Cigarette, regret, reset...

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“Giving up smoking is easy – I know because I’ve done it dozens of times.”

​Yes Mark Twain, many a true word is indeed said in jest.
Can there be a more useless, bemusing addiction than smoking? Food issues are something that naturally arise for almost everyone in some form at some time. Technology is ever-present and often essential. Sex and shopping are time honoured techniques for taking the worried mind off matters at hand. Many drugs will simply annihilate the status quo and leave the partaker in a state of dopey bliss or hyper alertness.
But these cigarettes…
The first time you tried the body was aghast. Tobacco smelled disgusting, it was presented in a box covered in images of black lungs, and nowadays it is less likely to evoke James Dean than pensioners standing outside a bingo hall. But puff you did, much to the shock of your body, which would have been immediately aware of constricted blood vessels, raised blood pressure, and a suddenly soaring likelihood of cancer, heart disease, and people trying to subtly avoid smelling your breath as you speak to them.
Naturally the body thought that this must be an aberration, an ill-conceived experiment to be abandoned in favour of fresh air and the ability to taste your food. But no…
For better or worse, we are not creatures of logic and rationality – otherwise the world would be a much more orderly and predictable place.
Kicking cigarettes (or indeed cigars, pipes or chewing tobacco, if that is still a thing) is no easy matter, which is why hypnotherapy can be such a blessing.
There is no one approach that can be blanketed over every smoker and every situation. Rather, a good hypnotherapist will want to know about the triggers, the places, people and situations that tend to have you reaching for the lighter.
Then, after guiding you into a state of deep relaxation where the chattering logical mind is settled down, there is the chance to uproot some of the old sub-conscious programming – the behavioural grooves that have been etched in to the mind by months or years of repetition.
What has been done can be undone, and a hypnotherapy session may take you back to the past, to reduce anxiety around an event or to remind the body of how good it can feel without the use of tobacco.
The negative aspects of inhaling such a toxic substance can be greatly emphasised and magnified, making the prospect of lighting up vastly less attractive.
The client’s own fear of the consequences can be brought to the surface, rather than suppressed, and when this fear is acknowledged it can be a powerful fuel for change.
Positive intentions can also be utilised, and these will be generated by each client, depending on their lifestyle and priorities – the job of the hypnotherapist is simply to uncover these and put them to good use.
There is much that can be used in the hypnotherapy toolbox, and as a trained kundalini yoga and meditation teacher I can also bring in some postures and meditations that will aid the process, if that is something the client wants to explore.
So don’t remain a slave to this nasty addiction any longer – get in touch with me and stub it out for good. After all, quitting smoking is easy – just ask a certain writer.
•Best Self Therapy offers Hypnotherapy, counselling and kundalini yoga meditation in Athens, Greece.