#688: How To Quit a BAD Habit

How is your mum suffering? Specifically, what does she worry about?

My health because she knows that I've been struggling.

The story you're about to hear is real. A real client working with David Holman to achieve extraordinary results. David has worked with high performers such as Olympic athletes and business owners, as well as those looking to develop meaningful relationships. Aside from names and certain characteristics which have been changed to protect clients confidentiality, all other details are true. This special season is brought to you by the Self Belief Chief podcast.

In today's episode, you're going to hear a conversation between myself and a client who's looking to quit smoking. They want to quit, but then they're not sure they believe they can. So what you're going to hear is an exercise which is one of five steps I take any client through when I'm trying to help them overcome a bad habit. The first step is defining the triggers. The second step is creating an emotional choice to quit, not just a logical one. The third step is cripple any cravings. The fourth step is conditioning a new choice. The fifth step is creating a big gesture. What we're going to go through is the second of those steps which is creating an emotional choice. See, anyone can logically know why to quit smoking and logically want to give it up altogether. But it has to be an emotional thing. It has to be the feeling that you don't want to smoke, not that you just don't want to. You have to feel likely to quit smoking. Most people when they're trying to quit smoking and they're struggling is because they associate more pain with trying to quit than with continuing. They see it as really painful to quit. And everything in life is about pain and pleasure. So what I'm going to do is get this client in a subconscious state. So get them under sort of a type of hypnotherapy here in a subconscious state. Then stack massive pain, not by putting the thoughts in this person's mind, but actually just asking very simple questions about how the smoking has affected their past, their present, and how it may well impact their future as well. Creating all of that pain in one place, in one moment to really shock the nervous system may well just get her to that place she needs to get to where she really feels like. Like she's ready to quit smoking and that she doesn't actually feel like smoking altogether. Anytime you hear a beep, it's simply a case of where she's mentioned her son's name. Let's get into the episode.

In the past. How did the smoke mean you experienced less love?

Probably in my last relationship because he didn't like smoking. And my relationship with Glenn, because I'd always keep my distance from him a little bit. Because I think I see the smeller.

In the past who suffered most because of the smoking.

Say, my health. But.

In the past, how did he suffer the most from your smoking?

Same really. Just because I've sneak above them, I was like going outside. When he's someone doing where I've been.

In the past. When your son knew you were sneaking around, how did that make him feel?

Neglected, I would say.

In the past. I want you to imagine the people who suffered the most. How it affected your mood.

How it.

Affected your energy, how it compromised your relationships, how it hurt you financially, how the financial hurt possibly took food out of other people's mouths. I want you to feel all of that at once. I want you to feel the discomfort that you're feeling. I want you to feel and notice where in the body you feel it. Where does that discomfort come from? Where does that unpleasant feeling come from? And just breathe that in for a moment. Feeling that discomfort, that unpleasant feeling, that painful feeling. And just breathe that in and just really sink in how that feels, how that affects your body and your emotions in this moment. And just sit in it for a moment. We're now going to travel to the present and we'll ask some more questions. How is your smoking habit affecting your health today?

My chest and my circulation. Terrible.

How is your smoking habit affecting your mood?

I think it makes me a little bit low and anxious.

How is your smoking habits affecting you financially? I know that you've also been collecting or receiving rather donations for treatment.

Here. I'm using some background knowledge that I already have about the client that she's receiving donations for a serious health concern she has in the treatment needed. And I've donated as well. More than happily done that. She deserves it. But I'm wondering if she's put the dots together that she's receiving donations but also funding this smoking habit. So let's hear what she has to say. Once I bring that up.

How does it feel when some of that money is also going into the smoking? Potentially, yeah.

But.

How is the smoking habit affecting your relationships today?

I'd say with gone mainly.

How is he being affected today?

Well, obviously, like I'm silk on that side, so I think he smells it now and again.

I want you to go into his mind for a moment and ask, how does he feel?

I think he'd be gutted because he hates the fact my brother smokes. I know he's getting old enough now to start noticing more.

If you imagine him for a moment, where do you imagine he feels it? In the body. That feeling you just described, where does he feel it?

Stomach, maybe.

Who are the people that are suffering today because of your smoking habit?

Me, not my mum, because my mother worries about me smoking.

How is your mum suffering specifically? What does she worry about?

My health, because she knows that I've been struggling. Anyway.

What'S the effect on your mum's health each day that she's worrying about your smoking habit?

Yes. Not a while ago, anyway.

So I just want you to feel how your energy is affected today, how your mood is affected today, how your mood today affects other people. I want you to think about how much it's financially costing you, how much it's financially costing others, how money is being taken away from donations, how your son is suffering, where he feels it, how your mum is suffering and where she feels it. I just want you to feel all of that together in one moment and breathe it in and again feel the discomfort. It may even start to feel like an unpleasant taste in the mouth. I want you to notice the tension it causes in the body, how uncomfortable the feeling is, how painful it feels to hurt yourself and others and just embrace that pain just for a moment. And now we'll travel into the future and we'll ask some more questions. How is your health affected in the future by your smoking habit?

You might have heard her clear her throat just before she answered. As you can see, and you've probably noticed, the last couple minutes she started to become more despondent because the weight, all this emotion, this pain, this discomfort, this tension in the body is starting to take over her. She's starting to feel it emotionally. So she just clears her throat for a moment. Just because it's a physiological thing that's now happening, where she's trying to get a feeling and understanding what's happening in her body. This is not a mental thing alone. We're now shifting, actually how her body feels. And that clear of the throat, is a clear sign of just this discomfort that's starting to fill her body. Let's see how she answers the other questions.

Who suffers the most from the heart problems and cancer in your life?

Me. And everyone around me.

How do they look when you imagine them?

You mean people?

Yeah. How do all those people look when you imagine them? When you're ill, How do you see the chance of an intimate relationship in the Future if you continue your smoking habit?

Depends if you're a person as a smoker or not? Possibly not.

And if you're ill and a smoker, then probably even less of a chance, right?

Yeah.

If you never find that intimate relationship in the future, how would you feel about that?

Fantastic. I don't know because of the frame of mind I'm in at the moment of men. I don't know.

But in, say, 20 years from now, would you feel upset if you'd missed the opportunity?

Yeah.

What will have happened, do you imagine, to your friendships and other connections if you continue your smoking habit and possibly your health and mood have deteriorated?

Probably less sociable, so I probably wouldn't have the same amount of people.

What would your financial situation look like in the future if you carry on this habit? What other experiences and opportunities will you likely miss out on if you continue your smoking habit in the future? I want you to imagine him on the best day of his life and you're not there. How would that affect the best day of his life?

Wouldn't be a special friend.

And how would you feel that you tainted the best day of his life?

Yeah.

What other opportunities or experiences may you miss out on if you continue your smoking habit?

Grandchildren. Lots of holidays and traveling. Lots of my nieces and others grow up.

So I want you to think out and think about the missed grandchildren, the nieces, the nephews, the holidays you don't go on, the intimate relationship that's never there. The best day of your son's life being tainted, the financial whole and how you feel each day. All of that being the future. I want you to experience all of that now, breathe it in and feel how that feels. I want you to recognize where in the body you feel it everywhere. I just want you to live in that for the moment. I now want you to pull together everything your smoking habit has cost you in the past in terms of your health, your finance, your relationships, your family and your friends. Pull that into the stuff with the present, with your family, your friends, your health, your finances, And pull that together with the future. And how the smoking habit affected your relationships, your health, your finances, your friends, your family, children. And I want you to feel that like a wave crashing over you. I want you to feel that crushing feeling you're feeling and recognize where you feel it. Recognize the discomfort, the tension, anxiety, the stress. How unpleasant it is to live in this each day, this feeling of not being able to shake it, how painful it is for you, but maybe even more so for others and really Truly being able to feel their pain. The good thing is that we're living in the present now, and that future.

Has yet to happen.

We have time. The health, the relationships, the finance, the family, the friends are all still available to you in the present with a very simple shift. Those things that you want in the future, seeing the best day of your son's life, more family, more friends, an intimate relationship, more money, is all possible to you in the future with a simple shift, all available to you by ending the habit of smoking. One change can change everything. This is a moment and an opportunity in this feeling that you have right now to not just kind of want to quit smoking, but a threshold moment where we just decide enough is enough, and that that pain we've gone through in this exercise, we never want to experience ever again. So I have a question for you, which is, how much do you feel like smoking at this moment?

Not at all.

So at the end of that conversation, we've confirmed something really important. See, all people who smoke can say, I don't want to smoke. But it's a completely different thing that we got at the end of this conversation where it's, I don't feel like smoking. And that's what it's got to be. It's got to be the case where we don't actually feel. Feel like smoking. That's what the question was at the end. Do we actually feel like smoking? Now, this is one of five steps that I take people through. So this step on its own won't necessarily lead to the permanent change, but what we've got is confirmation that we've moved the needle in the right direction. It's actually physically painful and uncomfortable.

Actually.

Physiologically speaking, that it takes over our body when we start to think about smoking, because we've stacked all of this pain in a subconscious state. Stacked the pain and stacked the pain. And you could hear how she was starting to respond to those questions, but I could actually see her, obviously, and how she is tensing up and squirming and just felt like a really uncomfortable fit for her and something that she'll want to escape from. And she can make that escape with one simple change. Doesn't mean it's easy, but one simple change to give up smoking with the help of the other steps that we'll go through. She has that opportunity. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, enjoy the rest of your life, and I'll speak to you again soon.