El Bandito

One I saved that explained it to me... Tiff. Just laugh! Triggers: Reminders From Your Executive Assistant Original post : Kattatonic Gold/ Freedom member. "It's all in your head" has developed a really bad rap in our culture. What's up with that? The power of the brain is remarkable. We should marvel and be impressed. Has anyone told you that since physical withdrawal is over... get a grip... or get over it... or something like that? What about patience with yourself? You've been informed that it's psychological after 2 weeks . Do you think the impulse to smoke should stop now, now, now? Do you think impulses after you have quit for a while indicate you are weak? Quite the contrary, actually. Your brain is working as designed. Okay, listen up. Your brain is amazing. Every time you do anything, one function your brain performs is to try to save you time and prevent you from repeating past mistakes. So quickly and subconsciously, your brain scans the memory banks for similar circumstances whenever you do anything. When it finds comparable history, it compares that with what you are doing now and alerts you to differences, just like an efficient little assistant. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yesterday I pulled on my day pack, went out the front door and turned left to walk up the street. Suddenly I am hit with a trigger. Why? Because I haven't turned left off my front stoop since before I quit. I quit in the winter and I have either gone out the back door to my car, or turned right to walk to the subway. Turning left means I am going to bother to walk to the grocery, which I haven't done since I quit. The part of my brain that tries to save me time, let's call him the Executive Assistant (the EA), recalled past left turns from the stoop. He went down a checklist. What did she need / what did she use on previous excursions like this? Wallet? Check. Keys? Check. Bags? Check. Smokes? NOPE. "Ah, ah, ah, excuse me!" I could imagine him running up behind me yesterday as I set out and picked up pace. "You've forgotten your cigarettes! You're going to need your cigarettes when you get to the café!" (I treat myself to a special coffee when I bother to walk to the market.) Remember all those times you forgot your cigarettes and kicked yourself? It was such an inconvenience when you were an active using addict. Back then, your reaction went something like this: "Memo to self. Don't forget the cigarettes!" What I'm calling the 'EA' function in your brain monitors these memos. He got the memos and he's acting on them. He got thousands of memos like that! The poor guy is just trying to do his job. So I thanked my EA for trying to save me frustration, reminded him that I no longer smoke and that he should refer to the new Never Take Another Puff memo. After my coffee up the street, I paused to listen to the Let's-Smoke trigger, a little different and a more uncomfortable than the Forgot-Your-Cigarettes trigger. There he was again, but this time trying to get me to actually smoke! What a guy! His reasoning? "You've eaten, walked and coffeed, you're about to shop... you are going to want a smoke before you know it and you'd always rather smoke here than while walking home. Always! Always!" This guy is no dummy. I did in fact send him that memo many, many times. For heavens sake, I smoked for 25 years. The filing cabinets are full of those old memos. How to teach an old dog new tricks? Well the EA in our brains can and does learn new routines all the time. We may learn slower as we age but we do still learn and adapt, especially if we do it consciously. We have to note new memos to ourselves, sometimes several times and we have to be kind to ourselves... or our ‘EAs’. The kinder and calmer you are, the more chance you have of him 'getting it' each time. So what to do in the café? I said to my EA, "Thanks! I appreciate the reminder but you have to look at the newer One = All memo again. I am not going to smoke today or ever. Please remember that coffee time is no longer smoke time." He will get it; I know he will. It will just take a while and a walk through all my various scenarios. He is really very, very good. He learned so well the first time -- I have to give him time to learn the new mandate. Thanks for reading my ramblings. You are doing it,! It is doable! It does get better and it is worth it... wait! Make that, YOU are worth it. Yes, you are.The factor that really shows the addiction is not how hard or how easy it is to quit. What really shows the addiction is how universally easy it is to go back. One puff and the quit can go out the window.UCanQuit

Love you too!

Congratulations Nancy! Fantastic work. Thank you for all the help and support that you have given me and others.

NOPE

Great work Gabby!

NOPE

NOPE!

Great to see you Steel! Happy 4th!

Let 'em know who is Boss!

Public Service Announcement No children were harmed in the making of this post. ;-)

There's porn on the interweb? So what are shopping catalogues for now?

Great work Mason! Two weeks is brilliant.

Family hail from Huddersfield. Rekindling golf. Toenail Polish. Can never reach my toes, so paint my knees. Frez flops. The flip flop evokes images of sun, sea, cocktails by the pool. Lots of sauntering, not rushing..reggae sounds. There is a lot to be said for the stylish, clean flip flop...

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Welcome Aboard Jen! Most here had 'a practice quit' or two. What causes you to slip? Do you have a plan on how to deal with those circumstances next time? Read, post and soon you will be celebrating weeks, months and years as a non-smoker. Welcome!

Underneath all that black fluff is Nero. The bandit mini-schnauzer, who this evening felt like a bit of sheepskin laying...

Some MQ porn.... This is how you make coffee big boss!

Singer sewing machine which La Bandita's Mum used to use, now strictly ornamental!

That ornament is a crystal Riedel decanter! Frequently home to some big red wines! But you are right about the colour flow... In terms of doing it as a job. Do it. On Facebook, lookup Shabby Chic Restoration. Cat the owner is a total dude, single Mum who does all the stuff herself...I can put you guys together...

The room in the pictures was a separate dining room. We knocked through to the kitchen. We also knocked into the hall. So the whole space flows from kitchen through to eating through to staircase. We put in a brand new kitchen, new floors, new doors throughout the house. We converted a bedroom upstairs into a dressing room.... The main area downstairs is essentially layers of wood, creams, whites and blues...Coastal if you like. The drawing room or sitting room depending on how posh we are feeling is cream, with wood and some rich burgundies and reds I'll take some more photos when La Bandita isn't watching! But right now as for more...the bank account needs a rest!

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The table and large unit were a dark cherry colour, very forbidding. The veneer was sanded off, the main body painted while in the table top there was some grain, which was lightly stained for a natural look. The small corner unit was pine, and was painted to match in. The chairs were painted and recovered with a Laura Ashley material (to match the curtains, which I'm told is important)

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