By: Kelvin Janessa

Kelvin Janessa — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:43:50 +0000

Hmm. Is that the same principle that sent you reaching for a
cigarette about 2.5yrs ago, before you quit? I believe that every living organism is possessed of a biological
imperative to try and move from any state of discomfort to a more
comfortable one. Otherwise, how would that organism continue to exist?
Nicotine, delivered by inhalation, works almost instantly and it
works well. In fact, smokers are experts at dosing themselves to
provide the expected and necessary degree of comfort. When I was
angry and lit up, the first couple of drags I sucked smoke down to my
toes. I was doing what had always worked to create move from
discomfort to more comfortable. How did you smoke when you were
angry? Any of you?
Why did I light up? Because it was the only effective response I had
for the experience of anger.
Why bother looking for other responses if smoking works? Because my

higher brain had decided that it was time to quit smoking, which
brings me to oranges.
Anger is a concept that, taken as a whole, is just too big to handle.
It’s like trying to get your arms around a peeled orange the size of
a car. You might be able to nudge it in some direction, but you have
no fine control. Imagine that your orange/anger has segments labeled
in general categories like Intellectual, Emotional, and Physical.
One of the Intellectual segments might be “I can’t believe I’m
working with such a moron.” Another might be “How many times must I
tell them before it registers?” When angry, two of the segments in
the physical category are usually “Breathing” and “Muscle tension”.
Judy, today when you get angry, or stressed in any other way, you
look to your body cues for clues to proper responses.
And as soon as you recognize a body cue, the proper response is often
self evident. If you observe that your breathing is lousy, you take a
deep breath. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
However, a person isn’t likely to be looking for individual segments,
like breathing, unless they’ve changed their perception
of anger/stress from one of a ‘car sized orange’ to one of a ‘car
sized orange in segments’, some of which can be manipulated. The
moron will still be a your co-worker, and you’ll probably have to
explain yet again. But, you can change at least two of the segments
in the physical category and this is a critical point… to
disconnect the smoking response to stress, all you have to do is
change a few of the segments in the physical category. Ask any of our
long term quitters.
The ‘because/when’ question was an effort to get people to look
beyond the surface of stress to it’s parts. I don’t think it worked
too well. Lets have an orange instead and see where we get.
Steve

By: Kelvin Janessa

Kelvin Janessa — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:28:56 +0000

That will work. Still, what led you to consider even dealing with
body cues?

Comments on: a question and another

By: Kelvin Janessa

By: Kelvin Janessa