How do you Stop Smoking like a Jedi I hear you ask? I shall tell you!
“Do or DO NOT, there is NO try!”
Actually I am serious! I’m pretty certain that most of you have tried to stop smoking in the past, and I am also pretty certain that you will have succeeded for a couple of days, or weeks. Possibly even years. Excellent – what that shows is that you can do it! But you have to stop “trying”.
If you think about it whenever you say to someone “I am trying”, or “I try” you are admitting into the scenario the possibility of failure. Think about it and you will see that what I am saying to you is true. “I tried to break it to her gently” – implies that you didn’t break it to her as gently as you intended. “I will try to pick some up on the way home” – an even better cop out. Not only does this allow for the possibility that you might not be able to pick up whatever it is, you might also be able to completely forget and still say you tried. Do you see what I mean? When you “try” to get something right, you have in mind that you might get that thing wrong. “Don’t worry. I will collect it on my way home” is altogether more positive and definite. “I can help you with that” is much more affirmative! In actual fact positive thinking, isn’t so much about seeing the silver lining in things, it is about framing thoughts positively. When we tell ourselves what we want rather than what we don’t want, our brain is much better equipped to help us, because the brain deal with things that “are”, rather than things that “are not”. When you come for your Stop Smoking Session we shall talk about this a little more, and I shall demonstrate to you how this works.
What we say to ourselves is actually a kind of self-hypnosis because your subconscious mind is always listening. And of course, when your efforts to “try” to stop smoking came to an end after three days – well you were proved right weren’t you?
Something else that we say before we successfully stop smoking is “I’m going to give up” or “I am going to ‘quit’”. But quite often “to quit” or to “give up” is to be a loser. To be defeated. But what you really want is to SUCCEED in STOPPING.
To “give up smoking” can also feel like a sacrifice. Like giving up chocolate for Lent or for a diet. But there really is no sacrifice involved here, because smoking doesn’t give you anything. Smoking ages you. Smoking drains your pockets of cash. Smoking makes you smell. Smoking ruins your health. Smoking is slowly killing you! You have only to gain by becoming a natural non smoker. When you STOP SMOKING you automatically and immediately free yourself from any sense of “trying”, from any sense of “sacrifice” or loss. You free yourself from the possibility of failure. You free yourself by stopping NOW, and now, and now, with every cigarette you decline, and with every craving you refuse.
So drop the trying, the quitting and the giving-up – just STOP.
As Yoda said – Do or do not. There is not try.
