“I’m here for a week. We are going to eat, shop, laugh, and have fun and then I’m going home to die. I hope you’re OK with that because I’ve already made up my mind.” Three weeks later my mom was gone.

In the wee hours of the morning 48 hours before mom died, I agreed to fulfill two of her wishes. Both seemed almost impossible to accomplish after she passed. Wish # 1 was for me to stop smoking as soon as possible. Wish # 2 was for me and my sister to care for my step-dad after she passed. Both quickly became a blessing and a curse.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have understood that the moment my mom made her declaration and the moment I agreed to fulfill her deathbed wishes, life as I knew it had been transformed instantly, dramatically, and irrevocably.

For the first seven days after her proclamation my mom, my sister, and I ate, shopped, laughed, and enjoyed deep meaningful philosophical conversations about everything that...

As medical science struggles to understand the direct correlation of the mind-body connection, it is becoming more apparent that our emotions can choreograph the interaction the brain has with every cell of our body, and vice-versa. What is recently coming to light is that the condition of our emotional health and our overall emotional well-being play a direct role in our mental, emotional and physical health. While a poorly functioning emotional state can have a debilitating effect on the body and create illness, ailments and disease, optimal emotional health can provide an active role in the healing process.

Emotions Control Our Immune System

Clinical studies are showing the effect emotions have on the nerves, hormones and molecules that connect the brain directly with our immune system. This connection from the body to the brain can signal the immune system and make us much more vulnerable to many types of illnesses. Additionally, the immune system has the ability to send signals...

The Interconnection of Mind and Body

Many medical doctors, social workers and doctors of philosophy understand that there is a direct correlation between the body and the brain and vice-versa. Once thought that the mind was harbored in the brain, they now understand it actually exists in the communication network throughout the entire body. It is not simply a mechanical expression, but a consciousness manifestation that exists at the cellular level throughout the body and in the brain.

The Link between Matter and the Mind

In describing the physiology of emotions, these experts are quick to note that emotions are the nexus between the mind and matter. Our emotions are actually a cellular signal that is involved in a convoluted process of translating information between the brain and every cell of the body and influencing both systems.

Listening to Our Gut

It is not an imaginary dream that we feel our emotions in our gut. Deep inside our intestinal tract we have a myriad of receptors...

Five minutes of stress can reduce the body's immune system function

for up to five hours.

Does the above statement surprise you?

Stress.  It seems so vague and non-specific. You may be wondering, well, what exactly is stress and why should you be concerned about it? 

Most people tend to think of stress as something that happens to us. We think that the situation is the stress.  Something does happen to  us, however it's what happens on the inside  that characterizes it as stress.

 Stress is actually the mind and body's response to any demand that disrupts your balance.  The cause of stress (a stressor) can be a real event or an imagined one.

 The stress response is commonly referred to as the "fight or flight" response.  We instinctively go into the fight or flight mode as a form of protection.  This natural response is a built-in mechanism that serves our higher good...to protect and...

You don’t realize it, but in the next few minutes you will discover a secret that hypnotists around the world have discovered about smokers and why they have such a difficult time quitting.

As every word travels from this page to your brain you’ll start to understand how and why your subconscious mind keeps you locked up in that smoke filled prison you hate so much.

Do me a favor…Take a deep breath….close your eyes… and remember the last time you tried to stop smoking.

Were you excited, thinking positive, and committed to stop no matter what happened?

Or….

Were you preparing yourself to fail before you even started?
 
How did you feel when you weren’t successful?

 Please be really honest with yourself….

 Do you remember what you were telling yourself right before and after you quit?

 Were any of these thoughts running through your mind?

“If I gain any weight at all…I’m going to start smoking...

Your smoking habit involves three distinct components including: a cue/trigger, a routine (smoking) and a reward. One would think that you have the ability to change anyone of the three and eliminate your smoking habit. That’s just not the case.

In order to stop smoking permanently and create a Smoke Free Habit you MUST RECOGNIZE when any fear you have about quitting is hijacking your confidence or commitment and immediately shift to a more empowering emotional state.  Next…replace/change your routine and condition the new routine until it become an unconscious automatic habit that your mind executes automatically. 

I have a list of 21+ Emotional Resilience Power States I recommend you consider adopting if/when that nasty fear saboteur begins to hijack your smoke free success. 

You’ll NEVER be able to get rid of your triggers. You’re hardwired to avoid pain and move toward pleasure or reward so that...

If you are really committed to stop smoking and create a Smoke Free Habit, then you really need to find out which one of the 4 Power Forces has been sabotaging your stop smoking success. It will help you understand how to tap in and turn off your saboteur and leverage the others to create a smoke free habit.  Oh, and by the way, it isn't your lack of willpower.

The first and MOST IMPORTANT step in creating your Smoke Free Habit is to decide what you want your smoke free life to be like, uncover what you’ll be thinking, saying, and doing as a non-smoker, and then practice conditioning your smoke free identity until living smoke free becomes your automatic response.

It takes approximately 21 days to create a new habit and about four months for the new habit to be unconsciously ingrained as an automatic response. After doing more than 6,000 hypnosis sessions I’m convinced it’s that easy to accomplish. So get ready, the smoke free life you...

As you recover from your smoking habit, it is important to constantly remind yourself of why you quit smoking. An excellent and effective way to do this is to use a form of self-hypnosis. Stop smoking hypnosis can be used at all stages of consciousness. You don’t have to be in a deep trance in order to reinforce your conscious and subconscious desire to quit smoking.

One tool is to create and use affirmations to bolster your confidence. If you feel the urge to smoke again, repeat these affirmations. You might even notice that they send you into a light, calm trance that can be very relaxing as you deal with stressful situations where you might have turned to cigarettes.

If you post these affirmations and mantras around your house, office, and car, it will help by continuously sending these positive messages to your subconscious:

I Love Me Enough to Be Smoke Free

Remember that you chose to quit smoking out of respect for yourself. Take that "lack" that you might feel when you...