Hypnotherapy to Stay Motivated During a Challenge

(This blog was originally posted on February 13, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

As a hypnotherapist, one of the most important things I do is to motivate my clients to continue working to change an unwanted behavior. Sometimes a challenge or a setback occurs during this therapeutic process, and I must put on another hat to facilitate crisis management. Perhaps you have experienced a personal crisis, such as the unexpected death of a spouse or life-threatening medical diagnosis*; or, you are discouraged about your rate of progress in achieving the desired self-improvement goal. It is my honor and privilege to help you to find/re-discover, and employ, your inner resources to overcome such a challenge in the following ways:

•  Provide you with unconditional positive regard. I use active and reflective listening techniques to help you clarify the issue or source of frustration, and identify the emotions or feelings surrounding that situation.

• Employ Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques such as “chunking down” the problem to help you look at and identify ways of breaking it into smaller, more manageable elements that you can resolve.

• Help you to brainstorm a list, which you will write, of all of your inner resources—talents, work/sports experience, problem-solving skills, etc. that you have acquired during/through hypnotherapy—that you believe will help you overcome the current setback or disappointment.

• Apply hypnosis and therapeutic guided-imagery techniques to help you access those resources and other problem-solving skills that you have previously used to overcome a similar situation in order to conquer the current setback. If you have overcome ‘X’ before, your subconscious mind knows how to use these skills to succeed, again!

• Help you to create a subconscious anchor which you can access at any time to activate this sensation of relaxation, calm and comfort that you experienced during hypnosis in order to solve a problem or overcome a challenge when you are alert and aware (not in hypnosis).

If the issue or crisis is beyond the scope of my expertise as a hypnotherapist to help you achieve your vocational and avocational self-improvement goals, I will refer you to a licensed medical doctor and/or licensed mental health practitioner. This referral is imperative to ensure your emotional and physical well-being, because these experts are equipped to provide you with the specific support that you need to help you through that event. However, according to California law I may continue to work with you as your hypnotherapist in conjunction with these other experts to provide complementary therapy, with a signed referral from them (Business and Professions Code 2908).

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/.

© 2018

Are You Afraid to Lose...or Win?

(This blog was originally posted on May 14, 2014)

 

Photo by Rick Hustead

Have you refused to participate in an activity because you didn’t want to look bad or ruin your current performance record? Have you ever refused to participate in an activity in which you were likely to succeed? Both of these examples are potential causes of performance an­­xiety, and recognizing what triggers this anxiety is the first step to successfully managing and treating it.

Fear of success is often more difficult for people to imagine feeling, because who doesn’t want to succeed and to be the best at something, right? But success comes with its own kinds of pressure and stress, including responsibility. Suddenly, it does not matter to that newly minted executive that he or she has years of training and experience to validate this promotion. It does not matter that the person has a proved track record of being able to execute profitable negotiations in the boardroom and is willing to make tough decisions about that will benefit the company. Once you get the big promotion that you have been working so hard to receive, you have to do more work and probably take on more roles than you previously had, to earn the new title and salary that you now earn. You will have to use the skills you have honed during your tenure in your previous role and put them to a real test in a leadership position. Like it or not, when you make a decision the buck will start and stop with you.

Or, imagine an honors student at high-school student who has received two letters of acceptance from two different universities. He or she may decide to accept a place in the state university because he or she feels intimidated by the anticipated course demands and his or her family’s expectations about what it means to be a student at Harvard. It doesn’t matter that you have earned academic letters or were the captain of your sport or debate team. It doesn’t matter how many awards you have received for community service or other extracurricular activity. Once you leave the security of high school (and childhood) where you were the top-ranked student of your class, you will be starting over in a new environment that is populated by hundreds of young adults just like you. You may well become the head of your class and set a new standard of academic achievement, or not. Whatever you do academically, high-school graduation and attending college are a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood.

The physical manifestations of performance anxiety take many forms, including trembling or shaking, feeling nauseated or “blanking out” (forgetting) the lines or music you are going to perform or the information you are supposed to present. Hypnotherapy and therapeutic guided-imagery techniques can help you to manage these symptoms and overcome this anxiety so you can do the performance or presentation.

• Systematic desensitization to the stimuli that trigger the anxiety/fear response.

• Creating hypnotic scripts that reinforce the client’s recent achievements to boost his or her self-confidence about ability to achieve the stated goal.

• Use guided-imagery techniques to help the client re-experience those previous successes and further reinforce his or her self-confidence about being able to achieve a new goal.

• Teach the client how to practice diaphragmatic breathing and to activate an “anchor” to help relieve symptoms of anxiety.

• Educate the client about the relationship between nutrition and anxiety; specifically, the correlation between drops and spikes in blood-sugar level and feeling anxious or afraid.

• Instruct the client about using the Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) to reduce anxiety and replace negative responses with positive/desired responses to achieve a goal.

Performance anxiety affects most people at some time in their lives. As John Kappas, Ph.D. explains in his book Success Is Not an Accident: The Mental Bank Concept, every person has the ability to achieve success. You do not have to be afraid to fail or to succeed to achieve your goals. Now is the perfect time for you to turn your dreams into reality.

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/.

© 2018

All About Emotional & Physical Sexuality, Part 3

(This blog was originally posted on February 4, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

In my previous blogs titled All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 1 and All About Emotional and Physical Sexuality, Part 2, I described characteristics of John Kappas, Ph.D.’s cornerstone therapeutic model, Emotional and Physical Sexuality. Once you understand how behaviors and motivations of the respective partners affects a relationship, this model can help improve the relationship or even amicably separate from a partner if the relationship has run its course. The Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder used this model to successfully help thousands of hypnotherapy clients to negotiate conflicts in their romantic and personal relationships.

Following is a summary of how the Emotional Sexual and Physical Sexual partner behaves in a relationship.

Emotionals vs. Physicals

•  Emotional Sexual individuals don’t like to confront their partner. Physical Sexual individuals have no problem asking for or “demanding” what they want and need.

• Guilt controls the Emotional Sexual partner. The Physical Sexual partner feels actual, physical pain during a break-up, but when the relationship is over an Emotional “seems” to move on to a new relationship. (A bad break-up can take the Physical out of the dating game for a very long time in some cases, or subconsciously “chooses” another Physical partner because the previous experience with the Emotional lover/end of relationship was so traumatic.)

• The Emotional Sexual partner has 3-day cycles for sexual receptiveness. Day “3” is optimal for sexual intimacy/likelihood of the Emotional Sexual to solicit sexual contact from the partner. On day 3, the Emotional Sexual is most “Physical” (sub-dominance).

• Sex and the relationship are two different/separate things for the Emotional Sexual partner. The Emotional Sexual can compartmentalize: “It’s ‘just’ sex” with a mistress.

• Sex and the relationship are the one and the same for the Physical Sexual partner. A Physical Sexual person can’t imagine being sexually intimate without “feeling” an emotional connection with the other person.

• BOTH the Emotional Sexual and Physical Sexual partner wants control in the relationship but go about getting it in different ways. For example, the Physical Sexual partner shouts/pouts/makes demands for more attention. Conversely, the Emotional Sexual Partner freezes out/ignores the Physical Sexual partner, which makes the Physical Sexual partner become even more needy—shouting/making demands until one of them walks away from the relationship or reconciles the difference.

The goal of the Physical Sexual partner is to raise the Emotional partner’s subdominant (Physical Sexual) trait in order to receive the affection and attention that he or she needs and craves. The goal of the Emotional Sexual partner is to lower the Physical Sexual partner’s physicality in order to give the Emotional more “space” to feel desire and come forward. To reduce negative tension and increase physical desire between the Emotional and Physical Sexual partners, Dr. Kappas recommended that each individual “give a Twinkie” ( a metaphoric treat or favor) in the form of a desired behavior, from time to time. For example:

·       The Physical Sexual partner can give the Emotional partner “space” to do his/her own thing for a little while or be an asset to the Emotional partner’s career.

·       The Emotional Sexual partner can send love notes to the Physical partner, have flowers delivered, etc. to show that he/she is thinking about the other person even when not in the mood for physical intimacy.

·       Understanding the 3-day cycle and planning intimacy around this is “giving a Twinkie” as well. Physical partner is usually responsible for this gesture because the Physical is most likely to feel/be sensitive to Emotional partner’s inadvertent rejection on Day 1 and Day 2 of the sexual cycle.

·       The Emotional partner has 3-day cycles for sexual receptiveness. Day “3” is optimal for sexual intimacy/likelihood of the Emotional to solicit sexual contact from the partner. On day 3, the Emotional is most “Physical” (sub-dominance).

·       Cubicle release: Emotional wants a strong sensation/ultimate sexual experience to really “feel” intimate with the partner. 1 ejaculation vs. 3 ½ for the physical partner, who can ejaculate in smaller volumes to have many experiences.

·       “Buy the symptoms” of the opposite behavior: When the Emotional is cycling, it’s not about you (the Physical partner). It’s about cycle days, so give the Emotional partner the space to come to you (the physical partner). If the Emotional partner only encounters the Physical partner on a cycle day, he/she can feel even more physical. This good experience shortens the length of time between cycle days.

References:

1.       Kappas, Ph.D., John G. Relationship Strategies: The E & P Attraction. Panorama Publishing, Tarzana, California. © 1992.

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/.

© 2018