As a 58 year old, for the first time since my mid teens, I can honestly say I am a non-smoker, but in reality I haven't smoked very much since the birth of my first child in 1989. WTF is he talking about?
When I was a kid, living out in the bush in Western Queensland, I grew up with all the men around me smoking, Marlboro Man was a hero in my imagination. Cigarette ads were every where and as a bloke in the bush, smoking was just something that one did, well in my mind anyway.
As time went on it became evident that the gasper wasn't so good but trying to give it up was a tough gig, why, because it had become a mental crutch.
When my kids were born I swore that they would not start the filthy habit for the same sort of hero worship reasons that I did so I decided that I would never smoke in front of them. On top of that, my wife hated smoking with a vengeance, so I stopped buying them, I gave up by denial. I treated my smoking affliction like a reformed alcoholic, I told my self I was a smoker who didn't smoke much anymore.
The trouble was that every time I got on the drink or around close friends who smoked, I couldn't help myself, anytime I got stressed, I'd pat my top pocket looking for the soothing effects of a smoke, even though I didn't have any, you see I had this mantra when I had a problem " we'll have a smoke and think about it"
So that was the way life was for 28 or so years until in the last year or so when I started to really get into studying mindset and I realized that this whole battle with "the smokes" thing was really just a mindset issue and how I mentally approached the issue.
You see I had allowed my brain to accept that I was still a smoker, so I decided to start smoking again so I could find a trigger to switch my brain to believing I am a Non Smoker. I kept telling myself that I was a non smoker, but still my reptile brain kept urging me to have a puff.
The trigger came for me when while having a medical and my blood pressure was showing as high, the doctor suggested that I have a 24 hour blood pressure monitor done. The appointed day came and I went and got fitted with this device that took my BP and pulse every 30 minutes. The first couple of readings showed me at about 135 /90. So I thought, "I wonder what will happen if I have a smoke?" so I lit one up didn't really enjoy it, sat back and waited until the next 30 minute test, when it did, I was blown away, BP had jumped to 165/105. Guess what, I found my trigger, I haven't wanted a smoke since, I can stand beside a smoker now ( which once would have driven me crazy) and have no urge to grab one. The thing is, the switch happened because of a few months of telling myself I am a non smoker, that incident was just the tipping point in changing my paradigm.
The mind is so bloody powerful, it can be destructive or constructive, the good news is that with constant affirmation, we can choose to change the paradigm.