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Give and get support around quitting

Giulia
Member

It's Gonna Be Okay

When we first quit nothing feels OK.  Especially us.  We feel like fish out of water.  Everything is uncomfortable.  We feel like we've lost our best friend.  We seem unable to cope with anything and are irritated by everything.  Or we're lost in a fog and all we want to do it sleep it away, but our sleep pattern has been altered too.  We tend to cry a lot.  We don't know what to do to get through.  We're told it will get better, but it seems to take sooooo long.  Our entire being seems foreign to us.  And it's UNCOMFORTABLE!

Yup - that's what the early stages of the quit journey feel like.  It's uncomfortable.  We're out of our comfort zone for sure.  Because the behavior that we've practiced for so long - many of us for year and YEARS - is being altered.  It's different to go through our days without our binky, without our "go to" to relieve stress; our reward for an accomplishment, exclamation point on a success; that moment where we can relax for a few minutes and that five minutes to pause to think through sorrow or anger and escape it; the sharing of times with like-minded smokers, that after-meal final fulfillment or the one after sex.. the times alone on our back decks where we got relief with a cigarette in hand...  

When we quit smoking - everything changes.  All our normal routines and behaviors are altered.  (But we have chosen this path to freedom, don't forget.)  So of course we're going to feel uncomfortable.  But only for a while.  

When dragon flies mate, they do so over water and the egg  is deposited in the water itself.  The life cycle of a dragonfly larva begins as a nymph.  It lives in water as it grows and develops.  It is essentially a water-breathing creature and it's REALLY scaring looking.  I've seen one and it's really icky!: 

It's Gonna be Okay Dragon Fly Nymph.jpg

It can take up to four years to complete this cycle of it's development.   It doesn't take us that long!  Promise!

Eventually it comes out of the water and hangs out on the bank and breaks through it's shell.  A very different looking creature.  It sits there in the sun as the water oozes from it's new body, from it's tail, drop by drop, wings stuck together.

Image result for dragonfly just born

After about 20 minutes the airfoils suddenly open.  There is a pause.  Then a fluttering like manic helicopter blades as the wings dry.  Another moment of stillness and in a breath it lifts into the sky.  Like it was the most natural thing in the world.  I've watched this process.  It was truly awesome.  Breathtaking that moment of liftoff.  To think that this creature had been water breathing 30 minutes prior, crawling around the bottom of the pond, and now it was airborne.  A glorious moment indeed.  Stunning.

I've watched many people quit here and it's an equally glorious moment to see someone achieve that One Year Milestone.  To watch that transformation from frightened nymph to empowered flier.  Many say "I never would have believed I could get here...."  

You know what?  You CAN!  It's gonna be OK.  You're going to go from a muddy smokey tar-breather on the bottom of the pond to an air breather.  Just hang in 'til you find your new comfort zone.  And soar!  

You just have to hold on long enough.  

Related image

It's Gonna Be OKAY - The Piano Guys - YouTube 

22 Replies

NICE.

It is essential you learn to replace the Dopamine with something that won't kill you.

Daniela2016
Member

Very nice Giulia‌, not even once do I come here and don't learn something new!

This site is enriching my life on top of having it made so much healthier.

Thank you for being here for all of us, and offering such a beautiful metaphor for a smoker becoming and EX.  And yes, it will get easier, it does every single day of this journey, withy little bumps in the road, but it does get easier, and we can all vouch for that!

Daniela 592 DOF

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MarilynH
Member

Thanks Giulia.....

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bonniebee
Member

What  wonderful blog I love the analogy and the pictures great job . I think it is so helpful to know what to expect in quitting even when it is a little scary . It is better to be prepared and it is less scary to go through it knowing that so many others have been there ,done that ,and come through it and not only made it but were rewarded by the transformation !

elvan
Member

Giulia‌ This is a wonderful blog, it is such an exquisite analogy and incredibly informative.  I love dragon flies but I never had any idea of their life cycle or what they looked like before they got to the point where we all admire them.  We all admire those who have come from the larva of the beginning of a quit and grown into elders...some who have been here much longer than others.  Thank you for making this such a beautiful journey.

Ellen

Giulia
Member

Many years prior to having that wonderful experience of watching  that dragonfly "being born," so to speak, I had inadvertently scooped up one of those frightening nymphs by accident when grabbing some of the primordial ooze of a pond to examine under a microscope.  Brought it back to my NY apartment where it lived for a brief, unhappy time in a jar of water.  It frightened me.  I mean it is a really creepy looking thing!  And then that time came later where I discovered what it was and the beauty to be that I had killed.  You most definitely can't tell a book by it's cover.  One of life's many lessons.

elvan
Member

Giulia‌  Oh my...that's really sad because you would so have enjoyed knowing what it was, I would never have known and I am not sure I would now if I actually SAW one.

freeneasy
Member

It didn't die in vain. It gave you the inspiration to write this.

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Giulia
Member

That was a really beautiful thing to say, Jim.  Thanks.  ♥ freeneasy