It wasn’t will power that got me through. It was remembering my foundation statement and sitting down and recognising that something was going on that I was blocking from my conscious mind. When I just stopped and said OK,.. what is going on? .. what was the trigger for wanting a cigarette?… eventually my conscious mind let in the feelings.. of tiredness and heart-aching and longing to be swept away and looked after, but having to be grown up and finish what I was doing. Once I had recognised these feelings and just sat with them and had compassion for myself, then it was all ok….no more cigarette desire. And in fact ever since then, if these feelings come up, they no longer trigger a desire for a cigarette but for the appropriate action.. to be taken care of or to take care of myself. It might still feel bad, but its no longer associated with a cigarette. It still needs to be dealt with. But its one step down the road from cog quit.. the step after.. learning to deal
with all those feelings and emotions that you now are recognising.

So stay with it, girl.. in my experience once you have dealt with something major in a cognitive non-smoking way, and let yourself really acknowledge and feel those feelings, however uncomfortable, without resorting to a cigarette, and found an appropriate way to respond (eg by some of the things Judy wrote in her post), then they do not again trigger a desire for a cigarette. The feelings of course remain (and have to be addressed) but the desire for a cigarette goes. There is hope!

Oh my yes Carol…that’s it. It’s also for me the most dangerous
time if a smoke is nearby…so will power HAS to come into play.
elizabeth

I can fully relate to what you are saying here- especially your penultimate sentence.. “that cavern.. etc”. I’ve had some strong emotions, including grief and sadness as well as joy and awe during my quit. In fact in the first three or four weeks of my quit, I felt like an emotional time bomb.. all sorts of things came up that I hadn’t felt for years

To me these emotions are in my body….my body is me…. and, golly, for me they are physically very strong… that choking feeling when the centre of my chest feels like its being squeezed by hands and I cant breathe; the heaviness behind my eyes, the lump in my throat, the churning in my stomach.. the feeling of an empty hole in the middle of my chest…. all these are real for me and certainly in my body. And yes.. they would be a strong cue for a cigarette. But what would the cigarette be doing? Would it really be doing anything to alleviate the heaviness behind my eyes? For me, now, the answer is no….. a cigarette would do nothing other than maybe deaden the sensation (although I doubt that too).. the answer for me is to sit with the feeling/sensation (if there isn’t an obvious physical thing I can do immediately to help, like breathing etc) and realise that “this too will pass”. And maybe start to think about why I am feeling like this… is there something
deeper that needs to be addressed in my life? What do I need to do to stop “dying a little”?..

carol

ok…so i check in, i do an ABC, I respond appropriately…but what
about those times of unspecified depression, anxiety…that jumble
of feelings that pop up like ghosts and disappear to be replaced by
another…
sadness. greif. you know….a whole herd of things that aren’t
really in the body, but leave their prints there.

that cavern into with we went with our cigarettes to die a little.
what then?
elizabeth

And here I am, and I know there are others—you are not alone—though that is what at least part of the feeling so clearly is. Yes, facing pain, ghosts, skeletons and sadness is part of being alive and awake—it is the alternative to that stifling grave I’ve been sequestered in.

Our lives are made up of moments and we have a choice in how we meet each of those moments, whatever they may hold—whether it’s the abyss or ecstatic joy or deep seering pain or peace. And what our spirits have to experience it with is our human bodies—you’ve probably heard the phrase “we’re not human beings trying to have a spiritual experience, we’re spiritual beings trying to have a human experience.” If we pay careful attention to what our bodies are experiencing, and continue to look for ways to respond to our bodies, our infinite and vast spirits will know what to do next. I am convinced of it.

Sometimes, it seems like all I can do is try to comfort my body the best I can when I start to become aware that there is an unfathomable (and previously unknowable) ache somewhere inside. For me, cigarettes are no longer an option for responding to any of my human experience—I won’t go back to that grave—I will keep climbing out and wiping that death off me. I want to be present, awake, and alive for it all, the best I can. And the thing is, at least for me, joy was just around the corner and now I’m swimming in it—everything in my life is different. I had no idea, at 52 years old, that the kinds of happiness and joy I am now experiencing were possible for me anymore. I try not to grasp onto those moments—I know they will pass, as all things, feelings, and states do, but love remains constant and does not pass. I think if I remain in an attitude of thankfulness, and with kind and loving attention to my body, all will be well. I think I will know what to do.

And this cog quit program is such a good map for how to do it. For how to change our human behaviors using information from our bodies. I never would have guessed that working on that timer exercise and doing those ABC’s could be so powerful and have such a freeing effect on my entire psyche, but it has. You just can’t know it until you do it. Over and over again. And in every area of my life. There is no reason to settle for “just” quitting smoking. Why not have it all?

But here are some concrete ways that I use to try to cope with that ocean of longing and loneliness that I am sometimes right on the edge of, and sometimes afraid of drowning in:

1) first, the usual attention to the basics:

a) am I hungry or tired? If so, eat something (I crave fruits and vegies lately—make it something good, healthy, healing in any case), or get some rest.

b) breathe, stretch, move, drink water (I have a bottle with me at all times)

c) then body scan—does my skin need lotion, do I need to blow my nose, is anything irritating my skin (like those tags at the back of shirts—argh!), how does my mouth feel, etc

2) Then the options for comforting and soothing (this is the fun part) when everything else is taken care of:

* a hot water bottle is wonderful—I hold mine in my arms, or place it on the back of my neck or in the small of my back, sometimes I dance with it in my arms.
* all those things I can think of that soothe my senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell—beauty of all kinds, music, reading (books that speak to my spirit, poetry), good smells, fresh mouth
* water—both the kind in a pool that I swim in and the hot, bubbly, scented kind in the tub that I can soak and relax in
* hot herbal tea—I’ve been trying a variety of them
* exercise—it’s becoming more and more vigorous as I heal more and is such great pleasure
* and here’s the best—knowing that I am taking care of my body and self in the best way possible—like the ideal lover would—combined with the way the ideal good parent would—with loving, endless, unconditional, compassionate, joyful, and complete attention.

Thank you for writing your note Elizabeth, and prompting me to think of all the reasons I am so happy that I’m not smoking anymore. I wish you well and I do believe all our spirits are together doing this—we’re not alone. Judy.