Dealing With Triggers

(This blog was originally posted on April 28, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Does the sound of your spouse chewing a piece of gum drive you up a wall? Do you experience an unbearable craving for a cigarette as soon as the dinner dishes are cleared away? Do you break into a cold sweat at the thought that one of your primary duties as best-man will be to make a speech or toast for your buddy and his new wife on their big day?

These are just a few examples of “triggers”: i.e., events or situations that evoke a strong emotional and even physiological reaction. For example, the sound of the first bars of a song you shared with a former partner may now bring up more negative emotions—anger and/or sadness—about the lost relationship and the person you once loved. Whether you change the station on the radio or skip over the song on your playlist, the damage is done and the distress is real. Suddenly your day, which seemed like it was going so well you heard those bars, is well on the way to being a total loss.

There are actually a few things you can do to salvage this situation. First, and most important, breathing/activating a subconscious anchor is an excellent way to calm down, relax and defuse a trigger. As horseman Monty Roberts reminds his students, “Low adrenaline equals high learning.” (This applies to humans and equines.) Breathing naturally helps to relax the body and lowers adrenaline floating around in the blood-stream that otherwise jack up our anxiety and energy level. I help all of my hypnotherapy clients find and create a subconscious anchor during one of their first sessions with me, which they can use right away—wherever and whenever they need it—to return to a comfortable, calm and relaxed state. Relaxation is the key to your being able to use the logic and reasoning parts of your conscious mind and effectively, confidently deal with a stressful or negative situation.

Systematic desensitization in hypnosis to various triggers of the negative association (e.g., your ex’s memory) is a great way to reduce stress and anticipatory anxiety about encountering unwanted reminders in your environment. I use this technique with many hypnotherapy clients to help them deal with various issues such as resisting a sugary or high-calorie snack, smoking, overcoming anxiety about public speaking, etc. Therapeutic guided-imagery journeys and role-playing exercises such as talking to the person or object that causes this distress to build self-confidence and practice successfully resolving the specific conflict give you the “edge” in a real-world encounter. Remember, the subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is real and imaginary. When you practice walking calmly, confidently away from the person who broke your heart or politely reject that second helping of Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing while you are in hypnosis, the SCM thinks it is doing these things in real time. The end result is that the behavior will be easier and more comfortable—even feel more natural—when you do it for real.

The Emotional Freedom Technique is another very useful strategy for dealing with anxiety and other negative feelings or reactions that come up when you encounter a specific trigger. This process involves lightly tapping specific areas of the body (head/face, chest, hands, etc.) to essentially disrupt and defuse negative energy in the body and re-wire the mind to make a positive response or reaction. I often teach EFT to my hypnotherapy clients to give them an extra tool with which to manage stress and anxiety when they are faced with (or know they will encounter) an issue that triggers this negative emotional state.

As always, it is important to make sure that you eat nutritious food that contains protein, drink plenty of water and avoid caffeine to keep your blood-sugar level even. As I explained in my blog titled The Origin of Fears and Phobias, when the blood-sugar level suddenly dips the body automatically defends itself by substituting adrenaline for glucose (sugar). The bloodstream carries this hormone to the organs, muscles and glands to activate the fight/flight response and become hyper-sensitive to negative stimuli that already induce anxiety, nervousness, fear and even create a phobia.

For more information about how to deal with stress-inducing triggers in your life, please contact me at calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com or call (661) 433-9430 to set up an appointment. I also invite you to read my previous blogs titled Dealing with Frustration and Release and Let It Go.

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/.

© 2017

Theory of Mind and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

(This blog was originally posted on July 11, 2014)

(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 Rick Hustead

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 mosquitoes’ 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 titled, 7 Keys to a Successful, Long-Term Relationship, 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/.

© 2017

How the Body Expresses Extreme Emotional Trauma

(This blog was originally posted on August 1, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

When trauma or extreme emotional distress occurs, if the person cannot (verbally) express and work through and resolve feelings about the event, these emotions may be manifested as physical symptoms. As I explained in a previous blog titled Body Syndromes, these symptoms are likely to occur in areas of the body that correspond to the trauma or presenting issue. For example, if a woman is raped she may subsequently experience vaginal tightness that prevents any kind of sexual pleasure and even find intercourse painful.

When psychologist and hypnotherapist John Kappas, Ph.D., treated these symptoms in hypnotherapy, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder recommended explaining how the client’s subconscious denial of the rape may have contributed to these symptoms. If appropriate and if she was ready to deal with the trauma, a hypnotherapist could help her go through the stages of loss during hypnotherapy, he said.

Dr. Kappas also advised including the client’s husband/partner in the therapy using the Systems Approach even if the other person is not present during the sessions. This inclusion is necessary because the client’s past trauma is likely affecting their sexual relationship; or, finally confronting the emotional trauma caused by the rape, in therapy, may have repercussions on the current relationship.

“It’s possible that removing the denial will reveal traumas,” the HMI founder warned. Therefore, the hypnotherapist must correct the client’s denial mechanism but not remove it completely. The hypnotherapist would also need to bring up more of her physical suggestibility to help her work through her physical symptoms*, he added.

*California law allows access by California residents to complementary and alternative health care practitioners who are not providing services that require medical training and credentials. The purpose of a program of hypnotherapy is for vocational and avocational self-improvement (Business and Professions Code 2908) and as an alternative or complementary treatment to healing arts services licensed by the state. A hypnotherapist is not a licensed physician or psychologist, and hypnotherapy services are not licensed by the state of California. Services are non-diagnostic and do not include the practice of medicine, neither should they be considered a substitute for licensed medical or psychological services or procedures.

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/.

© 2017