Moving forward

This is pretty much where I'm at right now. Walking through the woods slowly but deliberately, trying to see the forest from the trees and just be at peace. This past few days have definitely been much easier to deal with. I've had very few cravings and the ones I experience have come and gone quickly. I went to the health food store over the weekend and got some vitamins and I am following my plan which I described in earlier posts. Autumn is a time where a lot of things start up again, so with my full schedule and my body in flux I am really fatigued by the end of the day. I go to bed quite early these days. I do find my dreaming is vivid and filled but nothing disturbing or disruptive. My weeks are very full and I really feel in order to be successful right now I need to just take things one day at a time and not try to do everything at once. That said I really enjoy physical activity and I would like to make time in my schedule for something more regular. It just makes me feel a whole lot better. That's my plan for October, make regular time for some of the activities I really enjoy like yoga and jogging. That's my next great plan and I'm looking forward to it!

Sunday Morning

Fabulous wedding. It was beautiful, well done, heart felt and just a real joy all the way around. Yesterday morning was quite difficult, but not for reasons related to smoking or not smoking or feelings about quitting. At the wedding I had one small urge in the evening which practically passed before it came, and that was it.

I want to talk a little about urges and nicotine. From a holistic point of view it is my understanding that when we quit smoking nicotine cigarettes the addictive substance and other additives begins to exit our body. chemicals leave the body in many ways such as through perspiration and urine. After a period of time which is actually significantly more than 72 hours the vast majority of the nicotine and chemicals are gone but a very small amount of the substance can take years to completely clean out of the system. This is why an ex smoker of many years will suddenly have a craving out of no where. The system will have finally dislodged something and is sending it on its way. The craving occurs while whatever is in there is leaving the body. During my yoga teacher training my teacher talked about people who did a lot of praynama (breath work) smelling tobacco occasionally when they were doing breath exercises. This would be ten years after they quit smoking. Things were still being expelled ( hich is great!) When this happens there's a small urge which comes and goes.

I've noticed some people get very dramatic about cravings and urges, claiming they never go away and its a battle you live with every minute of every day or something to that fact. That's rather sensational and completely untrue but some people must be the drama queen no matter the situation or how appropriate or even if they only have the tiniest idea of what their talking about.

Happy Sunday, remember to breath and be well......

The Blues

Yesterday I did not have a single craving, not one. Unfortunately I made up for that nagging nasty feeling with a topsy turvy day of emotional ups and downs. So you ask what gets Miss. S so down she's a puddly mess? The answer is, it doesn't take much. A sentimental song, someone who is slightly rude, forgetting things I need to do, my dogs rushing to greet me when I come home, It takes nothing these days to activate the tear factory. The morning seems better but I can easily droop into tears by the afternoon. It's called hormones gone wild, Florida spring break style! I'm just going to have to ride this out. I was looking on some sites where people relate their experiences and quite a few people talked about emotional ups and downs and deep shitty stuff coming to the surface. Why not, everything else comes up, it makes sense the trash feelings will make there way to the surface with the other toxic junk coming out of the system. Tomorrow I am going to the health food store for vitamins, fresh yogurt and kava kava. I think my holistic intervention will ease some of the aches and pains. Today I have a wedding to go to, so in preparation I'm bringing lots of Kleenex as I can only imagine!

Good night and sweet dreams!

Day 19 and by the evening I'm just exhausted. Ironically, I'm less fatigued throughout my day and I wake up with more energy, but by evening I am DONE. Now for the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is my stamina increases every time I go for a jog which is intense positive reinforcement. Also it helps keep the weight down and prevents saggy, flabby big bottom syndrome, so thank you, I'll take it. The bad is feeling a little melancholy throughout the day, every day. Feeling low doesn't make me want to smoke, but its a primary contributor to my exhaustion at the end of the day. Loooots of changes in the body, looooots of hormones in flux right now. I just need to be a little patient and do a bit more yoga to even the system out. Make a little plan to help me through and stick to it, that's what I need to arrange for myself at the moment. The ugly are the return of canker sores This is not uncommon for A, people who have recently quit smoking or B, people under a lot of stress or C, people who have quit smoking who feel stressed out. I'm listening to my body and its telling me to look in the vitamin cabinet for B12 and if there isn't any in there this would be a fabulous time to go buy some. So there you have it, my grand plan for personal health and just getting through right now; keep jogging, increase the yoga and take B12 vitamins.

ps. Only have urges for a few hours in the evening. They come and go, I mean I'd like to kick their sorry ass right out of this house permanently, but eventually they will understand there unwanted and leave of there on accord!

Stress

Completely stressed out day yesterday. By the time I got home I was completely fried eggs. I had a few urges and was feeling sorry for myself as well. The urges were easy to ride over and move beyond as my real longing was to climb in bed and pull the sheets over my head and hide away from the world. I spent some time really thinking about my life, goals and what's particularly meaningful to me at this juncture. I came to some real resolutions and felt a rush of relief before I slipped off to sleep. This morning my throat feels a bit rough and I have a canker sore in my mouth. This is a sure sign I have been really stressed out but I think perhaps my body is in the process of cleaning out as well which can be a bit unpleasant. At this point its about handling the emotional which is equally difficult and takes longer to deal with than the physical. OK then, one more day down

Peace Day

Woke up feeling good today. Last night I dreamed I was surfing with an old friend from college. Gliding along in the water felt like heaven but swimming out in the ocean was rather difficult. I needed to stay on my board, stick with the planned activity. This seems a good metaphor for my life right now. Have a plan and stick to it and things should go a lot easier. The plan is to stay with the nicotine patches for a while. Last time I found I could easily manage without them and stopped wearing them early on. For me the patches are a barrier or a wall of protection in my moments of weakness. I think for me its best I keep wearing one at a low dose for 90 days. I've noticed in reading other peoples blogs that people start to feel a bit better in their efforts about this point. Good days follow bad days which follow mediocre ones and the cycle continues with more good days than bad ones. I think this is a good sign because that means there's breaks in the struggle. Those breaks will become longer and longer with fewer and fewer points of struggle. That's the plan! In the meantime happy Peace Day everyone :)

Keep at It

One of my recently acquired and favorite activities is jogging. I try to do a couple of miles three times a week. I would like to get out there every day but I'm not that organized yet. This activity fills numerous needs. Each day I don't smoke jogging becomes less labored, easier. When I started I could jog one quarter of one lap before needed to walk a while, now I am up to half a mile before I need a breather. This is tremendously encouraging. Other benefits include an endorphin rush, feeling I am cleaning my lungs out quicker and I'm not gaining weight the way I did the last time I quit. Overall I am really encouraged by my new activity and willing to keep at it as I get lots of rewards for my effort.

Hello again

Its been a year and I thought while I'm at it I should check back in. I really don't think anyone reads this, but it's actually quite good for me and helps the process. After my last post a little over a year ago things became quite intense on the family front. I was having a hard time dealing with everything and returned to smoking. I needed to get my head around the psychological piece or more precisely I needed better strategies for dealing with some things that were coming up. By March I got serious about what I needed to deal with and by August I was ready to quit again. In planning a quit date in September ( which is always a good idea) I just quit without notice to myself. I woke up saying to myself, " Today is the day." That was two weeks ago, which feels good to say. I have lots of strategies and I learned a lot stuff in my last quit so I'm counting on those things this time around. I know its important to hold out for three months no matter what's going on and after six months smoking stops becoming a psychological crutch for most people. I really do have a lot to say but I think that's enough for now.