Three in the afternoon rolls around and your feet are tapping under your desk like you’re about to have a seizure. It’s been a couple of hours since lunchtime and the cigarette that you enjoyed after the large sandwich that satisfied your hunger. You need a different kind of satisfaction now. You unwrap one of the hard candies you’ve been keeping in your desk, just to have something to do and because if you keep eating to try and stave off your desire, you’ll have trouble walking up the stairs from the parking garage in a week. The candy isn’t working. You can’t stop tapping your foot. The cursor blinking on the screen is driving you insane. You have to go! Outside, to the smoking area cordoned off so as not to bother any non-smokers who happen to be outside. The familiar motions of taking the cigarette out of the pack, holding it up to your lips, flicking the mechanism on the lighter to make a flame, and taking that first drag that lets you know that you will be satisfied soon. It won’t last, though. On the way home, you’ll want another, and another after dinner, before bed, tomorrow morning with your coffee; it won’t end. This is the third time that you’ve tried to quit and the third time that you went back to the little penned off area outside the office building to continue a habit that you know is killing you. For the millionth time you ask yourself, “Why did I even start in the first place?”
Unravel the Knot
Maybe you started smoking because you heard that it was good for digestion. Maybe you had a couple when you were drinking and eventually associated the two until they couldn’t be separated. Maybe you were curious. Maybe you wanted to look cool. Whatever the reason may be, one day you made a conscious decision to smoke. Your subconscious mind may rejected this decision, felt what it did to your body, but your conscious decision resolutely got you through the first painful moments until cigarettes began to taste good. The connection with things in your day and good feelings becomes ingrained in your subconscious. Sheer willpower isn’t enough to put down the pack for good. Hypnosis can be an excellent tool to help you unravel the mess and break the associations that keep you hooked.
What Happens After I Choose Hypnosis?
You have made a choice to enact true change! Hillary will work with you to help bypass the critical factor (See HYPNOTIC STATE OF MIND post) and open a direct line of communication to your subconscious. In the relaxed state of mind that comes over you during hypnosis, Hilary will make positive suggestions with the aim of changing your habit the way that you want to and bring about the transformation that you’ve been trying to achieve.
- Client must want to quit! This change is all about you and it won’t work if you don’t really want it to work.
- Every person is different. You may experience immediate results or it could take a few sessions before you feel that hypnosis is working.
- Think of hypnosis as dialing direct to the part of your mind that controls your habits to get the message through.
If you’ve tried time and again to quit smoking and nothing works, you don’t have to blame yourself. Perhaps all you need is a new, clearer path and a little bit of help to navigate it. Trying hypnosis can be the first step in a true and lasting change so that you never again have to say, “I’m trying to quit.”
