The Remodeled Blog

The Final is Finally Fini

About an hour ago I finished my final for Operational Management. Finally it is done! Brutal!

This entire class has been brutal. I was hoping for a nice change of pace after statistics finished last semester. The first week into the class, I was feeling ok. But as we dove into week 2 I realized…hey this is statistics light! WTF??? I started having significantly less fun. Not because of the realization, but because of the topic. Lets just say that statistics and I aren’t really friends.

So I trudged through the material. Of course the most frustrating part of this class was that I got it! I understood it. I understood the formulas and the graphs and the theories. I got it….but you would not know that from my grades. All my quiz scores made it look like I was a remedial student. Which, if you have read this blog you will know about my Adventures in Hypnotherapy to help deal with my little testing problem. I would say that the hypnotherapy was successful. I did not get hypnotized and start getting straight A’s, but I did start doing better. Ok, I only had one more quiz after my hypno session, but I did much better on that!

As for my final, it was satisfactory. But I was jubilant because not only am I done with the horrid class but I believe I have secured myself a B in the class! Yay me!!!!

I now move on to Managerial Economics. I hope this is a little better than statistics. I have a week off and then back to the books. The one good thing about having 1 class every 6 weeks, is that the bad ones don’t last too long and you really get to feel like you are flying through the program! I am now 33% done with the program! WOOO!!!!

A phrase that was prevalent at Smith, when I was an undergrad, has been on a loop inside my head:

“Done is better than good.”

For most people, they don’t understand that. Basically what it means, is sometimes no matter what you do, it will never be perfect. Sometimes, with the time you have, the tools available to you, and the obstacles that you have had to overcome, you have to accept that there is a point when you just have to say, this is as good as it gets. But not only do you have to say this, you have to accept it and be satisfied with that. Sometimes we just have to push through and let go.

You know, getting an MBA as a full time student and working full time is not as easy as it looks!  Though, maybe I am not making it look very easy.  Hmm, a quandry.

Adventures in Hypnotherapy Part 2

I had my first session of hypnotherapy this past Thursday.  I went in, we talked about my personal history. She clarified some things about my medical past. We spoke about what my learning disability really is and some potential solutions. We spoke about some of the under lying causes and problems.  After the psychological medical history was taken we spoke about some of the misconceptions of hypnotherapy.

Misconceptions:

* you are out of control
* you are not aware of what is happening
* you will not remember what happened
* the therapist can implant false memories
* you will make a fool of your self
* you have no control over your body
* you cannot come out of hypnosis until they bring you out
* the ability to be hypnotized indicates a weak mind
* you are paralyzed
* it will “cure” you

Essential hypnosis is deep guided meditation. You are bypassing your conscious mind and your defenses so you may speak directly to your subconscious mind, allowing your to integrate change into your life more quickly, honestly and effectively. It is not a cure all. You will not be fixed the first time around.  If it did that, I would get hypnotherapy for everything. That would be amazing!  It is better as a therapy tool.  Our issues are symptomatic of underlying issues and those issues need to be dealt with in order to effectively over come the symptom.  Though one session will not “cure” you, it can have a big impact and make a noticeable difference.

Before going into the actual hypnotic state, my therapist did a guided visualization to bring me to a highly relaxed state.  We went to my “happy” place, which was an amalgamation of different components. It was in New Mexico at my former family home. My horse was there. I could smell the crisp air, it was fall. The sunlight had a slightly golden color to it, indicating late afternoon light.  Dave was there, but more as a presence than standing next to me.  My family was there, but also as a presence or an energy.  I was surprised at  how visceral was the visualization. I was more surprised at the sadness embedded in my happy place. It wasn’t overwhelming sadness, more in the sense that I was going back to a time that no longer exists, or maybe never existed.  All the different facets existed, but not at the same time. I mentioned my sadness to my therapist. She said that was very common. In fact most people have some sadness in their happy place because it is usually a memory and therefore a time past.

The next time I went to the happy place, I brought all the beauty and joy and love forward to a more contemporary environment. I brought it to my current backyard. Sitting by the fire it, surrounded by the lush green of the garden, being there with Dave and breathing in the wonder that is my life (when I remember to remember that wonder).  There was no sadness there.  I thought about that idea of sadness at our happy place. It made me think that maybe our happy place should be somewhere now as opposed to a past place. If our happy place is somewhere that can no longer exist, or may never existed, then aren’t we depriving ourselves of being happy?  So I choose to make my happy place somewhere that exists now. Because I am happy now.  The memory is good and beautiful and full of love, but it is not now and I want to embrace the now.

After I was thoroughly relaxed she took me into a hypnotic state.  We went very deep into meditation. I heard her voice and sometimes my mind would wonder to somewhere else, then I would hear her voice again. I heard the positive messages she was telling me, all the reaffirming words and I tried to open myself up and allow complete acceptance.  I really enjoyed the hypnotic state. It is the same as very deep meditation, which is relaxing and comforting.

She recorded the session so I could listen to it later and do self-hypnosis.  This way the message would have more time, and therefore more potential, to really sink in and affect change.  Yesterday I listened to the CD and went into a meditative state.  Not as deep as with her, but very nice and relaxed.  Afterwards I took my quiz and I got an 87%…that is the highest I have gotten so far during this class!  I am very happy with the results. I am going to continue to use the CD and will probably see her again.  After one session, I would say, hypnotherapy was a success!

Adventures in Hypnotherapy Part I

On Thursday I am going into my first session of hypnotherapy. No I am not trying to quit smoking, I already did that without difficulty (seriously). I am not trying to loosing weight, I am still doing that the old fashioned way by going to the gym (though not as much as I should be). I am trying to treat a learning disability. Yes, hypnotherapy for a learning disability.

I am sure you are wondering why I would treat a learning disability with hypnotherapy. Well, think of it as rewiring the brain. My brain is not working right..[insert joke here]…and thought I don’t think this will 100% fix it, I think it has the potential to help a lot. But hypnotherapy has been shown to be quite successful for academic issues. I will go into that more in another post.

Ok, you are probably wondering why a grown-ass woman needs to correct a learning disability (LD). Well it has been the bane of my academic life since middle school. So if it were an elephant, I would like to be a Teddy Roosevelt style turn of the century hunter and blast it away! But, as a grown-ass woman, I have returned to school for my Masters in Business. Well, my LD has returned with a vengeance. So what is this LD? Well, I will tell you.

I have Severe Testing Anxiety and not as an anxiety condition. The term is a misnomer. I was diagnosed in High School and since then have met one other person who had been diagnosed and another who was undiagnosed but undeniably had the LD. I want to make sure you understand, this is NOT an anxiety condition. Think of it as intellectual dyslexia. What literally happens is you sit for an exam, you are extremely well prepared, you write your exam, you feel great about it, you think you did really well, and then you fail. How is that possible? Well, that is a question I have asked myself and had everyone else who has witnessed this ask me. I don’t really know. All I know is what I have experienced. I have had classes where I assisted in teaching the subject and then would get a C or a D on the test. Obviously I was not having a problem with the material, something else was going on. What I do know is that essentially something in the brain happens where the information in your head does not pass down to the paper. The bummer part of it is that you don’t generally realize it is happening. Because you don’t know it is happening, you don’t experience anxiety about it.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that anxiety doesn’t factor in. I am sure you can imagine the pressure you put on yourself to succeed if every time you take a test you don’t do well. It can be compounding to a degree, but I have found, for the most part, that you just accept this as your reality and therefore negate any compounding influences.

In the past I have been to stress therapy, to learn how to deal with my stress better. I now have IBS which is like having a physical stress-o-meter. If I get too stressed out, I get sick. It is a pretty accurate gauge. Over the years I have become quite adept at managing my stress. I have meditated, asked for special accommodations, spoken with professors and nothing has been truly successful. Meditating helps because it helps reduce stress. Though this is not a anxiety condition it is stress aggravated. The higher the pressure the higher the likelihood that you will do badly. If you have this LD, generally the only accommodation granted to you is extended time on tests (which is what they give to dyslexics and pretty much any LD). However, with this LD, you generally finish before most people any way. A true accommodation would be to give me an essay instead of a test, but that is neither here nor there because no one will do that.

I have mainly dealt with this by avoiding it. I have a liberal arts background. Throughout college I read and wrote papers, who needs tests? Well, in a business program, they are not so big on paper writing. On top of that, you cannot get C’s. So the pressure to succeed is extremely high and I am buckling under that pressure.

Traditional therapy is too slow, not to mention, not successful. So I am trying a traditional alternative way. I am rewiring my brain, just skipping the frontal lobotomy.