This is weird, but it is my blog after all and I can do whatever I want here.
**In an MRI machine, I panic. I can't stay in there for more than a second. I needed an MRI, too. But I couldn't go thru with it.**
**I'm 54. I'm older. I'm not as pretty. I used to be a pretty girl with a good figure and attracted a lot of attention. Not being pretty anymore bothers me.**
The above two thoughts are two mental thoughts. Just like smoking. Here's a smoking thought:
I have to have a cigarette. I have to have one. Just have to. (*light*). Ahhhh. Relief.
That "smoking thought" is a mental thought too. (of course all thoughts are mental but by calling a thought a "mental -thought" emphasizes the MENTAL part of it. Thoughts are thoughts. Our life is a reflection of our thoughts. Our own thoughts which we ourselves - and in the case of my own thoughts - I myself - control. No one else. Just me. I can think however I want. I can think myself brave. I can think myself a nonsmoker.
I think if I give up smoking, that is a strong test of mental prowess. And the odd thing is, it isn't so much strong, but a shift. A mental shift.
If I can keep it up, the mental shift exercise I am getting will stay with me through all of the rest of my life. I've not really been mentally disciplined, ever. I have short bursts of it. Like I work at my legal secretary job, and I pride myself on my work ethic and how much I can get done. That takes discipline too, but this is a different kind of mental discipline. This is a mental shift. A new way of looking at smoking. This new way of looking at smoking should be able to help with both the MRI machine and with the feeling not pretty syndrome. If I can shift my thoughts with smoking, I can shift my thoughts about damn near anything.
It is also a way to fight brainwashing. You brainwash yourself into smoking by telling yourself that you have to have one. You don't HAVE to have one! It is just your own mind playing a dirty trick on you.
I have had two prior brainwashing experiences in my 50s.
1. Religion. We are born and raised a certain way in a certain part of the country with certain ideas that we assume and "know" are right.
2. The idea that you have to have meat and dairy as a part of a normal diet, because everybody does, and it is just the way it is.
Now I'm working on #3. Smoking. I just think that is so cool.
