As we all know, there’s so much thinking involved with quitting. We first have to learn what we’re planning for in the first place and then we have to figure out our addiction, how we interact with it and how to change the way we deal with basically every aspect of our lives.
To put it simply, we can’t just use an NRT and be successful without dealing with the mental aspects of our quit. After all, in order to smoke we had to change our entire belief system as we tried to justify the negative things we were doing to ourselves. Our minds didn’t create the nicotine receptors,a modified plant did, but our minds did create the lies that bolstered that addiction and there’s a very good reason for that I think.
I don’t think that there’s a person here who could honestly say that they enjoyed that very first cigarette nor as I remember did I enjoy the next twenty or so. They tasted horrible, like my body was trying to purge me of the noxious stuff that it knew was harmful just from the original reaction to it.
But my reasons for starting smoking had to do more with wanting to belong. And it just seemed like all of the cool kids even when I was twelve were smoking and to be honest, I wanted to be cool too! And somehow I thought that smoking would be the magical formula to make me cool! You have to give me a little bit of a break. After all, I was only twelve!
And so I told myself the first lie of my addiction. That somehow, the smoking made me cool. And I continued on, careful of when I’d display my new found friend and yet at the same time displaying that new friend in front of the cool people was really important to me. So important that I even told myself that this new found toy was an incredibly helpful thing!
And as a child I continued to feed myself the lies for now I could feel what seemed like almost physical pain when I couldn’t smoke. I often wondered if starting at such a young age, while my brain was still developing changed the very nature of how my brain developed.
But there’s a cool ending to this story for you see, I used that same mind to help me rid myself of this horrible addiction. Makes sense doesn’t it? That the only way out of addiction is the same way that you got there. By teaching the mind the realities that us adults can now see. By changing the focus of the mind from one of surrender to one of power. And what I mean by power is the ability to change our very future by looking deep inside. Finding the lies that created our addiction and changing those lies into something more useful.
Changing those lies into a new reality. That’s why I say that it’s within all of us to quit. We just have to find how we got there in the first place and then have a desire to change it. Once you find the original foundation, accept the mistakes of the past and then choose a new foundation to live by, then you can begin getting there.
Remember that the very thing that got us into this addicted mess is also the very thing that will get you out. See your addiction for what it is. Know that the addicted foundation of your life is not the foundation you want to live and then take that incredible brain and turn it into your friend instead of your enemy.
We all want harmony. The entire essence of our being wants harmony. That’s just how nature made us. And so the mind will actually seek harmony if we just let it and believe me, even though it might not seem like it at first, deep inside the mind does want that new reality. All we have to do is agree with it!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
Chuck
