Teacher Relearns a Lesson

When I was teaching “Choosing to Change”, a course for Tobacco Cessation, I used several experiential techniques to help smokers handle cravings so they could become non-smokers. I never promised them their cravings would go away, but I did promise they could survive them. I ran across these exercises again today when I was cleaning my office. I needed the lesson, not because I want to stop smoking, but because I just want to stop feeling sad.

Our minds are so strong. Mental images dash about from one picture to another and can leave us confused or out of sorts. Other images can fire off all manner of hormonal releases in our bodies. Just remember a romantic encounter and feel your sexual organs perk-up. Focus on every strange sound around you while walking down a street at night and feel adrenalin rush in as your heart beats faster and your breathing shallows.

When we’ve experienced any kind of trauma or ecstasy, imprints remain. All our experiences involve not just a brain memory but a physical, emotional, and spiritual memory of that experience as well. The next time a similar situation of greater or lesser degree occurs, we can have a similar response either appropriate or inappropriate to the degree of that trigger.

One of the techniques I employed required that a clothes pin be attached to a finger. It was meant to cause a bit of discomfort. Each class participant was told to concentrate on the pinching sensation and report the degree of pain. The longer they concentrated on it, the more intense the pinch became. Then I had them slap their other hand against their leg and asked again for a report on their degree of pain. They admitted there was less sense of pinching but they really felt the slapping. When they focused entirely on the slapping, they had no feeling of pinching. I had them switch their attention between the pinch and the slapping several times until they finally got the point. They could choose which sensation on which to focus.

All this now helps me realize again I am responsible for what my mind can do. I can rerun my current situation which involves a high degree of loss and see all the details of my last two years of experiences, or I can look outside myself and see what there is next to do: turn oak leaves into the garden, change the generator oil, finish sewing a birthday present. I can choose to focus on my pain of aloness, or I can call someone to share a dinner or an outing. Even with regards to the events in the world, I have a choice: I can watch every news program and worry about the bombings in Israel, the loss of life in Afganistan, the value of the dollar and the state of the economy, or I can cook soup and take it to someone alone and on chemotherapy. I have any number of other things I can do to help myself or others within the framework of my life.

I can choose to change the focus of my mind. My situation and that of the world may not change, but I will survive and move through it all.