Emotions and feelings are the end product of an experience, remembering the feeling keeps that experience alive no matter if that experience is a good or bad one. Someone walks up and hits you --- you are shocked, hurt, angry. The next time someone walks up to you in a similar manner you immediately recall the feelings of shock, hurt and anger and react accordingly--- However---that second person may be coming to you with a different intent and so your response would be totally inappropriate.
Another aspect of this would be a scene such as --- You have had a bad day at work, on the way home you stop to buy a magazine and notice that there is a special offer on wine and chocolates, you treat yourself and that evening enjoy relaxing with the magazine, chocolates and wine, you go to bed feeling happier. Next ime you feel down you try the same remedy, in fact you promise yourself a weekly treat—it creates something to look forward to, a highpoint to the week, you might have a bad day part way through the week so you bring your treat forward a couple of days --- and you feel better. But then you have to decide—do I also have my usual treat night or have I had it for this week--- have I really got to wait over a week for the next treat--- I need that treat, it helps me cope and in that second , if you are smart , you realise that there is a problem--- not a potential problem but a problem right there and then. You have become dependant on those propos to help you cope--- you now believe that without those things ( Wine/ chocolate etc) you will not be able to cope. That realisation makes you vulnerable--- you now feel that those things are essential.
This develops further--- those things that “Help” bring their own problems—you need more of it to get the effect you seek, so hangovers, memory loss, weight gain all develop bit by bit and how do you resolve the feelings that result? With more of the same--- its called addiction Now comes the biggest and hardest truth----YOU can cure YOUR addiction but first you have to WANT to do that You have to recognise that the helpers are NOW the problem and You have to choose to deal with the issue. You don’t have to do it alone, you may not feel that you can because the wine / chocolate or whatever has broken down your self confidence; they are like the bullies that say “You cant manage without us”--- well you did before they came along and you will when you get rid of them.
As you progressively break free you can notice that those helpers are poor desperate things that need you for their survival, they need you in order to be important- they need you in order to have someone over whom they can exert control. This means that YOU are the powerful one, you have the power to say “Your control of me is damaging I am ending it here and now?
This is how addiction and habits work---- break the association between the feeling and the experiences to stop the addiction or habit
Creating feelings ( positive ones) and linking them to future hoped for experiences enables those experiences to happen--- future pacing--- rehearsing the future
The brain cannot determine between real and imagined--- so it is possible to create past present and future experiences
If you know how a successful person feels--- you can imagine yourself with that feeling and whatever goes with it
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to end an addiction needs a plan--- a plan for the future because if you keep doing what you are doing now NOTHING CHANGES. Look at how you would like things to be---look properly—how would you feel in that new situation, what would you be doing in that new situation---how would someone in that new situation act or behave, what would they look like, how would they feel, how would they talk, who would they know, where would they live / work/ socialise. Look at every detail of what that new existence would be, how it would look, feel, sound, taste. Think of the energy you would have as this new version of yourself . Practice those things over and over in your mind, every day, not dreaming but actually being and feeling those things, growing into that better persona, understanding more and more what that future you is really like. Visualise yourself in a moth, 3 months, 6 months and then a year from now--- notice the changes, notice the progression, see how success builds on previous success. Know that what you are creating is really really really possible and achievable.
What are you waiting for---need some help??? Make the appointment, have a chat, choose to make this happen this year---if not today When??