The goal of quitting smoking is one that thousands of people set for themselves every day, and yet so many fail.
Smokers don’t always realise that it’s not just the nicotine they’re addicted to, it’s also the habit of smoking. They are so used to having a quick cigarette with their morning coffee, or when they’re out for a drink with friends, or when times of stress hit. It feels completely natural to take that cigarette out and light up during these situations.
We have helped so many people to break the habit, re-programme their mind and learn to live without cigarettes for the rest of their lives. Many of our clients have even said it feels like they were never a smoker to begin with! This is how it works:
Step 1: Break associations and beliefs
First off, smoking is about habit far more than it is about nicotine addiction. If it was just nicotine, people would wear patches and chew Nicorette gum and never smoke again.
But that’s not the case, is it? It’s because your unconscious mind has “linked” or “associated” many of the normal things you do every day to having a smoke.
Maybe for you it is finishing a meal, maybe it’s feeling bored, maybe taking a quick break at work or finishing a task at home. For others, it could be waiting on a bus or train, having a drink, getting up in the morning or going to bed at night. It could be taking a phone call, getting into the car, getting out of the car, whatever.
You know the ones that relate to you, and so does your subconscious mind. It will remind you at these times, without fail.
Perhaps you’ve had the experience of lighting a smoke without even knowing you had done it? Or without really wanting one? That’s your subconscious mind taking over. It wants to run your life. And for most people, it does. The easy thing to do is let it run your life. But it will also ruin your life if you let it.
Hypnosis helps you to get back in charge over these automatic behaviours by removing and deleting them at the subconscious level of your mind. They were created there, and so they can be deleted there too.
It is also the same with beliefs.
While most people may dispute this logically, they are quite likely holding onto subconscious beliefs that still tell them that smoking is cool, or that it helps them to relax, or gives them a bit more confidence when out at night.
These beliefs can be formed from just 2 years of age; long before you knew anything about smoking, but you were impressionable. If they’re stored in your subconscious mind, hypnosis will help us find them and delete them.
Step 2: Forget smoking (at the subconscious level)
This part is genius. You won’t find any other hypnotherapists in the country doing this. You’ve surely had an experience in your life of walking into your kitchen to pick up your phone or car keys, and when you went through the kitchen door, you completely forgot what you went in there for.
This is your inner brain’s ability to forget working at its greatest (or worst, depending on your viewpoint). The point is, you can forget, and we know how to get your subconscious mind to do it for you.
This means you’re not constantly reminded about smoking throughout the day or every time you finish a meal or go out with friends. Your brain simply forgets to remind you about smoking and you get to feel like you’ve never smoked in the first place.
Step 3: Making it not OK for you to smoke, ever again
You already know at the logical level of your mind that smoking is bad for you, but at the emotional level you’ve denied it. Or simply not faced up to it.
The only reason 90% of smokers are still smoking is because they have not accepted responsibility at the right level for what it is they are doing (to themselves or their families). It is too far down the road for most smokers, so they can avoid thinking about it. That’s what makes it OK to continue to smoke.
Once you see it for real, once you accept what’s waiting down that road of continuing to smoke, you simple won’t want to smoke any more. Do you think most people dying of lung cancer or bedridden because of stroke don’t wish they could turn back the clock and quit years ago? They do. But they can’t.
You get to see your future and do something about it today. For most people this part alone is enough to never want to smoke again. This means Zero Temptation!
Step 4: Brain training your freedom
You probably already know that the worlds’ top sports people and CEOs etc use visualisation to become the best in their fields. It’s what helps them to achieve greatness.
But when you combine visualisation with hypnosis you are on a whole new level of greatness and potential achievement. That’s what we do at this stage.
You will literally experience what it’s like to be a non-smoker in all the times and places you used to smoke.
You will do this with amazing feelings of freedom and ZERO temptation to smoke. Even in stressful situations, or the smoking area of a pub, being with friends who smoke, who are offering you a cigarette – you will be solid in your decision to be free.
This actually trains your brain to know what to do and feel the next time you are in one of those old situations where you used to smoke, which means you can go anywhere, feel any stress (or drunkenness) and still not even think about smoking.
Step 5: Attaching positive emotions to being free
Finally, and this is important, we attach positive emotions to being free from smoking. No longer will you look at other smokers and feel deprived that you’re not having one. No longer will you think, “maybe I can have one when I’m out”; no longer will you feel deprived of your cigarettes.
We will attach feelings of pride, confidence, freedom and achievement to you being a non-smoker. You will feel so solid in your decision to quit that it will always feel right for you.
When you see other people smoking, you feel great recognising that while they are still trapped, you are free. You will feel a sense of relief knowing you are free. You will feel proud to be free and you will feel an amazing lift in your overall confidence because you are free.
This confidence boost of course also helps you to easily reject or deflect an on offer of a smoke from friends etc. You just feel confident in your new identity of being a non-smoker.