Patience

Patience is incredibly important. Every mind and every person is unique. You must remember this is a living situation we are dealing with here. I can not tell you how long it will be before you are seen by yourself and the world around you to be the non-smoker you now know yourself to be.

I can tell you that it was 6 months between when I first started to think of myself as a non-smoker and when I actually gave up smoking for the last time on the physical level. This was back in 1986 and then it was over a year before I felt fully confident in my new non-smoking self. However becoming a non-smoker was one of the best things I ever did in my life. I look back on those aspects of self that were living then with great gratitude for what they suffered and achieved for me as a whole person. If I had given up, and rejected my inner self just because the material world was not yet in harmony with it at any time throughout those six months I would not have had the joy of being a non-smoker that I have had for the past twenty years. My whole life would have been different and I would probably not be the happy person I am now.

Remember this is not a race, or a course with a prescribed time limit, it is a new way of thinking about yourself. Now that you are a non-smoker you are going to stay a non-smoker for ever. Therefore, from this moment, on you are always going to be thinking of yourself as a non-smoker. You are not ever going to mentally accept an image or the idea of yourself as a smoker again. This is a new way of thinking, there is no time limit, no end, and no need to worry about how successful or unsuccessful you think you are being. Simply decide, and then remember, that from now on you are a non-smoker and that is how you are going to think of yourself for the remainder of your life. For instance when the thought arises, "I need to buy some fags". Reply to it. "No I don't I am a non-smoker now." Be strong in a quiet way, even if you end up buying the cigarettes you can still remember that you are a non-smoker now. Think, ah well, the truth hasn't got through to that particular aspect of self yet, we will be patient, I wish that aspect of myself should find it easier to love the truth, I wish it could learn to be a little better at living every day.

Once more remember, this is not a race, not an externally controlled situation, so go steadily at your own pace and if at all possible enjoy the journey. In this case, as in so many things in life, the means are actually as important as, if not more important than, the end.