Stopping Smoking - A Resolution Of The Conscious And Unconscious Mind - by Carole Powell

With New Year Ahead, many people are looking to stride into 2010 and give up smoking. Carole Powell looks at some of the reasons why stubbing the cancer stick out for the last time makes such good sense. 

 

Time to quit! New Year is the traditional time for reviewing our lives and looking ahead to the future we have carved out for ourselves. With this often comes an honest self critique that culminates in the surge of resolve to make a change for the better.

 

Why New Year should be a tipping point as opposed to any other day is rather quaint – after all, isn’t ‘tomorrow the first day of the rest of your life’ WHENEVER that might be?  However, let’s be grateful for the impetus this time of year provides. At last we feel ready to tackle those annoying, but perhaps enjoyable demons that have dominated the old year, with the promise of a happier and healthier year ahead.

 

There can be no more popular New Year’s resolution than that of stopping smoking. From July 1st 2007 virtually all public places have become smoke-free putting more and more pressure on the lowly smoker to finally quit. How much longer can they stand outside anti-socially on the busy pavement feeding their needy habit abandoning friends and family who sit inside the warm restaurant smug in the knowledge that their lives aren’t ruled by after dinner cigarettes. The strange thing is that smoking is more hard work than not smoking. Organising the day around break times, finding the location to light up and stub the cigarette out without being a litter lout, having to stand outside in all weathers – particularly if smoking isn’t allowed in the family home. Which is another strange thing – smokers often care more about the cleanliness of their home than they do their own bodies. Happy to fill their lungs with nicoltine smoke, but heaven forbid their living rooms!

 

There are over 4,000 toxins in a cigarette, none of which serve any useful purpose to the body of course. Smokers will usually acknowledge that smoking is bad for them but there is so often the attitude of ‘it will never happen to me’. The fact of the matter is that the body can cope with these toxins for a certain amount of time but nobody knows at what point their body will give in to a smoking related disease and quite possibly, death. Sadly it may be the diagnosis of a close relative or friend with cancer that prompts a review of the smoker’s own mortality and henceforth a resolve to finally quit.

 

Whatever the trigger point for making the decision to stop smoking, the key is that the means of doing it has to result in a permanent cessation. So many people as we all know have tried and failed. Sometimes they have been successful for several weeks, only to be tempted by a not so well-meaning friend with the belief that they can ‘just have the one’.

 

Most Stop Smoking methods are flawed in several ways. The benefit of NLP is that the resolve will be watertight and lasting. Providing the techniques are followed correctly there will be no headaches or cravings – common side effects that cause smokers to fear even attempting to give up.  In addition NLP inoculates against future temptations in order to ensure the change can be a permanent one.

 

The key is understanding the behaviour and triggers of the smoker and aligning their conscious and unconscious mind. The desire and commitment to giving up clearly has to be there in the first place but can be shored up with powerful facts and practical NLP exercises. It is useful to utilize the smoker’s feelings for loved ones to gain extra leverage as it is not uncommon that smokers fear more for the health of those close to them – even their pets, than they do for their own well-being. Then with powerful hypnotherapy the unconscious mind which is responsible for the actual habit of smoking can be persuaded to move away from regarding cigarettes as a source of pleasure to quite correctly identifying smoking as a source of pain. Then the pattern of behaviour can be aligned with the smoker’s environment to inoculate against future weakness.

 

There is great joy for the former smoker (and indeed the NLP Practitioner!) when the desire is gone. There are no cravings and they are set free. The good news is also that the toxins can be out of the lymph system in only 3-4 days and the body can renew itself in as little as 4 years. To be seasonal it is almost a ‘Scrooge’ moment when the subject realises they have another chance at life, that their future is calling them and it looks happy and healthy! 

 

So when smokers resolve to Stop Smoking, with the help of NLP it is a a resolution of the conscious and unconscious mind which won’t have to be made again the following New Year’s Eve!

 

Carole Powell

NLP Licensed Practitioner

www.nlp-practice.com

email: carole@nlp-practice.com

© Copyright in all media, Carole Powell, 2009.