Post by Ann on Dec 4, 2008 9:29:25 GMT -5
Use the calm to face the storm !!!
Hi Friends,
Having a good quit behind us, cruising along the quit path and crossing milestones often leads us to feel very good with ourselves and our efforts in respect of our quits. These are times when life is indeed very easy with us. We feel and not very wrongly either, that given such a set of circumstances, we might as well cruise through the rest of our lives, with ourselves always coming out on the top!
Nothing could be more false!
The smooth things in lives suddenly change to the roughest patches with just a single turn of an event! Our lives can suddenly mean living through a hell. Things nurtured with love and tender care are the first ones to bear the brunt of unfortunate turn of events. Our quits suddenly are at the mercy of uncontrolled circumstances and seem to have lasted long enough already, to survive anymore!
The point is, do we have to subject our quits to the rollercoaster of our lives or can we decide to do something about it and isolate our precious quits from uncertainities? Yours truly earnestly believes that we can protect our quits to a reasonable extent. We only need to prepare for the contingencies when things in our lives are GOOD! Its like using the calm periods to face the turbulent storms!
To start with, we make an inventory of all our possible responses to any sudden stimuli and classify them broadly in two categories: Physical and Mental. The physical responses may be like drinking a cold glass of water, deep breathing, calling up a friend, exercising, walking, taking a bath or eating an orange! The idea is to get involved physically which might include making love to our partners
We might have mental responses like reminding ourselves of the reasons why we quit in the first place, the readings made by our quit gadget, the methods we used to get over similar situations in the past, thinking about our friends or the posts/celebrations/fun that we have shared in Quitnet with friends like us or on reflecting on the improvements we've made in personal health and hygiene etc.
We might have a brain storrming session and add more activities to each of the above categories. Now, we take a piece of paper and write down three activities under each category. We might keep this paper with us always and read it just sometimes. We make a solemn commitment to ourselves that we will try each one of these activities at least once before we make a conscious CHOICE to go for a smoke!
We use our well thought out and planned for choices as an essential backup to the general willpower that we will not smoke ComeWhatMay! We note that willpower alone was never sufficient to sustain a quit in the first place and our quits were effected primarily due to many other things APART from willpower. It is the backup of our coping skills that makes our so called willpower work to sustain a quit.
Since, the entire battle is mental, it is essential, that we take our minds off from the thoughts of smoking or romancing about it. We are NOT to even visualize the shape, looks, feel or smell of any of those sticks of death. If our shoes suddenly have 'wheels' underneath them, that are pushing them to the nearest kiosk, we SIT down! Same goes for our 'twitching' fingers or even a sharply drawn in breath.
Wishing everyone discovers a solid combo of physical and mental coping skills to bust those urges and cravings henceforth...
From across the timezones,
A man as grateful as ever.
found on Quitnet