MOTIVATION AND INSPIRATION
Posted by: foxy9 - Mar 18, 1999
Much research has shown that using our "mind's eye" through visual imagery is an effective way to improve our behavior. For example, athletes are trained to use their mind's eye to picture themselves successfully reaching their goals. More specifically, a diver will be taught to recreate in his/her mind the entire dive sequence of actions. This type of rehearsal actually improves performance, particularly when it involves attention to different body sensations. These sensations include what a person may see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and the motion they may feel in their bodies.
So, do the same in order to successfully become, and stay nicotine free. Use your mind's eyes to imagine yourself waking up feeling strong and confident on your Nicotine Freedom Day, the day you stop using tobacco in any form. Use all of your senses to create the experience of placing your feet on the floor from your bed, standing up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, etc. Taking two minutes to do this every day before your Freedom Day will increase your strength and confidence. Then, imagine other scenes.
Imagine yourself asking to sit in the non-smoking section of a restaurant, refusing someone's offer to give you a cigarette or "dip" of tobacco.
Imagine yourself standing in front of someone you are trying to impress. He or she lights up a cigarette. You smell the smoke. You want to ask for a cigarette, but your mind keeps reminding you of your quitting plan. You force yourself to think a strength-building thought like, "I'm a non-smoker." You take a slow, even breath. The craving passes like a wave through you, and you congratulate yourself for another success. You walk away feeling proud of yourself.
If this technique works for Olympic athletes, make it work for you in your own time of need. Use everything you can and spend a few minutes creating a picture that will inspire you!
Posted by: foxy9 -Mar 22, 1999
Why People Start To Smoke?
"You could light a fire. You could call people to watch. You could stick your hand in the flames. You could show it to them before you went to the doctor. After you had gone, they would wander up to the fire one by one, and each would stick his own hand in it." (Richard Needham)
How true....
Posted by: mamas7th -Mar 22, 1999
Failure doesn't mean you are a failure... ...it does mean you haven't succeeded yet.
Failure doesn't mean you have accomplished nothing... ...it does mean you have learned something.
Failure doesn't mean you have been a fool... ...it does mean you had a lot of faith.
Failure doesn't mean you have been disgraced... ...it does mean you were willing to try.
Failure doesn't mean you don't have it... ...it does mean you have to do something in a different way.
Failure doesn't mean you are inferior... ...it does mean you are not perfect.
Failure doesn't mean you've wasted your life... ...it does mean you've a reason to start afresh.
Failure doesn't mean you should give up... ...it does mean you should try harder.
Failure doesn't mean you'll never make it... ...it does mean it will take a little longer.
Failure doesn't mean God has abandoned you... ...it does mean God has a better idea!
Posted by: foxy9 - Mar 25, 1999
"Diary of an Ex-Smoker"
Rachel Altman 1994
Monday
Having decided to quit smoking once and for all, I flush half a pack of cigarettes down the toilet, put on a nicotine patch, then go to the store to buy sunflower seeds, carrots, hard candies, grape juice, and sugarless gum.
Turn to work on article about quit smoking programs, but can't concentrate; images of me lighting a cigarette keep flashing through my mind. Try deep breathing, then chew sunflower seeds, carrots, gum. Still desperately craving cigarette.
Give up and go to the gym for two-hour work-out. Immediately after, feel great urge to smoke. Stop at store, buy half-pound of chocolate-covered almonds. Polish them off before I get home.
Attend a reading at Barnes and Noble, throughout which I suck candies like a madwoman, rummaging in my purse for another as soon as one is finished. Ask lots of questions, loudly, aggressively, interrupting other people, who give me dirty looks.
11:00 p.m. Can't sleep. Watch David Letterman.
12:30. Fix a cup of chamomile tea. Take a Benadryl to make me drowsy..
Eventually fall asleep.
Tuesday
Try to work, but it's hopeless. Distracted by cravings. Log onto Internet stop-smoking news group and spend the morning posting, maniacally telling strangers things I haven't told my husband, my best friend, my therapist. Sunflower seeds very satisfying to chew, chomp, pound with teeth, destroy the little buggers and tear them to shreds. Ha!, take that.??
Lunchtime comes very quickly; I've moved it up from noon to, oh let's see, it must be 11:05 now. Alas, another morning with no work done.
Go to the gym and pump stair master while watching a soap. Cry unabashedly.
Ask husband if he will still love me if I'm intense, interrupt all the time, weep uncontrollably, and gain 20 pounds. He says he thinks there's medication I can take that isn't as bad for me as cigarettes. This response is less than encouraging.
11:30 p.m. Letterman again. Make a note: Call doctor and ask if she knows of a Benadryl addicts support group.
Wednesday
Dreamt that I had quit smoking, felt happy. Then saw myself in mirror, grotesquely obese. Log onto Internet and post: "If anyone knows of a fat- free sunflower seed, please e-mail me immediately!!!" Make a mental note: Stop using so many exclamations points!!!
Read through notes for article but the words make no sense, and my Internet buddies are getting on my nerves: all that whining, or worse, the cheerleading from the ones who are having an easy time.
5:00 p.m. Panic. What possessed me to quit when I'm facing a deadline? I said I would do anything to become an ex-smoker, but I didn't expect to give up my livelihood. And what sort of work is available to people with the attention span of an e-mail post? Images of famous writers sitting at typewriters flash through my head--they're all holding cigarettes. What made me think I could be a writer, sane, thin, and a non-smoker all at once?
Daughter calls from college, depressed, and talks for an hour about HER problems (yeah, right, like she thinks she's got problems). I murmur consoling noises and take deep breaths, while maintaining silent mantra that goes like this: I want a cigarette, I want a cigarette, I want a cigarette.
Husband sees me eating peanut butter out of jar; lectures me on fat content. I yell at him to get off my back, then have a glass of wine--okay, three glasses of wine. This only makes me want to smoke more.
10:00 p.m. Post frantic note on Internet to ask if anyone has had a craving last 5 straight hours. While posting, devour a package of Oreos. Now I have a headache. Make a note to call doctor: Can you overdose on deep breathing?
Thursday
Finally got to sleep around 1:30, but the cat woke me at 4:30 to go out, then at 5:30 to come in. Make a mental note: after breakfast, kill the cat.
Annabel in England, who is on her eighth month of not smoking, e-mails me. "Don't worry," she says, "you will learn to concentrate without smoking, and you CAN write without smoking." I decide she is lying but resolve to stay more relaxed today. Focus on the positives: No more wheezing attacks. Some occasional coughing but that's a good sign - the cilia are coming back to life, doing their job. Mouth tastes fresh, skin looks healthier, have more energy. Am getting to know Dave Letterman and he's actually a warm, nurturing person, very misunderstood.
Decide to try stick cinnamon, as recommended. I hold it like a cigarette, put it to my mouth and take a drag, throwing my head back. Say to husband, "Don't I look like Lauren Bacall in `Key Largo'?" His response: "Didn't Bogie die of lung cancer?"
"Smoke" my cinnamon stick all morning, taking deep breaths, and for a little while - maybe half an hour - am able to concentrate.
Hour-long fast walk in the afternoon. Feel great.
Exhausted, I fall asleep at 10:30.
Friday
Dreamt I smoked two cigarettes in a row and enjoyed it. Wake up feeling depressed and hungry. Eat two big bowls of oatmeal.
Discover a butt in the jade plant - my old hiding place - and hold it in my hand, imagining how it would feel to smoke it: the instant relief, the calm. Then I smell it and remember the coughing, the wheezing attacks. It occurs to me that smoking never improved my life in any way - that stress and frustration come and go, whether I smoke or not. I throw the butt in the trash, then log onto the Internet, where I read this message:
"I quit smoking one year ago and feel great! How to do it? There are no miracles, no easy answers. At first it's very hard, but it gets easier every day. Set your mind to other things. Keep busy, drink lots of water, eat good healthy food, and exercise. When tempted to smoke, remember how awful you felt when you smoked, and how much you don't want to go through quitting again. Look around and let everything you see take much of your attention. Good luck, and peace."
Outside my office window, a hummingbird buzzes the poinsettia, iridescent throat flashing bright colors in the sunlight. I take a deep breath and turn to my work, resolved. Next thing I know the morning has passed, and I have the beginning of a first draft.
If you have words of Inspiration and Motivation you would like placed here,
just drop an email to me, FoxyOne.
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