Quitting smoking… linking the past and the present

Most people think about the future when they think about quitting. Not the next month or the next year, but the hours and days after you resign.

The fear of being smoke free may seem to be in the future, however, a wish never disappears into the distance, it is right now! The only time you need to control your cravings is in the present.

But the problem is that that’s where fear and anxiety also live. However, there is a way to use your past to let go of your present longing fear and anxiety.

A popular method used in NLP and my Calm process is to revisit a time in the past and bring it into the present.

I ask my clients to clearly define how they will feel when they have successfully quit smoking. Common responses are proud, happy, free, or successful.

I then ask them to recall a time in their past when they felt this way. The most common response was when they held their child for the first time. Other answers include winning, an event, buying his first home, and riding a motorcycle for the first time after getting his license.

The next step is to revisit that memory. To remember and deeply feel the event, to remember the exact time, place, people, and most importantly, your feelings and where they are located in your body.

This process is established in the first Calm session, and your task is to revisit these memories as many times as possible before the second session when they quit.

The second Calm session is when we do a dive into the unconscious mind, to unearth all connections, habits and beliefs about smoking. Usually, in the middle of the session, I ask them to remember the positive feeling and then dismiss it.

Next, I ask them to imagine a situation where they might be tempted to smoke, and I quickly ask them to bring the good feeling back to completely squash the feeling of smoking.

We repeated this process three times imagining different smoking scenarios, each time making them win the battle over smoking and making them feel good about their victory.

In the days and weeks to come, every time you have a craving or urge to smoke, you will experience this feeling again. In addition, they will stack at least two more strategies to ensure that they remain non-smokers for life.

Of course you can use this feeling to relieve any stress in your life.