You can deal with stress without smoking

[star17]

I've had quite a past 24 hours. Typically, it is one of those days where you think: momma needs a dozen or so cigarettes. No more though. Not one puff ever.

Bad Day at the Gym:

I had a sister visiting and I wanted to show her the gym. So I paid for a few days membership for her. Called ahead to make sure that all equipment was provided for a class we were going to try out and, once we get all the way over there, turns out that nothing is actually provided for that class unless I wanted to buy equipment there for 20 dollars per person. I am annoyed, but I just grab some other weights that the gym has to use in the class, and the instructor then announces that we can only use water bottles or their weight product, not those weights because of their shape. So I put them back and go to the front desk to ask if I can borrow two other water bottles to use, since they gave me bad information. And the answer was no, but the manager took me to find some hand weights they had.

So now the class has already started, and I haven't worked out at all, my sister's annoyed, and it's turning into a fiasco. But I finally have functional handweights that are the right shape. Until the instructor comes over to us about ten minutes later and tells us that those are too heavy and we can apparently hurt ourselves. I appreciated the concern but at that point, I was just thinking, "stop trying to sell your product and leave me alone to try to salvage this!!!" My sis and I ended up doing the rest of the weight-training workout with no weights in our hands, just 'up' and 'down' with our bare arms. I was so embarrassed and annoyed for having 1) caused so much trouble by mistake, 2) going all the way over there and not getting a good workout, 3) been constantly called out by the instructors in front of the class like I'm doing something wrong. Obviously there is a huge communication barrier between the front desk and management and these class instructors! All I wanted to do was to have a little fun, show my sister a good time, and work out!

The class ended and I never got into it, since so much time had been wasted, and no weights were used. My sis went to go work on the eliptical, so I could go to the next Zumba class for a little bit and try to break a sweat. Turns out that the people there are hard-core, and I was surprised to realize that all the 'weights' people stay for the Zumba class after it, so I suddenly realized I was standing in some lady's spot when she said "Are you standing there?!" Well? What does it look like I'm doing? Hovering there??!? So I naturally realized I must be standing in her spot, so I asked if she wanted to switch and apologized for taking her spot. At which point she got really defensive like I was jumping down her throat. I tried to laugh it off but I was just thinking how humiliated I felt with all the rigamarole involved between defensive angry people and disorganized staff. It was the icing on my crap-cake. Ever had one of those days were you start off with the best of intentions and you end up someplace where you're debating between sobbing and punching someone? Before I picked one of those two options (freak out by crying or freak out by strangling someone), I just cut my losses: picked my things up, got my sister, and we left lol.

Cravings During a Sunny Day Walk:

The weather was really nice yesterday and we decided to try one more time to exercise, and so we took the dogs for a walk. It was so nice! But of course, I am a worrier so my mind occasionally would drift back to how frustrated I had been. Every time it did, I had that cigarette tingle feeling in the back of my mouth. I'd say, the worst part was when we walked past a garage that someone had set a table and chair up in right by the sunny entry way, and there was a drink and a paper there. It called to me lol. Kind of like those Corona commercials where you're in a city after work but, open that bottle and suddenly you're transported to a tropical beach! I was hit with a big desire to smoke. I just wanted to be away from how I felt, escape everyone and everything, lounging in the sun, relaxedly smoking myself to death lol.
 

Rather than keep that to myself, I told the people I was with how I suddenly felt and I talked about why I want to never smoke again. I told them how I want to keep living life without checking out. I used to think cigarettes really help me relax, but: THEY DON'T! CIGARETTES MAKE YOU LESS ABLE TO DEAL WITH STRESS, NOT MORE ABLE TO DEAL! No matter what my body was saying in the moment, my brain and my heart know that there is NO positives you get from smoking. Nothing.

Rough Day at Work:

This morning at work I got some lousy ratings for my work and some lousy critiques. For a minute, I felt like today was an extension of yesterday's cr*p, and that made me feel very overwhelmed. The critiques really bothered me at first. But I'm working on moving forward with my day and leaving the past in the past. Before I ever smoked, I was 100% able to deal with life's issues without smoking over them. And now that I don't smoke anymore, I am still 100% able to do it. It's just a matter of picking my battles and letting things that don't matter go. To kill my craving, I gave myself a reality check: I thought about where the people I had dealings with were coming from. Saw how, in all the cases, I saw their position and understood why they did what they did. I saw the people who rated me and saw how they had a point and were just trying to help me improve. Saw how I handled things without flying off the handle- I was a champ! Saw how none of this is that big of a deal. It's only as big as I choose to make it.

....And Still Smoke-Free!:

And that's always the case. It feels so great to be past those cravings and it feels great to think that I dealt with my stress ALL BY MYSELF. I tapped into my support network here and at home, I got my energy out by exercising, I got a little perspecitve, I let some things go, and I GOT PAST IT!  Getting past the cravings is a very empowering thing. We can all do this!

Not every day is going to be great. Sometimes, we might feel crappy for no particular reason. Sometimes, you may feel like the saying "when it rains, it pours" really describes your life at the moment.

When life gives you lemons, don't smoke over it. Check yourself before you wreck yourself! You never win the 'just one cigarette' debate. Cravings happen, and you need to remind yourself what you real choice is: life or death. Stressed or not, there's never a good excuse to smoke!