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 outside.
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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.
Sorry for the delay, kind and patient GUS folks...I did know pretty early on that I wasn't going to be able to pull anything together for this morning. The day kind of spiraled away from me, like a snowball rolling downhill, picking up speed and intensity (it was one of those Very Important Deadline days), capped by an appointment I couldn't reschedule. And here we are, at long last, about an hour (give or take) later than I'd hoped.
Ah well, it happens. But the things that trip us up or throw us off are very often not what we expect, and unique to each of us.
Take this afternoon---one reason I'm running late is that they were running late at the Vet, which is where I ended my workday, much to my dog's surprise and displeasure. Oh, he was a champ for most of it. Walked there just fine. Delivered the requested sample pretty much on cue. Didn't try to eat any of his fellow clinic patrons. Submitted patiently to all the prodding and poking, two shots, one squirt of something that pretty clearly didn't taste good, and even a quick nail trim. In fact, the ONLY thing he had a hard time with was something that you'd think would be a non-issue: stepping onto the pet scale in the corner of the office (which is about 3" off the ground and covered by a plain black mat).
By his reaction, I'm pretty sure the thing was either 1) haunted, 2) hot lava, 3) a terrifying Hellish punishment, because he would not even go NEAR it. I literally had to pick him up, put him on the harmless-looking platform, and hold him there, poor little guy. He was shaking; his heart was just pounding like a triphammer in his chest. It was worse than the Scary Blow-Dryer, the Evil Heating Oil truck, or the [possibly possessed] life-sized plastic Nativity on a nearby street (heretofore the most scary things in his universe) combined.
Why that particular thing is so scary for him is a mystery to me. I truly have no idea why that, and not any of the other things---things that would seem much more likely to scare him---bothered him so much.
But that's the way it goes, sometimes, isn't it? Incidents or situations that don't bother 99 out of a hundred people might be that hundredth person's worst-case scenario. Things that don't bother us on a normal day completely throw us for a loop if we're stressed out or not feeling well.
We all expect to be tested or challenged by the major stuff. We're conditioned to anticipate difficulty sticking to a quit, for example, if we know we're going to be dealing with unpleasant family or work stuff. We avoid quitting around holidays, or times where we know we'll be under additional stress. We study up and carefully plan our strategies to cope with those Big Life Challenges without our usual crutch.
It's the stuff you don't anticipate, though, that often catches you unaware and knocks you off your game. We're so focused on worrying about the Big Life Challenges that we forget that most of our day-to-day hurdles will be the little ones: the unexpected glitches, the minor everyday stresses, the harmless-seeming annoyance that somehow---without us even seeing it coming---spirals into this THING that knocks us off our stride or tanks our efforts.
We can't envision every scenario, or have a Plan B for every potential eventuality---it sucks up too much mental energy and besides, we're not clairvoyant. We live in a random universe; we're all wonderfully human (which means flawed) individuals, and we can't think of everything, all the time. Unexpected things happen.
But we can learn to be just as wary---not fearful, mind you, just aware---of those challenges that seem minor or mundane as we are about the big stuff. If we take the little stuff seriously, or ask ourselves why that little thing pushes our buttons, we'll have a better sense of our own triggers, and improve our new coping skills for problems both big AND little.
Who's Your Little Buddy?
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