Stop
Smoking - You Can Do It If Only You Believe You Can
The
only problem with quitting smoking is that the smoker simply
does not want to quit. Even though they may be suffering
from breathlessness, cardio-vascular problems, threats of
amputation, lungs filling up with fluid, cancers of a whole
host of organs… they do not want to stop smoking. They
don't want the ill-health either. They want to smoke and
be healthy.
Now
if smoking a cigarette killed you within 24 hours, there
wouldn't be many takers, the tobacco industry would never
have got off the ground, and Sir Walter Raleigh would have
died before he got the chance to lose his head. If smoking
killed you within a week, then the connection would have
taken a little longer to make but you'd probably have to
grow your own tobacco because no one else would be doing
it.
Because
it takes tobacco anything from twenty to fifty years to
do the job; and because death isn't instantaneous, and instead
is long, slow, and painful; then smokers pretend 'it won't
happen to me' and the Tobacco Barons are laughing all the
way to the bank.
So
the real problem is that smokers pretend that smoking is
good for them, ignore all evidence to the contrary, and
believe that smoking is a pleasurable activity without which
life wouldn't be worth living anyway.
Beliefs
are powerful. Even if they have no connection with reality.
If you believe something then that thing is TRUE for you.
It might not be true for anyone else, but it's true for
you. Smokers believe they are addicted. This is a
myth propagated by those who have a vested interest in selling
tobacco products: like cigarettes, and nicotine gums and
patches. Smokers believe that smoking makes them feel good
and that nothing else can do that.
If
you have a belief that says 'life isn't worth living without
this thing' then you have a belief that allows the
thing to kill you.
The
solution is to solve the real problem. Instead of giving
up cigarettes, give up the belief that they are needed in
order to make life worthwhile. Beliefs are not easy to give
up, or change. The more important they are, the more resistant
they are. If you have a belief that says I always need to
have ten dollars in my pocket in order to feel safe and
you put your hand in your pocket and pull out a twenty
dollar bill, then you will feel okay. But if you put
your hand in your pocket and find it contains only five
dollars then you will feel some anxiety.
Change
the belief to five dollars makes me feel safe, put
your hand in your pocket and pull out five dollars
and you feel okay. The important thing here is that nothing
has changed in the physical world. All that has changed
is your belief. Changing your belief can reduce anxiety
levels.
So
imagine a belief like 'Cigarettes keep me safe, I must always
have a packet with me'. Imagine having that belief and finding
yourself without cigarettes!
Now
imagine having a belief 'cigarettes contain many poisons,
I don't want one near me'. Imagine having that belief and
finding a packet of cigarettes in your pocket or bag.
The
easiest way to change a belief without having to battle
against the conscious resistance that says 'but this is
true, that's why I believe it' is to use hypnosis. Hypnosis
causes shifts at the subconscious level and it feels almost
as if you have just changed your mind about smoking.
