Hello, Kevin here, 39. 

 I smoke and I hate myself for it. I mean I'm not hung up 24/7 hating myself but I despise the fact that I'm a smoker and it's difficult for me to quit. I've tried everything. 

 My thing is sugary drinks and cigarettes. I don't drink alcohol or do drugs. I work out at least 1 hour per day. I'm in top physical shape despite feeling like garbage all the time. I know this is because of the last piece of the puzzle. I have to rid myself of the habit and the frappauchinos and the drinks I crave while smoking. It's like an association. I have to have cigarette and coffee (decaf always) in the am. 

 I meditate and do affirmations the day before I quit and the next morning, I'm out buying a pack. I know cigarettes do nothing for me (Allan Carr) and listened to his audio books over and over. I have done hypnosis 3x. 

 It's like it's impossible to get into my subconscious. I've learned the full EFT technique. I'm working on part 2 of the book. I've ordered all the DVD's. 

 The funny thing is that I've used EFT to remove the emotional charge of some bad memories of growing up. Parents fighting daily for 18 years. 18 years of knives, blood and fists and police. The memories are still there, but they no longer bother me. This is promising. Now applying it to EFT is the hard part it seems. 

 

I've done thousands of "even though I smoke" rounds and it doesn't seem to do much. I just know I'm not hitting the right area. I have 2 daughters, 12 and 2 and I need to quit NOW, before it becomes a real problem. I'm not your typical smoker. I was not peer pressured into it. My mom always smoked and I always despised it. There was a x marine they use to hang with. He smoked marlboros and drank beer starting at 6am. He always had a carton in his truck. 

 Like an idiot, when they went out to dinner I took a pack out of his carton and went in the woods and became a smoker. I coughed and though wow, this sucks. BUT. Only a fool goes and does it again and again, and here I am. Now I did not smoke because I wanted to be like this Marine guy. I have no idea why I wanted to smoke. I've thought about it for hours on end. I have no idea why. 

 So what do you suggest? Hiring an EFT person is out of the question, I don't have the means to do that. I'm on my own here. Any help is appreciated, I'm at the end of the rope. I will not however throw in the towel and accept that I smoke. 

 

Kevin

Kevin - good for you for reaching out for help - I know you aren't too thrilled about yourself right now, but now would be a good time to pat yourself on the back for taking a really important step.  It takes courage to write as honestly as you did and ask for help.  And determination to heal.

The biggest thing I've learnt through my journey with EFT is that anything we do we are doing because a part of us thinks it is the best way for us to be safe and OK.  I know that can seem like a crazy idea when we have an addiction or pain or something that we desperately want to let go of, but time and time again those of us working with EFT on our own and with others find that this really is the case.  The key to this though is realising that your conscious mind isn't going to nut out what the "good" reasons for smoking are, that knowledge is in your subconscious mind.

A part of you wants to stop smoking and a part of you doesn't.  At the moment those parts of you are at war.  Peace will come when you are able to accept both those parts and extend empathy to them in a way that they are able to be heard.  It is so easy for us to side with one part of us (the part that wants to stop smoking) and deny or even hate or be hostile towards the other part (the part that for whatever reason feels that you need to continue smoking).

My suggestion given that you don't have the funds to work with someone else right now is to see if you can find a way to hold a non judgmental and preferably empathic space for the part of you that isn't yet ready to stop smoking.  I know that this can seem impossible, but I really do believe that if you can find a way to understand that part of you and hear what is driving it (most likely fear and a desire to keep you safe and OK), the war will end and with it the stalemate that is stopping you from moving forward.

EFT Master Jaqui Crooks has a tap-along that I use when I sense two parts pulling in different directions.  If I tap through it I tend to find my stance towards the part I'm angry with softens, and it more often than not opens up the possibility for me to dialogue with it in an open way.  It can take some time before I am able to be empathic enough to allow it to talk.  Once I had a very graphic image of a little character representing the part that was driving the unwanted behaviour - it was in a hole and terrified to stick it's head out and talk.  I soon saw why - the other part of me was waiting outside the hole with a sledgehammer, ready to whack it on the head the minute it popped up.  While amusing now, at the time I was horrified to realise that's why the part of me hadn't opened up to let me know how it was feeling during EFT.  The shift to empathy led to me hearing the fear driving the behaviour and things really opened up after that.

There is a posting on the anxiety forum that contains a lot of information that might be useful to you.  It's likely to be some sort of deep seated anxiety that the smoking is quelling, and so even though you may not see yourself as having chronic anxiety, I suspect the understandings shared in the posting might help.  It's become a really long posting, but you can get all you need just from the first one on the thread as it's a summary.  You can find it at http://eftcommunity.emofree.com/forums/p/4546/25862.aspx#25862 

Let us know if you would like further clarification on any of the above.  Hang in there and ask any questions that we might be help with.

Very best wishes,

Jo

 

 Hi Kevin,

Jack here; I'm one of the forum moderators.

You hit the nail on the head 

knucklebrain:

I smoke and I hate myself for it.

with your first sentence.

I suggest you get smoking right out of the mix for now and focus on: 

knucklebrain:

I hate myself

.

What do I mean by that?

Smoking is not the problem. It is a perceived solution to a problem; the problem being - "I hate myself."  Smoking is just something to blame the self hatred on. It's not socially acceptable to say, "I hate myself", you might get locked up for that, but it is socially acceptable to say, 

knucklebrain:

I smoke and I hate myself for it.

There are plenty of unenlightened people out there who would agree with you. ("It's a nasty habit and you ought to hate yourself for doing it")  And that's probably a big piece of the puzzle right there.

So you might want to ask yourself; when did I start hating - my life/ my home/ my inability to control things/ myself?  I'll bet it was before you took that first cigarette.

Here are a couple of ideas for set up phrases, (purely hypothetical):

Even though I couldn't stop the knife fight and I feel responsible for it I deeply and completely accept myself and that scared little boy anyway.

Even though my Dad is hitting my Mom and I can't stop him, (focus in on a specific event if you can bring it to mind.) I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Even though I hate myself because I could not stop the violence, (once again see if you can bring up a specific event),  I accept who I am, where I am right now.

I hope you get my drift.

Here is a phrase that might help with your conflict about seeking out a practitioner to work with:

Even though I am willing to spend $50 a week on cigarettes which support my self hatred instead of spending $50 once or twice a month on a practitioner which is an act of self LOVE, I choose to believe that I am a good guy anyway and I deeply and completely accept myself.

And Kevin, it sounds to me like you were in a very difficult situation with limited resources when you were young and you did the best you knew how. So, when you make your next post instead of calling it "Knucklehead" call it "Resourceful Fellow".

All the best,

Jack

 

 Thanks John and Jo. John, knucklebrain is my username :)

I use it on other forums, guitar, etc... I've always been a knucklehead sort of guy, a joker if you will. If only 100% of that would shine all the time, I'd be golden. I've been working hard on the feeling of dread that I carry with me 24/7 and ETF is helping. It's a sort of hole in the stomach type of feeling. I'm going to read over what you guys said and analyze it when I have more time. 

 

I know I am too hard on myself. I am very very angry that I have to battle with my subconscious. Sometimes I just feel like killing myself (not that I would, I have kids) but as sort of a spite against my subconscious. Like a screw you, I win type of thing. 

 It pains me that this has to be so difficult for me to contend with. The habit does nothing for me, and I consciously know that. I wish that humans did not have a subconscious part of us. I mean what the hell, there's two of me? So that means everyone has multiple personality disorder. So 1/2 of me wants to be rid of the habit, 1/2 of me (which is totally unaccessible and not to be reasoned with) wants to keep the habit. It's mind boggling to me. 

 You guys don't have to go into detail about it. I've read just tons of books about the subconscious. Mine is just locked up tight. 

 So I'm starting by doing what Gary says in the book, which is to write down every single emotionally charged experience you've ever had. That's what I'm going to start with I suppose, just writing, which is good for the mind anyhow. 

 

Anxiety? Know all about it. Panic attacks? Yep, have had those too. Luckily I've rid myself of most of the conscious anxiety and rarely have panic attacks any more. But I do believe you are on the right track that smoking is not the problem. I always knew that, sort of, but don't know where to begin I guess. I shall read your replies in depth when time permits. Thank you. 

 

I do wish I could pay someone to help me. But everything costs endless money and insurance only covers what doesn't help you. It's tough to contain the anger I feel about all of this. I mean I'm not in a rage or anything or going to break stuff. I'm done with that, but why the hell does it have to be so difficult? That's my #1 problem with this planet / body. 

 

Thanks again, 

 

Kevin

 test

Hi Kevin,

Off list and on my own, I am working on using a piano monotrone, timer, in ways to effect healing and change, and if you want, and it may take me about 5 minutes over the phone  to do a session with you that my help you rid yourself of your smotking addiction.  This is just an offer to you, and I hope that I not offened you by my making it , and I truly hope that you of your own help yourself, and this offer is just incase you feel that you may not be able to rid your self your addition.  And for me, this is just an opportunity to see if by using a monotrone in specific way, and with the person doing some EDMR, rapid eye movement, if this system can cure addition.  I use it with good effect for few other things, and another case of addiction, that to be honest, as of did it work or not? With some it is hard to get a true straight answer if the were helped or not.  So I send some advance apology if what I done may seem inappripiate to you.

Aloha,

Harry

Sorry, To List Moderators,

I meant to send a post direct to Kevin, but it seems that I sent it to the list by mistake, and I do now wish that it be put on the list, I hope that my request be honored.

Thanks,

Harry

 Sent you an email Harry. I'd be willing to try anything. Hey, if it works then you can consider your method to "work on the worst case scenario" :)

 

Kevin

 Harry your mail I sent bounced back

 

unconventional at verizon dot net is my email

Can I add my two pence worth - I am working up to quitting smoking, and I have been lucky enough to be able to see a practitioner because this is a real biggie for me, I've found it incredibly difficult to stop before and the last time I tried I went down with chronic depression. Smoking isn't just a question of a physical addiction, there are umpteen issues around it. So I made a list of everything I could think of that needed addressing, and some of the things that we looked at were: Control - this was the one area of my life that I felt I had control over. Stress relief Being adult - I couldn't wait to grow up and I saw smoking as a really adult thing to do. Confidence And this one was quite surprising - camaraderie with other smokers. I moved from England to France not long ago and both countries have bans on smoking in public places, so you have to go outside to smoke. Any other smokers there accept you unquestioningly as part of their group. When we looked at this we got loneliness - I was the youngest, unwanted child in my family and a very lonely little girl. There are other things too - reward for a task done, cigarettes are an old friend (and there's grief over losing that too), permission to take time out, smokers are more interesting...I had a long list! Make a list of what cigarettes mean to you and these are aspects you can address before stopping to give yourself the best chance. And think of what you can do to distract yourself or new habits you can develop. Best wishes to you - and good luck ;-) Linda

knucklebrain:

 It pains me that this has to be so difficult for me to contend with. The habit does nothing for me, and I consciously know that. I wish that humans did not have a subconscious part of us. I mean what the hell, there's two of me? So that means everyone has multiple personality disorder. So 1/2 of me wants to be rid of the habit, 1/2 of me (which is totally unaccessible and not to be reasoned with) wants to keep the habit. It's mind boggling to me.

I used to feel like you've described here.  I was seriously ill for 20 years and felt like a part of me was holding me hostage.  There was no way that I could see that the illness was doing anything for me.  I hated that I couldn't just move on and that a part of me was holding me back.  However over time I learnt that the part of me that was driving the behaviour could become accessible - if I gave it some space and approached it with curiosity instead of hatred or the intention to get rid of it.  When I was able to do that, I discovered that that part of me had protected me through trauma and really was working in what it thought was my best interests.  And I discovered that I didn't have to reason with it - I just had to hear it.  After that I let go of all those years of ill health and have been well ever since.  I know you are most likely having difficulty relating this to your own example, but I just wanted to share what I've learnt - we don't have to reason with those parts of ourselves, we don't have to convince them of anything, we simply have to hear them.  They are holding stuff for us we couldn't process when we were younger.  Now it's our turn to hold a space for them to simply accept their feelings and then they can move forward, opening up the way for us to move forward.  They are a part of us and the longer we reject them, the harder they hold on to what they think their job is.

Apologies if this stuff from my own experience doesn't help, just thought I'd share it in case it does.

Hang in there,

Jo

 

I just happened to come across an interesting example of someone successfully stopping smoking with EFT on the net today.  It's an interesting story - there are real parallels with what you write about hating yourself for smoking.  If it would help to read of someone's success with this, you can read the article at http://www.innertheater.net/2009/10/the-part-that/

Best wishes,

Jo

 I mailed that lady who wrote that article to see about sessions. Thanks for that. Seems kind of hokey, but I've been spending time being nice to this other part of me. I call it little Kevin. I guess the beating the sh*t out of myself mentally isn't doing it. I've been doing that for 39 years. So I'm working on clearing out all the past trauma. 

 Funny thing. I've been taking maca for the anxiety and haven't needed to use klonazepam (which I despise - makes me exhausted). So I ran out of maca the other day and the past 2 days I've been like totally dizzy. Had to leave the supermarket this evening while my wife continued shopping. I don't let it get to me so much, but the dizzy (I'm going to pass out) really sucks. So that's one of the 8000 things I'm working on as well. I don't let it all get to me. I spend 45 mintues a night tapping. 

 The part that I don't get is that I'm having trouble figuring out what is emotionally charged as far as memories. I mean I cleared out the really bad stuff like the bloody knife fights between my parents, my father bashing his head on the corner of his dresser on purpose and bleeding all over the house. I mean there is a lot of other stuff, but I can't seem to give it a number. 

 What was the worst was this. I never worried about death. I use to smoke a good amount of pot as a teenager, never really got into drinking too much. One day I had bad gas up in my chest, was stoned and thought I was having a panic attack. I was like 17 or 18. I went in an ambulance to the hospital. Was my first panic attack. Since then, every aspect of my life is different. Pot really messed me up, or the panic attack did. But I lost a good chunk of my will to live I suppose after that. I was house bound with immense panic for a good month, unable to sleep. I guess I need to work on that memory / memories. The thing is though it doesn't bother me so much, the incident itself. What bothers me is that if I never had that panic attack, my outlook on life wouldn't have gone down the sh*t tubes. I guess I sort of feel really bummed out. 

 Funny, as I type here, this is therapy. Things are coming out such as "that panic attack screwed me up" , "If I had normal parents, I would be normal...."

 I guess this is part of the process ha?

 Anyhow, I appreciate so much the genuine kindness of you all. I help people whenever I can and I'd love to be able to do this as a job. I'm in IT (oracle database admin) and I despise the whole industry. I'm more at peace with it now than I had been in the past with anger and rage for it and an aching back as result, but I get nothing out of it except a good living. Not to get into it, but I figured I'd explain why I'm broke with such a good paying job and a RN manager for a wife that makes excellent money. My 12 year old daughter lives with my X-gf who I pay child support for and my 2 year old is in day care. Those two bills are about 2k per month, LOL. So I know that smoking isn't helping the money situation either, but I wish to God that I could find someone really good with EFT and had the money to pay them. But even if I did, I'd be weary because I assume there's a lot of hacks out there. 

 I feel I'd be good with EFT because of my excellent intuition. I seem to have a mastery at digging into other folks minds and linking core beliefs to their problems. I seem to lack that ability on myself though. But I got time and this is exciting stuff anyhow. Sorry to bore you all. I guess without all these problems there would be not much to do ha? LOL

 

Kevin

knucklebrain:

I mailed that lady who wrote that article to see about sessions. Thanks for that. Seems kind of hokey, but I've been spending time being nice to this other part of me. I call it little Kevin. I guess the beating the sh*t out of myself mentally isn't doing it. I've been doing that for 39 years. So I'm working on clearing out all the past trauma.

Good for you Kevin - both for reaching out to someone to help and reaching out to little Kevin.  He'll appreciate both. :0)  And it's great that you've seen that beating yourself up isn't doing it for you.  As they say, if we want our future to be different, we have to start doing something differently, and you've done that.

knucklebrain:

 The part that I don't get is that I'm having trouble figuring out what is emotionally charged as far as memories. I mean I cleared out the really bad stuff like the bloody knife fights between my parents, my father bashing his head on the corner of his dresser on purpose and bleeding all over the house. I mean there is a lot of other stuff, but I can't seem to give it a number. 

Healing is a process and it's not as neat as making a list and tapping through it all and you're done, as much as any of us would like it to be that way.  Memories are interlinked, and sometimes we need to clear one particular issue before another one is ready to access.  We can't force the healing by figuring out what we need to work on with our conscious mind.  We need instead to trust that our subconscious mind will lead us where we are ready to go right now.  That's one of the reasons why I like the approaches like Inner Theater (the approach used in that article) - it helps to get our "trying to figure it out" mind out of the way, and allows the mind that doesn't have to figure it out because it already knows to guide us.  And it's very common not to be able to get intensity on some stuff - it could be that little Kevin doesn't yet feel safe enough to go there.

knucklebrain:

Funny, as I type here, this is therapy. Things are coming out such as "that panic attack screwed me up" , "If I had normal parents, I would be normal...."

 I guess this is part of the process ha?

Sure is. :0)  That's one of the benefits of sharing our process with someone else.  It will most likely be very important to work on the memory of your first panic attack, and there may be several different aspects.  If you do have a session with the practitioner, that might be a good place to start.  If you decide to tap on it on your own, try to access Kevin at 17 and ask him how he felt rather than assuming for him, then tap on that.  How we look at something in the past is usually somewhat different to how we experienced it at the time.  I like using Matrix Reimprinting for this sort of stuff, but that's something you might not have time to pursue right now (it's a variant of EFT, if you want to read about it you can here and the article links to some interesting audios you can download free on it.)

knucklebrain:

I guess without all these problems there would be not much to do ha? LOL

As crazy as it sounds, throwaway comments like that are worth tapping on. :0)  Sometimes part of us wants to keep us occupied with our issues because it's afraid of what life is going to be like if we heal.  Sometimes the known, no matter how undesired, appears safer than the unknown.  Little things like this can be something we need to address along the way. :0)

You've got what Gary Craig says are the three most things with EFT... persistence, persistence and persistence - it's great you are tapping every day.  And hey - you aren't boring anyone - we are all hear to learn together and share support, both of which are an important part of healing.

Very best wishes,

Jo

 Funny, I try to find a practioner to work with. You sent that link on inner theater. I don't really get it, even though it seems simple. I contacted Pat Burns and she basically said she can't help. Oh well. 

 

You said "Healing is a process and it's not as neat as making a list and tapping through it all and you're done, as much as any of us would like it to be that way."

 

Well Garys book says to make a list of all the things that bother you and tap on them. That's what I'm doing. Am I doing something wrong? I don't really like the idea of the subconscious taking it's damn sweet time. It really plain pisses me off that I have this childlike hidden aspect of me that wants to protect me. Perhaps it's true, but what purpose does the God Damn thing serve besides fighting me tooth and nail on everything I try to do. I want to be rid of it, completely. 

 I am sort of a no budge type of guy. I want what I want and nothing is going to stop me, not even by stupid subconscious. I don't know why I have all this anger with my inner part of me. I was in a super mood today, till I came on here and read all of this and started thinking about it. It really gets to me that everything has to be so F'N difficult. 

 Anyhow Jo, my anger is not directed at you personally. I appreciate your willingness to help. I guess I need a few more sessions where I speak to this little BABY inside and give it it's way. However if I could drag it out of me and actually see and and touch it. I'd set fire to it and stomp it to death then light it on fire again. :)

 Now back to my good mood, LOL and bringing my 2 year old girl to trick or treat in a while. Thank you for the help. 

 If any of you have any suggestions for people that do EFT on the phone, I'm all ears. I want someone that highly competent though. There's a lot of EFT "experts" on the net. 

 

Thank you and Happy Halloween.