Back in April of 2010, (April 4, 2010 to be exact) and after what I consider my whole life, I quit smoking! Yep…I did it and it was surprisingly easy this time! I read the book, “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking” by Allen Carr. I have told everyone I know that smokes about it at this point, and I tell everyone I see on the streets smoking who will listen, about it! No one I know as of this date, that I have told, has read it. Stubborn bunch, my friends are!

I found out about the book from my cousin. She used to smoke and she read the book…results? She QUIT! My mother, who had smoked for over 50 years and had tried to quit numerous times, read it…results?? She QUIT! I never thought she would/could! So…me, not really wanting to quit, (I was smoking a half a pack or less at that point) but always knowing I should quit for health reasons, decided to read the book just to see what it was about. Results?  As you probably already know, being the brilliant ones who read my blog (and reading the first sentence)…I QUIT!

I always liked the smell of cigarettes, despite the fact that they made me sneeze.  I think that was probably because I felt some closeness and attachment to my Dad through the scent of tobacco. The memories that the sense of smell can bring to mind are extremely powerful.  He was a jockey and died after a horse racing accident when he was 30…I was 7.

He was a smoker, and I remember that smell of tobacco smoke on my blanket and the taste of tobacco on his fingers.  (I found comfort in my “blanky” being a thumbsucker.)  When I was a little girl, I had choked on something I was eating.  My Dad stuck his fingers in my mouth and pulled it out.  That is how I remembered that taste; it was on his fingers.  I have often wondered if the truth of the matter of why I even started to smoke has to do with that memory and needing to have him around me – that sense of being connected to him in some way…anyway that I possibly could?  I’m thinking I could be onto something with that revelation.

I now think smoking has many things attached to it in a person’s mind, not to mention it being a great way to cope with anxieties.  I really don’t think there is much of an addiction to nicotine, well, in my experience and in hind sight.  By telling myself I was addicted to the nicotine made it easier for me to stay “addicted”.  I think it’s the relief of many “symptoms” from many sources, (mainly emotional) that a smoker receives from the smoking ritual.  I also think it is the ritual that is addicting along with the payoff of being a tool of instant gratification for anxiety.  As those that know me are aware, I am the “Queen of Theories” so, of course, I now have one about smoking.  Maybe I’ll blog about it in depth one of these days.

I started to smoke on a regular basis, (which translates to, I was addicted to the ritual and started to buy my own cigs), at the tender age of 17.  Ahhhhh being 17!  The days when I wouldn’t be caught dead with make up nor would I pluck those caterpillers I have since tamed and now call eyebrows!  It was all about being natural…a true Southern California Hippy Girl.  Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll…it was my life and my lifestyle.  Oh the memories.  The late 1970’s in Hollywood, when my address was where I parked my car!  Yet again, more memories of things I might blog about one day.

I am beginning to view my time living here in the desert as me building a safe cocoon around myself, while I continue to transform, learning more about me and the things around me; what I want, what I don’t want, all the while working hard to get some grasp of how things work in this big, bad, and ever shrinking, world.  I’m getting ready for the new and improved me to emerge back into this world armed with a new understanding and jest for life.  I know, I’m forever hopeful that goodness, joy, love, abundance, bliss, and all things good in this world will arrive for my lifetime.  I figure if I keep thinking that way and working in that direction, soon the thoughts will manifest into the life I’m creating in my mind.  I’m almost there, I can feel it.  Now, if I could only find the end of the thread on this cocoon to pull and unravel the protective covering and complete the transformation.  I know, I know…there will be no wine before it’s time, and I am now becoming that fine wine, aged to perfection, or in my case, aged into the fine balance of imperfection.

Thoughts continue through my head that maybe this upcoming transformation is the reason I had to stop smoking.  I wasn’t trying to quit nor did I really want to.  I have questioned the decision of quitting due to the weight gain and I am wondering if it’s that great for my body to have stopped doing something thatÂI have done for as long as I can remember.  I did want and did accomplish ridding myself of all other addictions in my life, including the addiction to the toxic people that have been around me.  Smoking was the last addiction. Maybe that is why I have to be here, in this place, at this moment, to have arrived here, emotionally, mentally, and physically.  Maybe this is what all of the searching for “teachers” and mentors in my life, i.e.; the psychics, astrologers, Reiki Masters, Swamis, Llamas, Gurus, New Age teachers, channelers, charlatans, Churches, Temples, Holistic Health professionals, nutritionists, mind altering drugs, philosophers, formal and independent studies, and the list goes on and on during my quest, was about.  To get me here, wrapped in this cocoon, isolated from many things, learning, and awaiting the reentry into a new life.  I am now not so easily swayed, or bullied, and not nearly as insecure as I once was, nor am I as painfully and cripplingly shy, so all things have and are constantly changing and evolving, including me.  It’s now my turn to grab the brass ring, take all the help I gave to others and reclaim it for myself, while dancing off into the sunset to the rhythm of new vibrations from all the gathered information which will take me into the next dimension of my life…becoming who I need to be…ME…complete.

Since I stopped smoking, I have gained a lot of weight!  I can’t lose it and it is continuing to rise, no matter what I do.  I have a radical “reboot” I am going to start in a few weeks.  I will log that transformation here in the blog and I will be taking video.  Lots to do to get prepared before I can begin.  It will be a reboot that will transform my body.  My thinking now is that this will be the completion to the transformation at the end of that reboot, and the unraveling of the cocoon will begin.  I plan to stretch my new wings and as they dry, a new me will emerge, rejuvenated, complete, healthy mind and body, confident, and whole.  Ill be brand new, from the inside; mind, soul, and body…MY new trinity to keep within for all time and beyond.  I just might regain my bohemian lifestyle of being surrounded by artists, musicians, and creative people, with all of us creating something.  That will be full circle for me.  Perhaps that is just what I need – to go full circle to be able to go beyond.  Things that make me go, hmmmmmmmm, as the self-examination, self-realization, rejuvenation, and just trying to figure things out continues, while I work and wait to break out of the this cocoon.

My conclusion to being a non-smoker?   Reading all of this, I’d have to say, since I have quit smoking, I’ve lost my mind…or not…

(If you want to reboot with me, let me know by clicking on the Feedback tab at the top right, or click here to go to the Contact page form, and I’ll get you the information so we can reboot together!  Misery loves company, you know…)