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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.......
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.
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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.
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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.
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| 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.
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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
?"
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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......." |
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"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.".
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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.
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