sign up for one of these programs, please call me at (661) 433-9430 or send me an e-mail at calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

 

*You must be smoking no more than 5 cigarettes per day to participate in the 2-hour smoke-buster hypnotherapy 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/.

© 2016

Finding My Way Home

Photo by Rick Hustead

It had already been a long day, and by the time I finished my errands in Panorama City I was more than ready to call it a day. So did my GPS, apparently, because it never gave me directions for my route home. Meanwhile, I was so caught up in my thoughts about what still needed to be done that I lost track of where I was for a moment, missed my turn for the freeway (environmental hypnosis) and basically got lost. Ten years ago I probably would have started hyperventilating, but not today. This time, I did not panic about my predicament and actually got very relaxed.

Those of you who have followed my blog know that I used to have a huge anxiety about driving—especially, freeway driving. But as I explained in an essay titled How Hypnosis Has Helped Me, having spent more than eleven years training and working in hypnotherapy has helped me overcome anxiety about a lot of things. And it isn’t just applying the theories and models that I studied, learned and now regularly use to help clients achieve their vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. Exposure to hypnosis—whether I am giving or receiving it—has increased my tolerance for stress and improved my ability to relax in just about any situation. Today was a perfect example of how beautifully my knowledge, experience and planning helped me find my way home.

·         As soon as I realized that I had missed the freeway ramp I needed, I immediately started paying attention to my breathing, focusing on taking slow, deep breaths through my nose and releasing the air in slow exhales through my mouth. This kind of diaphragmatic breathing kept my heartrate slow and steady and my physical body relaxed. Remember: opposite emotions cannot exist in the same space, so when the mind and body are calm and relaxed stress cannot take hold.

·         I reminded myself that everything was okay as I kept watching for familiar landmarks and street signs. I used to drive to and from work in this neighborhood about 25 years ago; I was confident that my subconscious mind would recognize some of these streets even if my conscious mind did not. I also reminded myself that the way streets are laid out in Los Angeles I was bound to eventually find a freeway entrance that would take me home. Even if I didn’t, I could always pull into a gas station and ask directions; and gas stations are usually, strategically very close to freeways.

·         Fortunately, I had eaten lunch (with protein) before I started running around this afternoon, so I didn’t have to worry about hunger/symptoms of low-blood sugar levels exacerbating my anxiety. I know through my hypnotherapy training and helping clients overcome fears and phobias that the best way to control and avoid anxiety is to eat protein, which I now take great care to do.

·         You may have heard and practice the saying, “It is about the comfort of the driver” when you and your family or friends head out on long road journeys. In other words, is there enough gas in the tank? Are the tires full of air and the vehicle in good operation condition? Is the heat/air-conditioning on? Is music playing or is it quiet in the car? Is a supply of water and snacks (preferably protein snacks) available if the car breaks down or there is a long delay on the road? (In California—or any other state vulnerable for earthquakes—it is always a good idea to keep these items in the car for just such an emergency. I knew I was set on all of those counts.

·         One of my favorite affirmations is, “I handle 1,000-pound stallions; you/this is not a problem.” And, it wasn’t. Being at the end of the lead-line when my trainer’s Lipizzan stallion snorts goes up into a perfect levade to intimidate another other stallion is much more intimidating than looking for a freeway. Fortunately, I didn’t have to use this affirmation today because I eventually spotted a familiar landmark and knew I had somehow found my way into my mentor’s neighborhood. Driving home from Cheryl’s office has become part of my muscle-memory, a subconscious known.

I did breathe a huge sigh of relief to finally be able to join rush-hour traffic on the Interstate 405. But I got home safely (albeit very slowly) thanks to my training and experience as a certified hypnotherapist and none whatsoever from my GPS, which continued to give me the silent treatment all the way home.

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/.

© 2016

The Addictive Curve

Photo by Rick Hustead

The “addictive curve” is a behavioral model to describe the formation and perpetuation of addictions. For example, a person takes heroin and gets a “rush.” He then starts coming down, going lower than the state where he started, which creates a new “bottom.” Most people shoot up again as soon as they start to come down, which triggers the addiction. However, if the person waits to take the drug until just before reaching the level he normally should be, he will get even “higher” with this dose and then come back to normal.

A person can take any substance that has an addictive property—including coffee—and never become addicted to it if the individual doesn’t fall into the addictive curve. “What makes a heroin addict a heroin ‘addict’ is the feeling of coming back down,” Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained. If you avoid the addictive curve (usually 12 hours) and wait to take the drug until you are back at that normal level, you won’t become addicted to it, he added.

Dr. Kappas demonstrated how he would help a client overcome a heroin addiction during one of his clinical case history sessions. The process entailed taking the individual off the drug “cold turkey,” then having him experience all the symptoms of withdrawal very quickly during hypnosis. Meanwhile, the hypnotherapist had the client release the feelings and go back to homeostasis while giving the hypnotic suggestion that the person did not need heroin. Dr. Kappas’s complete hypnotherapy-treatment strategy entailed taking the client from the homeostatic state back to an artificial high, then bringing him back down to experience withdrawal symptoms again, for 14 days.

“We can duplicate in hypnosis any feeling you can get from any kind of drug, from heroin, marijuana, cocaine, etc. many times we duplicate that feeling artificially so we can get the client down here to create artificial withdrawals,” he said. After the therapy program described above, however, “there’s no feeling (addiction) for heroin at all.”

A caveat: while alcohol addiction follows a similar pattern in terms of the addictive curve, hypnotherapists do not deal with alcohol addictions. “The alcoholic is much harder to deal with than the drug addict because alcohol is an accessible social drug, and there’s too many ways to cheat on alcohol. It’s a way of life,” Dr. Kappas said. The physical dependency on alcohol also tends to be stronger than the physical dependency on drugs, he added.

As I have explained in previous essays, the Business and Professions Code 2908 limits the scope of hypnotherapists’ professional practice to helping people achieve vocational and avocational self-improvement goals. Hypnotherapists must also seek a referral from licensed mental-health and/or licensed medical professionals when there may be a physiological or psychological origin of the client’s discomfort, which is outside of the scope of hypnotherapy. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are great tools to help a person follow Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous, etc. guidelines during rehabilitation from a substance addiction. However, when I work with an individual to help break this addictive curve I usually ask that the person continues to receive support from a sponsor and/or 12-step program during this process.

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/.

© 2016