Stopping Smoking Can Be Like A Hitchcock Film

How would you manage to live your life without cigarettes? Is it hard to imagine an existence minus those little comforters? Would you still be able to smile? Sure you can. There truly is a lot more to life, isn't there? So what's holding you back? How do you believe non - smokers cope with life, without cigarettes?

It can be all to easy to crumble at the first sign of an obstacle. Every day obstacles, big and small, are in front of us with everything that we do. In particular, we curse the obstacles that stand in the way of those things that we seem to want the most or seem the most elusive. They certainly make life challenging but nobody ever said that our time on earth would be a walk in the park. Without some challenges there would be no satisfaction or feelings of accomplishment when we achieved our goals and experienced success. So welcome some challenges. Like quitting smoking. Back to beliefs again. Imagine that we wanted to achieve or get something in life, something important, and yet we have allowed beliefs in our minds that we cannot have it or achieve it because of the obstacles that we already see are in the way, what ever these obstacles may be. It is likely therefore, that we do not reach it or get it. it's like a mantra, but it's a negative one. You may not appreciate it when you say to yourself that this or that is possible or impossible, but the biggest obstacle in your mind, no matter what it is you desire, is usually fear - based. Quitting smoking is no different.

There is the fear of loss, the fear of failure, the fear of how to manage. Those fears nag at us, make us nervous and possibly even appear to affect us physically. However hard those fears may seem, the first thing to remember is that a fear is not real, because it is essentially a thought. The object of a fear hasn't happened. A fear is something that we fear may happen some time in the future, and as we think about it we have already dreamt up the worst case scenario. These fears that loom ominously in our imagination seem just like reality because our mind cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. This is the incredible state you may be in, all thanks to fear.

Try this experiment in order to understand the power of fear. Imagine you are walking home alone late at night, it's pitch black and nobody is about but all of a sudden you feel as though you are in a Hitchcock film, as the victim. In the distance you think you hear footsteps. Your heartbeat accelerates, your breathing rate increases, and you listen a little harder. Hitchcock's still doing his stuff because you hear the footsteps getting louder and closer. Your heart is beating like a drum now and you turn around quickly. There is nobody behind you. Your stalker was in your head. What a good thing there was no audience! Your imagination had created a fear that was so real that you experienced a measurable change in your physical state. Your pulse and blood pressure readings would have been quite frightening.

The same process occurs when you think about stopping smoking. Similar fears, created by your imagination, quickly rise to the surface and create an anxiety that leads to what you believe is a desire to smoke. A fear that started in a small way but was fuelled by other thoughts made smoking seem to be all the more important to you. As I said earlier, what you believe is of the utmost importance.


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Douglass Grahame. Helping smokers quit since 1996. Does the fear of failure stop you from even trying to quit smoking? Let me explain how to beat that fear.