One of the wonderful aspects of navigating a wellness coaching business is finding my strengths along the way and attracting those that would resonate. I am surprised to be surprised finding out who I am. And I am even more surprised at the people who find their way to me for support and assistance. There, more often than not, is a shared vibration which makes even the stickiest, difficult work a joy for us both.
Whereas most nurses are very directive, that is not my favorite approach (although it has been fun to play the bossy role at times). The bodyworker-artist in me finds my own and other's difficulties intriguing. In relation to a healing or dealing with a habit, I can do all the linear list making a client could ever want, but what I really love and find most effective, is collaborating. In regards to wellness, I don't personally like being told what to do, and I have found most autonomous, self-directed adults feel likewise. I like figuring things out with the light guidance of others. I like to be empowered in the process, not directed by an other's force (well meaning or not). So, creating relationship with one whom helps and making relationship with that which needs attention is an adventure worth exploring.
One of the approaches I've used successfully as of late with addiction (in particular smoking) has been focusing compassion on the parts of oneself that needs smoking to survive. Forget about the external addiction. Who in this person needs, craves, longs for cigarettes? Don't quit smoking out of inner/outer pressure from others or out of shame. Quit smoking because you don't need it anymore. Heal the original wound.
The parts of a client that need smoking are vulnerable. The last thing they need is contempt, ridicule, disappointment and rejection coming at them. They hardly can admit their existence out of fear of being seen as weak, pathetic and pitiful. Working with people to divulge these delicate areas in themselves, works best if humor is in play. Also, creatively using trance state, movement and play in venues that a client appreciates and relaxes in, is useful. Buoyancy and play help in the suspension of fear and negativity.
What I have been finding in many people who depend upon smoking, is they do so because it takes the edge off of their loneliness, frustrations, sense of isolation, misery, grief, feeling of abandonment, or friendlessness. People who smoke (maybe who struggle with any addiction or hard habit) have had a trauma around one of these mentioned areas that they could not then and have not since been able to navigate. They started smoking when their girlfriend left them back in high school, or the kids went off to college or lost a job, etc. Or they started smoking to quell a sense of self-inadequacy, disappointment, disillusionment. Over time, smoking became inextricably linked to relief from these emotional states that are hard to admit to oneself or others. Emotional states that are unbearable (without a cigarette). This is the human condition. In practice, this is what surfaces, the pictures that unfold, the stories that get told. The feelings linked to the smoking are usually more shaming for the client than the actual smoking.
So, how does this compassion approach work? What I do is set an intention with the client to
not change anything overtly, but to watch, observe and even honor the need by caring for the needy-one. This allows change to unfold organically, naturally, non-violently. We watch the ritual of smoking; the reliable time around the urges, how a cigarette is actually handled from beginning to end, the thoughts and feelings in the inhale, the exhale, the smells and other sense involvement. I encourage practicing a suspension of judgement or self criticism during the study; it frees up that which is curious and interested. Clients record heavy/light usage times, when is the best cigarette of the day, when is the time it is most negligible. They record the sense of
who in them requires a drag or two (the bored, defiant teenager, the lonely child?). We also record the external and internal stressors, the hiding of it from certain places and people, when is it enjoyable and when is it repugnant. In this process, they (and I) begin to become more familiar with what the habit of smoking is to this unique organism, what it means to all/most of themselves, the joy and sorrow around it, connected to it and the pleasure/displeasure present. And we are easy (even playful) about it. Hell, brimstone and cancer threats are not required.
What happens in this approach is the person inside who has this habit is less shrouded in shame, becomes more self-accepted. A curiosity is cultivated. It doesn't become about "breaking" the habit, it's more about the interesting self who participates in the habit and all the accompanying circumstances and history that support it. It becomes an awakening of sorts that is freed from the previous inevitable guilt. When clients start to emerge out of their shame and guilt over the addiction, I've witnessed a soaring sense of creativity and intuition from them, which then becomes like a beacon toward a movement of change. Seemingly all of a sudden, they decide their living situation needs tweaking to abate their loneliness. Or they acquire a pet, join a church, or take up an art class. Experiencing this vivid creativity, they begin to feel what it is like to be more themselves. This phenomenon by itself is enormously comforting. And then, quite anticlimactically one day (in their own time) it is decided, "You know, I don't think I want to have smoking in my life anymore. I don't need it." Like giving up old clothes that don't feel right anymore. And every time this happens for a client, there is a new Wow for me. It's incredible how natural and non violent the action is. The stopping wasn't based on withholding, denying, shame or judgement. It's based on a healing seated in a global sense of self love.
Post smoking cravings and urges are there, but taken in perspective, because they've been studied with compassion. One senses one's dimension; no longer held in these mean, contemptuous pigeonholes of "weak", "addict", "hopeless, never to change", "disgusting", etc. The secret corners have been exposed to benevolence. Someone loving, kind and occasionally funny has partnered up with them--- themSelf. They truly are no longer alone or friendless or isolated. They've evolved caring witnesses within in the process of courageously facing their history, undisclosed feelings and their truth.
This approach is really a larger commitment to know oneself, and yet also does happen to be effective in habit cessation. People who appreciate this inside-out work, are the types of clients I am interested in and whom seem to be attracted to my wellness work. I can and have done the directed, linear approach. But, it is not that interesting to me. It requires but a perfunctory formation of a relationship to self, other or the issue. If it is at all successful, it's almost always partially so. Compassion work is a commitment but it lasts a lifetime; once you get a taste, a gist of it, it's pretty easy to access and keep as a consistent constant in one's life. It actually becomes almost impossible not to actively know it. It is Love in action, something one begins to find, they can't live without.
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