The Mindful Approach to Quitting Smoking, part 2.
How to employ mindfulness to stop smoking?
Mindfulness is such a broad term!
But for our purposes here it simply involves cultivating an AWARENESS of
1. cravings
2. the experience of smoking itself
3. its aftereffects
…WITHOUT JUDGEMENT.
The goal of this awareness is to answer this question:
“What do I get out of it?”
Because, what we tend to get out of smoking, past the momentarily relief, is a bunch of badness that we do not actually like!
But we tend to SKIP OVER that or mask it. However becoming fully aware of it is our one and only ticket to FREEDOM.
How can we show our brain the ACTUAL result of smoking?
Here is an example for you:
When I used to smoke, I used to buy menthol cigarettes to mask the tobacco flavor.
I would also eat an apple/brush my teeth right after smoking to again get rid of the aftertaste and make sure that my boyfriend would not notice tobacco smell on me because he did not like it.
Sometimes I also had to take a shower and then felt guilty over having to take so much time out of my day to smoke one Goddamn cigarette!
But in the end I would just skip over all of that and ONLY remember the momentarily relief of taking a smoking “breather”!
So when I started the process of quitting in earnest I turned TOWARDS all of those SENSATIONS: smell, taste, guilt, etc.
To teach my emotional part of the brain about the LACK of reward in smoking, I need to answer the question: “What do I get out of it?” and do it experientially, viscerally, based upon our sensations and NOT by creating more stories in my mind.
Because stories/words do not cut through to the mechanism that perpetuates our habits.
But when we help it notice all the SENSATIONS that are unpleasant, our brain can finally wake up to the fact that smoking actually sucks for us and then:
It then can let it go so much more easily, with almost no willpower necessary to apply!!!
When your brain is fully disenchanted with smoking and you have a full body understanding of its unsavory results, you can then redirect focus toward healthier coping mechanisms.
But…but getting disenchanted comes FIRST!
I cannot stress this enough, before you can enchant yourself with new healthy coping skills, disenchantment with the smoking has to be fully employed and emphasized.
Let’s see how that disenchantment looks in practical terms?
Embracing Mindfulness to Disenchant the Brain
Mindfulness does not only allow for a pause, a moment of reflection before succumbing to the habit. It helps our brain to break free from under the smoking spell.
The key here is heightened awareness—being fully present:
1. in the moment when you are smoking
2. before it, when you notice the feeling of craving coming on.
3. after you are done smoking.
Remember my example with buying menthol cigarettes, etc?
So first of all, to DISENCHANT my brain, I then started smoking regular tobacco. No more menthol “sugarcoating”.
Plus every time I was smoking, I sat with the smell, and the taste and all the unpleasant sensations I actually began to pick up on.
I caught the story in my mind that those sensations were about:
”I am betraying myself and everything I believe in by smoking now”,
It was a valuable observation but I made sure I then re-focused on the sensations and NOT the story. Remember we do not need more words, we need VISCERAL EXPERIENCE!!!
Eventually I realized that the sensations of cravings themselves were result of smoking: if I had not had that habit, I would have to deal with that discomfort of craving right?
So I started sitting with the sensations of cravings instead of acting on them. And even when I gave into the craving and smoked, I again used my smoking to be mindful of everything I did not like about smoking.
Yes, it does take the fun out of it.
But this is exactly what has to happen if you want to help your brain get disenchanted for real!
Eventually, my brain became more and more prone to first pause craving came up and then I would have a visceral response of remembering all the yuckiness of smoking and naturally say:
I am actually ok! No, thank you!
Voila! No Willpower Squeeze needed!
This is what mindful attention applied to smoking does:
It provides your brain with DEEP EDUCATION MOMENTS!
In this way, when your brain is thoroughly aware of all the senses-based aftereffects of smoking, you can use mindfulness to create space between the urge to smoke and the conscious decision to abstain.
And then what?
What begins after the disenchantment with the habit?
Enchantment of course. A special kind!
You will be enchanting yourself with a new vision of your life when you are smoke free!
Self-hypnosis/hypnosis is my personal favorite way to create and stick to such visions because it also goes deeper than the rational mind and engages the senses fully and completely!
This is step 2 of the process of quitting smoking.
Read the blog part 3 for that!
It is Coming soon!:)
