Welcome to the journey to the new you! How to quiet the mind? Ah yes. That constant chattering. One technique that helps is to focus like mad on a specific thing (OTHER than the thing that's driving us crazy! lol). Craving Buster Technique Another technique I mention further down the comments is also good:
In Uta Hagen's acting class in NY, one of the techniques we practiced was to focus on a particular mundane object in our home and spend a lot of time thinking about it, making up a story about it (if it had no personal reference already imbued.) Giving it a life so to speak. After spending several hours doing that, this mundane object grew in stature in our mind. What you focus on will grow from a molehill to a mountain or from a mountain to a molehill. If you focus on smoking and cravings they will enlarge in your mind. If you re-focus on something else ANYTHING else, they will shrink. The more you pay attention to something, the greater that something will become. So we must be careful of those things we give power to by our attention.
The more often we can distract ourselves, turn our thoughts in a different direction, the better we get at it. Practice really does help. I can do it during the day now, but have definitely not mastered it in bed a night yet.
Practicing slow, deep breathing also helps to relieve stress. As does meditation.
The upcoming anniversary of your grandfather's passing is a normal thing to think about. Anniversaries and milestones attract the mind. The depth of your grieving just shows the depth of your love. And it takes much time for the heart to heal. But there will always be a hole. His love is irreplaceable in your life. And that's hard to live with. I could say: "Instead of thinking of the loss, the missing, try to turn it around and focus on the joy he gave you," but I was never able to do that myself the first year or two after my mother died. I don't know. I think accepting the pain and simply moving through it, or letting it move through you is what we have to do. I know with quitting I had to accept the journey - with all that it entailed (good, bad, mean and ugly). You can feel the grief, but you don't need to dwell in it. First we have to catch ourselves in the thinking, then we can take steps to change that thinking.
Glad you've joined us. Got your hand.
