Your Feelings You do not want to give up smoking now because you are terrified of how you will feel when you stop. If you have given up before, you will know that you will experience certain feelings, certain sensations in your body.  You will feel empty, deprived and insecure.  You will feel even lonely, as if you have lost an 'old friend' (more like a wicked witch in disguise!).   It is important to realize that when you give up smoking under this method, you WILL still experience these same feelings and bodily sensations - but it is at this point that this method differs radically from the old way.   The old way said that the secret to success was 'old fashioned will-power'. It acknowledged that you would feel lousy when you stopped and that the only way to succeed was to endure this unavoidable suffering. It advised you to keep your mind off your desire to smoke by changing your routine or by substituting something else for the cigarette. Willpower man? It promised you that if you had 'ENOUGH' willpower and 'fought' off all the terrible feelings when they came  - with time and patience, you would finally defeat the enemy - and succeed. And many people did use that method and succeed - but at what price ?  They have linked forever in most people's mind the idea that giving up smoking and pain are inexplicably linked. But I hear you say : "They are. I have tried to give up before and it was hell". I do not disagree with you.  Giving up smoking can be hell.  But the hell - the pain - does not come from giving up smoking but how you deal with the feelings you get when you give up  smoking. Please underline the following in your mind:  When you give up smoking, the feeling itself is not bad. It's only a temporary, RESTLESS, EMPTY feeling.  The  pain that people associate with giving up smoking comes from RESISTING - from trying to deny or fight the feeling you get when you realize you can't smoke. KEY IDEA    When you give up smoking the 'feeling' itself is not bad. The pain comes from worrying about and trying to resist or push this feeling away because you believe it is 'bad' or 'unbearable'.     This is one of the most important concepts in this course. When you give up smoking, again and again you will get that strong feeling which simply translates itself as : 'I want a cigarette.'   This is a real and tangible feeling. We all know it. It is OK. It is valid.   But this time, when you give up smoking you are going to do the unthinkable: you are going to welcome these feelings, these sensations in your body, no matter how often they come. You are not going to RUNAWAY from them or try and take your mind off them.  You are NOT going to cross your fingers and hope and pray that they will go away. You are NOT going to....... Fight them Suppress them Fear them  Or resist them in any way.        You are NOT going to substitute something else for the cigarette like extra food. You are simply going to allow the cravings to be and stay with them as they present themselves IN THE MOMENT  and simply observe them - like a scientist observing an experiment. Maintain  the objective detachment of a scientist  Yes, you are going to simply observe them - like a scientist observing an experiment, objectively, impartially as if these feelings were happening to someone else.   And it is this simple non-judgmental observation - this simple 'non-doing' that will transforms all your old heavy painful feelings into their essence - pure energy. At this stage, let me tell you the story of one of our students - Penny - and how she dealt with this concept - in her own words.  It may give you a better idea of what we are talking about. I couldn't accept this idea at first and it took me a while to understand it's 'mad' simplicity. I didn't really want to give up smoking because I really believed I couldn't cope without it. I had tried before and failed. Sometimes I would last out for a few days, but soon I would let my mind think up new excuses to start again.  For example, I would remember that I had a wedding or a big party to attend and so I would decide that I would smoke up until then - but after that I would definitely give up - no doubt about it. But, of course it happened again and again.  And every time, I tried to stop I would hope and pray that this craving I had to smoke would just disappear - vanish.  Be gone.  But of course I couldn't get away from it and when I couldn't smoke it got worse until eventually I would give in  and smoke. And then I attended one of your classes on smoking and discovered this strange new concept. You suggested to us ( which, at first I didn't believe ) that the craving - this very real  feeling we all have to smoke - ISN'T BAD IN ITSELF. It is just a feeling, a sensation in the body. The pain, the difficulty comes NOT from the feeling but from our terrible fear and resistance to it. From my belief that this craving is bad and we must, through any means possible get rid of it. We are all so conditioned ( brainwashed ) into believing that this feeling - this craving  is so unpleasant, so horrible  that we are frightened when we experience it.  We then immediately WANT to resist it, to try to change it or nervously try to focus our attention onto something else and hope it will go away. But in the classes you insisted: The pain is not in the feeling, but in our resistance to the feeling. I still thought : '"This can't be right - surely. But what the hell - what have I got to lose from trying it out ?"   So that first day, every time I felt a desire to smoke - which was often - I simply made a note of it in my notebook and noted: "This is simply my body demanding it's little dose of nicotine. However, this time I will not smoke and instead of running away from whatever feelings or sensations that arise with it,  I will now adopt a different approach to these feelings - these cravings......." "I will say to them:  'For the first time in my life I am not going to run blindly away from you.  It was this fear and running away in the past which gave you all your power. I am simply going to stay in the moment and observe you - watch you -feel you in my body. I am not going to try and change you or push you away or judge you or make you wrong in any way. I AM GOING TO OBSERVE YOU AND REALLY FEEL WHAT YOU ARE REALLY LIKE AND NOT OTHER PEOPLE'S SECOND HAND OPINIONS - AND IT HAPPENED. After a few days, as I continued to use and experiment with this technique of simply acknowledging the craving to smoke whenever it arose and not judging it or making it wrong but simply being aware of it, I noticed the energy began to shift. It did not feel so bad - in fact it began to feel light and warm and then I realized that the feeling itself - this famous craving - when STRIPPED of all the fearful projections and painful images WE PROJECT on to it - is, in it's very essence NO BIG DEAL AT ALL. I realized that the feeling itself was not bad. Yes. it felt different and uncomfortable in the beginning, but the feeling itself was so slight that I could easily handle and tolerate it until it disappeared for ever. Yes, the problem was not the CRAVING to smoke  but our deeply conditioned belief that this craving is bad, all powerful and that if we don't satisfy it, we will all suffer terribly. It's a lie.". KEY IDEA   The problem is not the craving to smoke but our deeply conditioned belief that this craving is bad and we must get rid of it.