Pack It Away

(This blog was originally posted on November 22, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

In my blog titled The Red Box, I described how Great Britain’s Queen Victoria liked to place important documents in a red box on her desk. This box served as a “to-do” box/in-tray; anything that made it into this container was considered urgent and needed the monarch’s attention right away. Of course, at the beginning of her reign all sorts of papers and petitions found their way in, which overloaded and frustrated the queen and her husband, Prince Albert. It turned out that comparatively few of the items in the box were truly urgent or even deserved her attention, at all. However, until the documents were sorted and prioritized, she had to treat them as if they were.

A similar process happens to most of us at some time or another, when stray thoughts, memories, daydreams/fantasies or worries drift into the conscious mind when we are—or should be—busy handling something else. Suddenly, the mind is filled with these distracting ideas that prevent us from focusing on the task at hand. Of course, the more we tell ourselves to focus and ignore that pesky idea that is starting to blossom in our imagination, the more difficult it is to do just that: Did I buy enough cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner? I need to rent more chairs from the party-supply store. Should there be a separate kids’ table, or do the children get to hang out with the grown-ups this year?

In cases like this, I like to suggest that the intrusive image or thought is being moved into a metaphoric version of Queen Victoria’s red box, in the subconscious mind. This suggestion will be literal and direct or metaphoric, depending on the person’s suggestibility. I remind the individual that this box is only for temporary storage to allow him or her to continue to work (or play) without interruption. The information can be easily accessed and retrieved whenever the time is right to address this issue. Meanwhile, it is being stored safely out of the way until the client can and wants to deal with it.

The great thing about this kind of imagery is that even the concept of a red box can easily be replaced with an object or even an element the person likes better. If you do a lot of work with computers and on the Internet, perhaps the idea of storing this information on a cloud or even invisible strands of energy around your head is more effective. If a memory of a previous family celebration or a fantasy about who you want to sit beside is particularly distracting, it may feel more comfortable and safer to metaphorically lock that thought in a metaphoric iron box. To strengthen this concept, you can even make a motion with your hand to turn a key in that lock to keep it out of your conscious mind until you want or are ready to address it.

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

The Red Box

(This blog was originally posted on November 16, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

Queen Victoria is known for many things. Until very recently, her reign was the longest of any British monarch. During that time there were considerable industrial and scientific advances, including growth of the railroad and building the London Underground, and development of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolutionary development. Her strong work ethic and public persona of prim behavior and proper etiquette became legendary. But when I think about this queen, what comes first to my mind is the Red Box.

The queen reportedly kept a red box on her desk in which urgent documents and communications were supposed to be placed until she could deal with the issue. As it turned out, less important papers such as generic requests for an audience (appointment) with the queen also found their way into that box. Of course, over time the box got very full. The monarch became frustrated and more than a little stressed out about all those things she had to “do.” Finally, her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, looked inside the box and pointed out that a lot of the material inside didn’t belong there at all. Queen Victoria could lighten her work load by addressing only the most urgent matters and postponing or even delegating the rest to him and/or her ministers, secretaries, etc. to handle. Long story short, the queen took his advice and adopted a new and more efficient strategy for managing her monarchy.

Whether she vocally resisted (argued) adopting the new system or immediately accepted her husband’s suggestion to reorganize the contents of that box is probably unknown. However, it is likely that the queen initially found this task daunting and even annoying. Suddenly, she had to change a familiar, relatively simple behavior of putting documents in one place and take more time separating and classifying each item based on specific criteria. Once she got the hang of it this process would prove simpler and more efficient, but she would have to get used to it, first.

Call it what you will, but Queen Victoria’s new and even the intention of her original organizational system sounds an awful lot like the Neurolinguistic Programming technique of “chunking it down.”

If aspects of this tale sounds familiar in your own life that is the point I am trying to make. From time to time, a lot of us—including monarchs!—need help prioritizing assignments, jobs, projects and even relationships to be more efficient and productive in other areas of our lives. We are used to doing things a particular way, and every time we repeat that behavior (“way”) we reinforce it. However, it becomes easier to adopt a new process as we practice doing it for a while—i.e., incorporating these new actions (“knowns”) into the behavioral repertoire to create your new subconscious mental script. It is also easier to make a change when someone we respect or admire (hypno-modality) encourages/helps/teaches us what we need to do to implement the behavior/belief system, as Prince Albert did for his wife in this instance.

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

Background Noise

(This blog was originally posted on November 16, 2016)

So much goes on in our immediate environment, let alone the world, that we don’t know about or even perceive. But, what if you smelled the scent of every flower or heard every car horn or dog barking in the neighborhood? Imagine noticing each and every person who walked into the room or felt the sensation of the label sewn into the back of your clothes? Consider what it would be like if you could isolate the distinct flavor of every ingredient in KFC fried chicken or your favorite cookie? You would be in a state of overload every minute of the day and probably not be able to enjoy a lot of any of these experiences. In other words, you would be in hypnosis—literally and metaphorically trying to escape the overload of sensations bombarding you every moment of the day.

I particularly notice this phenomenon when I am at yoga. There is always music playing softly in the background, but after the first few minutes of class I stop noticing it. I am so focused on moving and adjusting my body into the various positions, everything else just falls away. My attention only shifts back to the environment when the teacher instructs the class to move into a different pose or adjusts my position. Then I notice the music again for a moment and the other students nearby before my focus returns to what I am doing.

If you drive a car, you probably do a lot of things automatically now that used to take much longer and require a lot more attention when you first learned this skill. Back then, you would take the time to adjust the rear-view and side mirrors and make sure the seat was adjusted before you even turned on the ignition. This was especially true if you were driving the family car and these things were already set to their preference. Eventually you became so familiar and comfortable with the workings of the vehicle that you could adjust the mirrors while you drove. The first few weeks or months after you got your license, you couldn’t even deal with having someone else in the car. Now, you barely pay attention to your favorite CD or radio station blasting through the car speakers while you have animated conversations with your passenger(s). Driving, which was once the complete focus of your attention, has become the equivalent of background noise. We barely notice what we’re doing until something different happens to grab our attention.

The mind can only process seven items of new information at one time. This discrimination is an important aspect of survival: when we notice everything in the environment, everything is attributed equal value and requires a lot of attention (energy) to determine whether it is a threat. As we become used to different aspects of the environment, we can file these experiences as safe/comfortable/familiar (subconscious knowns) and can focus on other things. However, when something new happens or catches our attention, it is immediately filed as a possible threat or danger and triggers the fight/flight response. Once this potential threat has been addressed and the details/information processed, it also becomes part of our subconscious mental script for future reference—in most cases, a non-threat or background noise.

Now, back to that label sewn into the collar of your shirt….

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