What does it take to stop smoking cigarettes? Stop smoking programs?
Quit
smoking help? Self-Hypnosis? A patch? A
sympathetic friend? An admonishment from your doctor? A simple switch to pumpkin
seeds?
If you are one of the millions who smoke cigarettes, it is no doubt that these
questions have floated through your mind time and again. No matter what approach
you take to try to stop smoking cigarettes, one thing I have learned is this:
You cannot do it using will power alone. Will power may be a component of the
solution, but it does not get to the heart of the matter. You will need a quit
smoking help and there are many reasons to quit smoking.
In order to stop smoking, you have to cease beating yourself up about it.
Something fundamentally needs to shift in you. The craving needs to disappear.
If you have tried being harsh on yourself and that tough approach has not
worked, then you have to go easy on yourself. Try going to the opposite extreme
and see what happens.
Discover How You Can Quit Smoking in Less
Than 3 Hours!!
Will power is a feeling of over-effort, a
determination to be in control. Will power goes hand in hand with being
harsh on yourself. It is an honorable way to tackle things, but
unfortunately, it is one that is uncomfortable and usually offers just a
temporary solution.
You have to seek deeper. In order to truly stop smoking cigarettes you have
to look within and remove your negative attitudes first. In order to quit
the smoking habit, you must first attain a very high degree of
self-acceptance for the fact that you do smoke.
"But I already accept myself for smoking!" you may be screaming. Hmmm. Look
carefully. Be honest. Be radically honest! If there is even a slight degree
of uncomfortableness about not having quit smoking, then you are judging
yourself in some way. Judgment locks the craving in place. It has a locking
effect because the craving in you is a natural "rebel." If you judge the
craving, then that makes the craving fight back even stronger. The "craver"
in you rebels and makes you want the cigarettes more intensely.
On the other hand, if you let the craving be ok as it is, not being harsh on
it, giving it room, not fighting against it, it MUST subside over time. Try
it. You have nothing to lose. Smoke slowly. Let your self enjoy every
inhale. Let yourself relax with ever exhale. Once you have mastered this
practice of acceptance, THEN put your attention on quitting. I am certain
you will notice a difference.
At the very least, you will not be as unhappy about learning to stop smoking
cigarettes as you were before. Beating yourself up for smoking or for not
being able to quit smoking is just as much of a killer as the smoking
itself. Beating yourself up kills your mood.
So, take the Zen approach instead. Let yourself feel at peace with the
smoking, and then take appropriate action to quit smoking (a patch, a
pumpkin seed, or whatever). Make self-acceptance your truest goal, and your
goal to stop smoking cigarettes will come much more easily. Of course, you
already know the reasons to quit smoking.
