Question from a client: I am currently working on harmful actions. This is dealing with smoking. I am smoking more than I used to. Do you find that people’s habits get worse or increase before they get better?
Answer: At times, it seems as if habits are ‘alive’ and want to stay that way.
I believe ‘we feed what we fight’ so I recommend that you not fight this habit. Instead, change you relationship with it.
You have images about smoking that you acquired as a young person that smoking ‘adds’ to your Identity in some ways:
coolness
rebelliousness
machismo
independence
toughness
sexiness
and so on.
You were lied to by yourself, what you saw, the advertising with the guy on the horse looking masculine, etc.
I had a mentor who told me, “A person will change quickly and easily when the cost of their current behavior is more than they are willing to pay.”
Those assumed ‘benefits’ listed above are myths. Make a list of the costs: mental, emotional, physical, financial, family, social, leisure, etc. that you can think up.
As you do the Codes, ask for awareness of this relationship and the strength to have a separation between you and ‘it’, the habit of smoking.
When you find the images that glue you to smoke and you see that they are not true, the glue gives way.