How I did it: It's quite easy once you understand that you can live without the gesture. Smoking, having a cigarette in your hand, exhaling smoke through your mouth and nostrils.. it's not cool, nor interesting. Anybody can do it. It's not something special. Just try to look at a smoker. Isn't it silly the way he introduces smoke in his lungs, in his body only to get it out? It's stupid to buy the opportunity to inhale smoke!!

Smelling the same way every day - not necessarily like an ashtray, but still - that cigarette odor is there no matter which perfume you wear, it's not something special.
Coughing, breathing with difficulty after some minor effort, it's not something special.
Staining your hands, your teeth, your skin, your body with that tar it's not something special.
Refraining from buying nice stuff for yourself - like apartment plants, nice clothes, nice books, beautiful smelling teas, tasty foods - so many lovely things that life has to offer; refraining from investing your money in traveling and other hobbies that you like in order to have money for cigarettes it's not something special.
And more than this.. all your friends, the people that love you and want to spend time with you, to talk with you at a cup of coffee.. they are obliged to inhale your.. YOUR poison. We are poisoning our loved ones.. And we think it makes us special. It does not.

Lessons & tips: I decided to quit, basically because of the smell. Everything I owned.. smelled. I had no identity through my personal odor.
And also.. because of the money. It's strange how people's minds work. For example.. I am a woman. I like to shop, naturally. I like to have things. But being a smoker, a lot of my money (and i'm not very rich - student, not working because of my school schedule, living with rent) went in cigarettes. I was unhappy because I never could afford some nice things I would have enjoyed in my home, in my life. So.. to eliminate the frustration, I saw the act of buying cigarettes as a compensation.
It was a vicious cycle. I did not have money to buy things so I bought more cigarettes. When I decided to stop smoking, I immediately started to buy things that i previously could not afford like apartment plants which purify the air, books from second-hand bookshop, fruits, vegetables, strange spices, new flavors, tea specialties i did not tasted before. For every pack of cigarettes I did not buy, I bought my self something else. Now.. taking care of the flowers, drinking fruit cocktails, eating exotic fruits, reading interesting books, watching interesting movies.. all these things keep me busy. My life is far more interesting, full, complex that before.

Also.. the first days when I quit i enjoyed smelling my self, my clothes (I have lavender in my cupboard but before, it was useless), my sheaths, all sorts of food and beverages and flowers. After a few days my skin became more clear and luminous. My chest felt like liberated. 
All the things i've bought with the money that i've saved are always in front of my eyes, so it makes me happy everyday i look at them .
I've watched on youtube all the ads on smoking, i've been reading and doing research in order to ceer me up and to remind myself how good it is to protect your body, to cerish it because in the ene, it is our only asset. Everything else might be taken away from us.

Resources: - beautiful apartment flowers that purify the air
- exotic food and teas (life on earth has so much to offer)
- clothes
- perfumes
- anti-smoking ads
- information and knowledge
- watching smokers and realizing how stupid and unnatural, uncool it is to inhale that dangerous smoke
- imagining a different life for yourself
- realizing you are the same - even more interesting - without smoking and polluting yourself, your friends, your world
- realizing that smoking a cigarette it's a way of avoiding reality and living, feeling the moment. You have the impression of doing something when in reality you don't.

the most important thing is to constantly and definitely visualize yourself as a nonsmoker.
From now on.. you are free, you are more complex, capable of choosing the best thing for you, capable of creating a nicer life for yourself. Imagine yourself waiting for someone and not lighting a cigarette. Just sitting and hearing the world around you, feeling it, confronting it, living in that moment, not under or behind smoke. It's difficult but you have only one life. Maybe you will not die of cancer, maybe you will not loose your life, but surely you will miss some very nice things it has to offer.
Good luck!

May 15, 01:06AM PDT | 2 comments | 8 cheers