Yesterday I spoke with a gentle man who wanted to quit smoking. He started when he was a teenager. He’s been smoking for forty years. He might now have lung cancer.
He had tried to quit many times, more than ten. Sometimes he stopped for a couple of days, sometimes a week, sometimes 3 weeks.
And he said, with sadness in his eyes, “I don’t know why I start again…but I do, every time.”
I asked him about that moment when he has an urge to smoke.
The mind moves so fast, it likes to cover up or run past things that are uncomfortable, brush them under the rug. If it can’t brush them away or put it in a closet, then the way thoughts usually go, it seems, is that they get louder, angrier, more stressful, enraged.
The first step the Worried Mind thinks it needs to do, is to silence that tiny uncomfortable moment, thought, or experience…the second step is to try to crush it and destroy it and make sure it never happens again.
But that uncomfortable moment will happen again when this dear man quits smoking.
He has been so amazing to choose to smoke really, to bring himself to these moments of life/death and uncertainty.
There are many thoughts and beliefs that feel true that swirl around for people when they have something going on like smoking….and one of the most wonderful discoveries is finding out what is there, really, below the surface.
To get down under the situation and drill down into the core feelings and thoughts…you often have to start up on the surface.
For me, this is what the surface thoughts up on the outer crust are like:
- I need a cigarette
- Screw it, I want to be free to do whatever I please
- I gotta get outta here
- I hate (fill in the blank…that person, traffic, the rain)
- I don’t fit in here
- I need to calm down
These kinds of thoughts will surface and BOOM, right after they appear…you’re smoking.
Problem solved, situation over…NEXT. You escaped that moment and now, you can move on to the next one.
It feels a little safer to stay up here on the surface, dancing along with starting, quitting, relapsing, not even trying anymore, then trying, then quitting again.
Because under the surface is a bit scarier. At least it was for me. Digging down, there were more dangerous and frightening thoughts:
- Life is hard
- I don’t know how to deal with people
- Everyone abandons me
- I just want a little comfort in this difficult world
- I will die
- I can’t stand being here
- I’m a terrible person
- The world is a dangerous place, bad things have happened here
NOOO! I can’t admit that I think thoughts like this sometimes! What a pessimist! What a nervous wreck!
Have you noticed that the mind will turn on you just to have a target of its angst? It really seems to be compelled to ATTACK. Busy busy busy.
But to stop, and slow the difficult moment down into slow motion, or even if it’s speedy and screaming “RUUUUUUUUUNNNNNN!”
STOP and ask…..”is it true, that I need to do something, eat something, smoke something, ingest something, get outta here, get away from that person, quit feeling this feeling, quit thinking this way?”
I can’t stand this. Is it true? Are you absolutely sure? What is it specifically that you can’t stand? Living this whole life in a world that is dangerous and unpredictable?
Whew.
Who would I be without this thought that the world is a dangerous and unpredictable place? That I can’t take it? That I’d rather not be here?
I’d enter a place where I don’t know for sure what this all is. I’d be aware of how I don’t get it. Not knowing. Open. Empty. Wondering. Waiting. Not so scared. Feeling disturbed but not deciding anything, not doing anything.
Silence. Patience. Willingness. Falling and letting myself fall.
Curious to see what happens without smoking or eating something, without watching TV or seeking distraction. You mean, I COULD stand it? Maybe?
If you turned this thought all the way around and found examples of how this world is safe, this moment is ultimately safe, that you are safe right now…can you look at your life this way? Can you find genuine examples?
So far, I’ve noticed that I have been able to stay alive even though I am terrified. Without me even trying. I have been able to feel feelings, and question thoughts about this world and find that I’m not 100% sure it’s 100% terrible.
Yes, the world is completely and entirely unpredictable, it seems…but perhaps this is not a bad thing. Perhaps it is the way of it. OK. Not a problem.
The less afraid I have become, the less need for smoking, drinking, eating, distracting, thinking, ruminating…
I am willing to be afraid again today, I am willing to be terrified, I am willing to feel hurt or nervous, I am willing to live in an unpredictable world, I am willing to Not Know what is going on around here.
Because so far, I have been living in an unpredictable world, as it turns out…whether or not I gave it permission to be unpredictable.
“This unknowing has no limits. It extends beyond what we perceive to all we feel and think and do. It is ceasing to know how to cope with life, where we are going, what to do after the immediate task is done, what’s going to happen to us tomorrow, next week, next year. It’s walking one step at a time and blindfolded, in the assurance that the Space here–which is nothing and knows nothing but Itself–will nevertheless come up, moment by moment, with what’s needed.”~D.E. Harding from On Having No Head
You can handle any moment, anything that happens, anything you feel. You’ll handle it, even if you think you can’t. That’s the good news.
Today I have no urge to smoke, binge, drink heavily, and escape intensely with activity because I found out I couldn’t crush the uncomfortable moment, no matter what…
Reality won.
Love, Grace
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. $215. To register click HERE now and then send me an email grace@workwithgrace.com.
Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June 2013! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.
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