Smoking
More Healing Tales
My client, "Vicky," told me that she wanted to give up smoking, but when she tried to, she smoked more. Further, she didn't want to give up smoking today. She wanted to at some point, but not right now.
This was all I need to know to help Vicky solve her problem. Speaking to her conscious as well as her unconscious self in a way that was quite particular to her, first, I repeated her comments. She wanted to give up smoking, but when she tried to, it just got worse, and she wanted to give up smoking, but not today. "I like that. Since you don't want to give up smoking today, we won't try to. Just like you don't try to breathe, and when you're having trouble breathing freely and you try, it gets worse, you won't try to give up smoking. Just like you don't have to learn to breathe - babies breathe very well - they learn to talk, walk, read, later to drive, but they're born knowing how to breathe deeply, wonderfully - in the same way, you won't have to learn to give up smoking. You won't have to try to do it. You can just notice your breathing, and that point where air becomes breath. It's air, and then it becomes part of you, your life, your breath. This magic thing happens. It becomes part of your living organism. You expel it, you take it in, it changes into part of you, part of your life. You don't have to try to breathe easily, freely, you already know how."
She continued to smoke for a few months until one day she reached for a cigarette, said to herself, "I don't want this," and did not smoke that cigarette. At that point, she simply stopped smoking: she quit, without trying to. She remembered our session and said to herself, amazed, "Matthew said this would happen!"