~~We are all just a car crash, a diagnosis, an unexpected phone call, a newfound love or a broken heart away from becoming a completely different person. How beautifully fragile are we that so many things can take but a moment to alter who we are forever.~~ Samuel Decker Thompson
To those who think quitting is simply a process of not smoking, I say tighten your seatbelt. Because if quitting is as easy as not smoking, we would not be here as everyone will have quit.
Quitting is a journey in living. In feeling emotions long ago buried beneath addiction. In coming to terms with old grudges and sudden bursts of anger and misguided hostilities. It's an adventure in forgiveness, balance, and stressors so intense they take your breath away.
Because we smoked for so long, we tend to take it for granted and addiction slyly wiped clean every hurt. Angry? Just smoke and you'll feel better. Worried? Same. Addiction has managed to take every negative emotion we ever attempted to feel and swept it away within a cloud of smoke.
Many of us are damaged. We struggle to remember that we are not what has happened to us but what we choose to become. We are lost souls one day and healing spirits the next. Life is a combination of harsh realities and fragile hope. So when we quit smoking, we feel the loss, the heartbreak, the devastatingly ugly truths all over again. This time, however, without the crutch of addiction.
Do not be bewildered by what you feel. Do not be taken off guard. Do not recoil from emotions. Surrender to them as you surrendered to your quit. Because once felt, those emotions begin to heal. In time, you begin to realize that you can get through any emotion without that once necessary cigarette.
We will most likely get hurt in life again. We may battle depression. We will feel loss. But please keep in mind that when you crawl out of bed in the morning because you don't have the strength to rise....when you move through your day as if you are underwater because you are stunned by bad news....when you barely have the energy to get back into bed at the end of the day....that is when you are the strongest. Because true strength is found in trying anyway even when you feel like your failing.
We all have our stuff. None of us are perfect. Some of us are questioning if we are even ok. But smoking plays no part in any of this. This is life and it deserves our full and undivided attention. You will never be able to give it that when you smoke because addiction demands the same thing. Don't hide. Live.
