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Share your quitting journey

Love Your Quit!

Storm.3.1.14
Member
0 9 19

   
  Now, someone out there might be scoffing, “Yeah, riiiight, soccer legend Pele…how in the world am I supposed to   LOVE quitting?!” Well, dear reader, I believe the answers are right there, too  :   learning and   studying . I believe it because, rather than just throw away cigarettes and then endure whatever chaos ripped loose in my head,   I made the time (10 days worth,   before I actually quit)   to read and study and learn and listen . I got intimately familiar with Nicotine and Dopamine and Addiction, and I   really developed a big ol’ crush on The Grief Cycle and Self-Talk. I “fell in love” with finally understanding what was going on   inside me. Turns out it wasn’t a monster, after all, gnawing at my guts, and it wasn’t a demon possessing my mind…it was only   me, needing facts, and truth and honesty, and a new perspective, and community love - both tough and tender.
   
  It became easier to truly love   all of my quit, because I was learning to both love and un-love very real parts of myself.
   
  Whoa, I just got chills!   “I was learning to…un-love very real parts of myself“, as well.
   
  Wow!
   
  Anyway, over a thousand days later -   3 years coming up around the corner! -, how do I still keep the love for my quit? Well, I kinda like the answer in the picture below…
   
  
   
   
  We often say that quitting is not an event, it’s a journey made up of small moments and big moments. Can’t the same be said of a marriage, for example? It’s not a wedding day, it’s a life-time of many days. This is true of other relationships, too, isn’t it? Friendships, family, parent/child, school, career…all of these are years-long cycles of good and bad, and work and fun. And so it is with a quit. Once you study what it is, and learn what it can become, and   accept it as an evolving element of who you are now, then you can stay with it, commit to it, follow it, lead it, nourish it…  love it. And you do all that, persistently and consistently...for the love of a quit is meant to   grow with you, always.
   
  Ultimately, that’s why you’re here. Not to stop cigarettes, but to start loving who you will be without them.
   
  Find that love, EXmates. It can be done. It’s here, and it’s there. Find it. Earn it. Proclaim it. And, most of all, protect it and respect it.
   
   
   STORM
   
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