GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or even just thinking of quitting, please join us! We kindly ask that politics be left out.
You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts, or access the GUS Library at dKosopedia for a great list of stop-smoking links. Check it out! Want to make sure you never miss us? Follow (♥) the GUS tag to keep GUS in your Stream and easily find the link to the latest one. It's just that easy!
A message to ALL quitters (and would-be quitters): You don't have to avoid GUS if you have a failed quit. We won't give you a bad time or nag you. We consider the failed quits as "practice" for the real quit.
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
I can't really say it better than Emerson did...it was good advice when he said it, and it's good advice now: dwelling on past mistakes, missteps, slip-ups, detours, perceived failures or actual, 100% bona fide major screw-ups does you no good. Better, I think, to reflect on them in the moment, see if you can learn anything from them, and then for heaven's sake, listen to Ralph Waldo and
LET IT GO.
Everyone messes up sometime. Some of us mess up most of the time. Beating ourselves up for those screw-ups---or worse (from a recovery perspective, at least) deriving some sense of personal identity from being a screw-up, a mess, a hopeless train-wreck, or some variation on being "bad" or "less than" or "wrong"---is a waste of time, and counterproductive to boot.
If we can make ourselves believe that there's no hope, that it's not worth the effort to even try, what we're doing is attempting to absolve ourselves from trying, and setting up an expectation---in ourselves and others---of ultimate failure. Whether we realize it or not, we're trying to let ourselves off the hook for doing the work we need to do to make change happen.
Don't let yourself fall into that trap, because it's based on a lie. No matter what anyone's told you, or what you've told yourself, or what you think you know about yourself: pretty much everyone's able to change. Including good ol' train-wreck-y you.
Practice the self-nurturing skill of shaking off the unproductive thought patterns that fuel the negative behavior patterns you're trying to change. Don't give headspace to tired old life scripts that say you're a mess who can't succeed. And internalize Emerson's advice: "Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
Who's your little buddy?
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