Read the first chapter online for free: "Changing Your Mind" (Reading Hypnosis)
Addicted to NOT Smoking:
A Hypnotic Trip into Cigarettelessness
Meditation, suggestions for transformation, spiritual renunciation, reading hypnosis… and there's a ninja! This book provides an introspective trip for smokers-trying-to-quit. Your guide during this strange jaunt toward cigarettelessness is the book's narrator, an emotionally disturbed ninja, and he seems eerily symbolic of something… The ninja can feel comfortable without any ninja face-mask, and without hiding behind clouds of smoke; the reader can feel more comfortable with every page, every paragraph, narrowing the focus in a meditative state of mind.
In addition to entertainment and instruction, this book provides an experience of hypnosis consciousness—while reading—as the body responds to suggestions for relaxation and focus. With entertaining, detailed instruction and poignant suggestions for change, it really is possible to "get addicted to not smoking." Changing your mind is easy when the suggestions, stories, exercises, and instructions in this book send you reeling head-over-heels into hypnosis consciousness.
The smoker's struggle against addiction represents an existential crisis, and
The renunciation of cigarettes can be like a spiritual practice.
Meditation, self-hypnosis, and renunciation practice are related to the ancient, inner disciplines generally represented by the literary genre of meditation/mindfulness. Plenty of books about meditation and mindfulness are already on the market; they are abundant and popular for a good reason (they ease the existential anguish that comes with mortality, helping us to keep our heads together during this weird trip). Likewise, many books have been written for smokers trying to quit. This manuscript is intended to fill a special niche in a giant market by applying the power of meditation/mindfulness literature to the vast market of smokers trying to quit.
Addicted to Not Smoking is worth the price because it offers:
· An opportunity for a surreal experience.
· An opportunity to learn about self-hypnosis.
· Funny reading that is relevant to the smoking habit.
· A good gift for smokers trying to quit.
Of the available books for smokers trying to quit, Addicted to Not Smoking will be the one that has serious practices presented in a not-too-serious way. People who continue to smoke even though they want to quit often have a not-too-serious desire to quit,[2] and this manuscript meets them at their own state of mind.
In Barnes & Noble's "addiction recovery" section, one quickly notices the books by Allen Carr: The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. The fact that Carr sold more than seven million copies attests to the potential of this market. (It also comes up first when you search Amazon for quit-smoking books.) This is a classic, and Carr is a hero, but many people would choose Addicted to Not Smoking, instead, for its comedic value.
Deepak Chopra has two books for addiction recovery, but, lucky for me, neither is intended specifically for smokers. In fact, most of the Barnes & Noble books in this section are about addiction recovery in general, and most of the ones that are about specific habits address alcoholism or compulsive eating; only Carr's books and a few others are specifically for smokers.
Quitting Cigarettes:
A Practice of Renunciation
The person wants a cigarette, but you want to awaken as the timeless being. The temporary person wants a cigarette, wants a snack, wants a compliment, wants to be entertained. Even after the person gets something he or she wants, the wanting goes on and on. This temporary person, all caught up in a dream, wants one thing after another until, finally, death. But you are something more. You are the great observer, that mysterious witness. You are the creative being who dances in reality, now here, now there, always changing forms, yet always arising from the same place of stillness. You dive into one dream after another, and in between dreams you awaken as the higher being, gradually and full of wonder.
At first, you identified with the person. You became absorbed in the person's story while you ran around as him or her. Now you are going through a process of dis-identification from the person. You have begun to make a distinction between the higher being and the temporary person. Just as the master transcends by means of an art or trade, just as the mystic transcends by the practice of meditation, just as the faithful believer transcends by offering the self to God, you, too, are starting to transcend the temporary reality of the person and awaken as the higher being. You are discovering the power that comes from putting aside the wants of the person in favor of Creative Action, and you are enabling the higher being to emerge.
An invisible process is going on. The secret knowledge, the knowledge you receive only after faithful practice, is this:
Renunciation practice enables you to remember your timeless self.
The master renounces the person's wanting by becoming absorbed in skillful action. The mystic renounces the person's wanting by keeping still. The faithful believer renounces the person's wanting by performing selfless work. Renunciation of wanting enables them to remember. When you establish your own firm practice of renunciation, you will begin to intuit the truth about your existence: that you have access to a source of unlimited creative power because, at the same time as you are being a person, you also remain a timeless, creative being. In any moment, you can shift your attention to the place of stillness and be the being that is beyond the person, the being that has no beginning or end in time, but instead plays forever in the boundless world of creation.
A spiritual practice is one that cultivates your awareness of your existence independent of the person. Spiritual seekers from every religious discipline have been using renunciation to achieve communion with the higher being. Careful attention given to the spiritual act of renouncing the object of the person's wanting—cigarettes, in your case—changes your experience to that of the higher being: timeless, and not limited to the person. This knowledge of yourself as the higher being, which can be cultivated by any practice of renunciation, is the source of your new power.
If you regard birth as your very beginning and death as some sort of an end, then time seems to be 'going by.' If, instead, you see clearly that you are eternal, then you've never begun and you won't end. Time stays right where it is. Ride the present moment like a surfer on a wave and you can experience one, unending moment. Whether you are moving around or sitting very still, eternity happens now. You don't wait for Heaven; Heaven happens now, or not at all. Eternity is timeless by definition. We are not on a time line drawn in the direction of something called future—we are floating in the one, ongoing moment.
Renunciation Ninja
Here is a story to explain how smoking can get in the way of achieving your full potential. The purpose of the story is to introduce to your person a new disposition toward the smoking habit. Prepare to embrace change as it is applied to the very deepest beliefs held by the person! Permit your person to act according to the true nature of things, letting go all illusions about smoking cigarettes. The story gives your person an alternative to his or her current ideas about smoking. A funny metaphor sticks in the person's memory for a long time, creating change. In this analogy, smoking cigarettes is compared to masturbation, and you are compared to a ninja.
Once upon a time there was a masturbating ninja. He was a skillful ninja who could flip, and roll, and jump high, and kill you with a poisonous dart while hidden up in a nearby tree. His ninja-ing was top-notch, very impressive. Still, the other ninjas never took him seriously because of one compulsive habit that he couldn't seem to get over. Something he did more consistently than anything else.
Consistently? Constantly. Before and after every ninja mission, sometimes even during the missions, he had to pull out his little ninja sword and polish it like hell. Thrashing around on the grass outside his ninja hut, it looked like he was wrestling with himself and losing. Have you ever seen a ninja masturbate? They really get into it. Don't stand too close if you know what's good for you.
The other ninjas called him names and often kicked his ass. They never let him join in any of their ninja games. One day, the masturbating ninja couldn't take it anymore. He made a sacred ninja vow not to take it out or even touch it under the cloth of his ninja costume from four o'clock Thursday afternoon until ten o'clock the following morning. None of the other ninjas even applauded his effort. They were very unsupportive.
When ten o'clock came around, the masturbating ninja had fulfilled his vow. He was about to celebrate by yanking out his shit and having a real climactic battle with special effects and subtitles and everything when, all of a sudden, his ninja village was attacked by hundreds of enemy ninjas from an opposing ninja clan. The masturbating ninja quickly removed his ninja nipple clamps and sprang to his feet with a spectacular ninja jump. He left the video playing in his VCR and ran outside to help protect the village.
They were outnumbered and unprepared, and it seemed as if the enemy ninjas would surely defeat them. One thing our hero had going for him, however, was that he was experiencing a tremendous surplus of energy and mental focus. As he fought his way through the crowd, he realized that his skill and strength had doubled over night because he had not depleted it all over his ninja hut because of that compulsion, that habit. His energy had built up so much that he felt invincible. Soon, he was fighting the attackers all by himself while his exhausted ninja friends watched in amazement. He punched right through armor, caught bullets in his teeth, and beat off the enemies with quick, frantic movements.
The masturbating ninja had saved the day. He had held back from indulgence and become the most powerful ninja of them all. His heightened focus was far more rewarding than the immediate gratification he had sought in the past, so he started to make a practice of it. His strongest urges to indulge and seek immediate gratification yielded the sharpest, most focused attention when he abstained.
See? So, begin this process the way you would begin a rigorous workout, and know that you are building up your personal power. You'll be exercising that inner sense of clarity and purpose called "will power," building up energy, weaning your body off nicotine, and cleaning out your lungs, all at the same time.
The most important thing is to have a feeling of taking action instead of trying to hold back from the act of smoking a cigarette. Even though quitting will improve your life and delay your death, your previous attempts to quit smoking have been unsuccessful, because your state of mind changes every day, every minute. You approach death gradually over a period of time, but your cigarette cravings occur in this moment. What you need is a positive activity that you can apply to the moment—every time you think you want a cigarette.
Addicted to Not Smoking introduces a practice called "smoke-strike," with which you can begin to conquer this habit in the correct frame of mind. Rather than fighting with yourself and using self-discipline, you will strengthen your spirit and gradually affect change in the mind until, one day very soon, you discover that you've risen above the whole shit.
