Why do we smoke?
Statistics show us that:
1 person dies every 6 seconds from smoking. (1) (2)
Unless urgent action is taken, the annual death toll could rise to more than eight million by 2030. (1)
More than 600,000 deaths are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke, 300,000 of whom are children. (2)
Tobacco is a global epidemic that is getting rapidly worse as the tobacco industry penetrates the developing world. (2)
So, if we know that smoking kills one person in every six seconds, why do we choose to do it?
I used to smoke. I started as a teenager and thought it was cool. I dropped it for a few years and started again when my marriage was on the rocks. I could say that I thought it was cool again, but I’d be lying – being ‘cool’ was NEVER anything to do with why I smoked. There was a far stronger reason why, and that was all about the deep and abiding self-loathing I held myself in and chose for myself every day.
I was fat, I’d been abused, I hated my body because it felt like a prison, I felt unloved and unwanted and I listened to thoughts that poisoned my mind and body almost every moment of every day. Feeling the lack of regard I had for myself, I turned to smoking to fill the emptiness I felt inside of me.
Ariana Ray | BEFORE Universal Medicine
When I finally gave it up twenty-five or more years ago, I knew tobacco killed, yet knowing didn’t stop me. I didn’t do it for me, I still felt the self-loathing – I gave up because I did not want to make my child sick anymore with the smoke.
The Problem with Self-Loathing
One of the greatest difficulties I had was coping with the ever-abiding misery my life was in without having a cigarette to puff on. I found it difficult to get up in the mornings and equally difficult to get to bed.
I wanted smoke inside my body because I realised it was simply another way of abusing my body, as allowing poisonous thoughts and overeating was not enough (I couldn’t eat enough to fill the emptiness of what I was feeling).
I would not stop choosing self-loathing, misery and emptiness. It was a comfortable pattern that was very familiar and easy to do. I can understand how for some that may make no sense whatsoever, but that’s what I did.
It was only when I started to bring honesty and esoteric healing to my choices, with the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine practitioners, that I was able to heal the hurts I carried that prompted me to choose self-loathing as a way of life. I had tried everything and nothing worked for me, nothing had any substance; everything the world could offer me in way of support, it all sounded great, but no one was walking their talk, just talking an awful lot.
I found that there is another way to live that allows me to fill my lungs and my whole being with love, instead of the deadly smoke. Choosing self-love and self-care instead of self-loathing has transformed my life… I lost 44kg and look better at 62 years of age than I did when I was forty. I have bags of energy, am vital, fit and healthy. I am a vibrant social care professional, writer and blogger of health and well-being issues. I am a grandmother of seven children and mother of four and have utilised the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine on self-care, responsibility and love in very practical ways to live my life.
Ariana Ray (Age 62) | AFTER Universal Medicine
This is not a life that could be led by pulling on a cigarette.
References:
- The World Health Organisation 2014 statistics http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/
- ASH http://ash.org/resources/tobacco-statistics-facts/
Further Reading:
Goodbye Peter Jackson
I Realised there was Another Way to Live My Life
The Way of the Livingness & Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices
1,111 Comments
When people used to see me as an acupuncture practitioner, to support them to stop smoking, I would find most of them wanted a moment to stop and just be with themselves, some time to just relax from the pressures around them. I felt it was always important for them to understand what smoking was giving themselves, they could then choose to bring this ‘ stop moment’ to themselves in a different way, whilst looking at how they were living.
For those who smoke, it is a great question to ask of themselves, ‘why do you smoke?’, so they have a true understanding of why they are choosing to smoke.
I stopped smoking when I first knew I was pregnant with our first child and realised that I was willing to do this for someone else but not for myself.
The invention of electronic smoking seems to be more healthier and sells the illusion, that you are caring more for your body/ keeping it healthier, when in fact the root cause why you smoke is still running your body and plays out as abusive as before.
Cigarette smoke does not only make the air foggy, but lets you blur your senses.
It is like with every addiction, the moment you trace and heal the energetic root cause you can let it go.
So good to read this and remember my relationship with smoking, when I walk down the street and someone is smoking I can hardly breathe and always think how could I have done this to myself? But reading this reminds me how and why and then of course it’s easy to do and even enjoy! Smokers often are quoted as saying that a cigarette as being there best friend, something to fill the emptiness. Thank god we found another way to live that is truly a best friend !
I can recall many years ago – after I’d given up smoking – I separated from my partner at the time. my predominant thought was ‘how can i be miserable without a cigarette? The two had gone hand in hand for me for very many years. Now when I’m upset, I do not seek misery or a smoke, I return to who I am within me, no misery required.
Like most things in life we are addicted but not in the normal use of the word but in a way that keeps us from feeling our essence, and our spirit likes to play a type of Russian-roulette with us replacing one empty-ness with another so we are addicted to our spirits!
I found with my experience of attending Universal Medicine course that I discovered that I had no idea how to be honest. It was only through the modalities and the treatments in the courses where I got to feel from my body the truth and honesty of what I had buried and what I was choosing to live with. This stopped me in my tracks and I realised I didn’t want to live like that any more.
Beautiful Ariana – gosh what a powerful message. Gorgeous to feel what is our truth and what is possible for us to life, when we choose to drop the abuse we have allowed for ourselves, for far too long. Lets stop the indulgence of talking and start walking !
I find applying the why question to all that I do in life, supports me to uncover my true intent that is fuelling all my actions.
Ariana, the reflection from your photo at the age of 62 (after Universal Medicine) clearly reveals the effects, that living and breathing love has had on your body and wellbeing. Your blog is an amazing support and inspiration to those of us who still carry undealt with hurts, thank you.
Today I spoke to a gentleman about him smoking pot in public, he was sitting in a public place with children around him blatantly smoking, he was open to talking so I told him how it made me feel and how pot is often seen as harmless when in truth it is quite the contrary. Opening up the conversations like these are super important.
This is such a profound transformation; and the photos say it all. It seems barely believable that you turned your life around so substantially through basic choices to care for yourself more- no dramatic surgery or magic potion or expensive courses or therapies.. thank you for showing and being the living evidence of what can happen when we commit to taking deeper care of ourselves, consistently and over time.
The photos speak volumes, what an incredible transformation, how inspirational you are for others in life.
Why do we smoke? the same question can be asked of as why do we drink, why do we take drugs, why do we over eat… ? and the same answer for all would be we do it to avoid being the love we truly are. The more we accept ourselves as love the more bad habits fall away.
It feels to me that giving up cigarettes is more than just overcoming the addiction to them but also being prepared to look at and begin to heal the underlying emptiness that is causing it.
Oh my gosh seeing you before you applied self care and self love (inspired by Universal Medicine) is like seeing someone else as nothing looks familiar. Knowing you since 10 years I saw and see you develop and living more of the truth of who you are. The beauty and power from inside is shining out for all to see and feel. I agree ‘This is not a life that could be led by pulling on a cigarette.’ You are an amazing inspiration for every women who has the idea that we cannot change ourselves when we are getting into our fifties and sixties.
Thank you Annelies, this is deeply touching. We all can change, I know that to my bones, my life has demonstrated it.
These photos are astounding Ariana wow what enormous change you have made, super super cool you are able to connect back to that love inside and instead of dull it and hide it you have brought it out to show us in full, now thats pretty amazing.
I have lived with self loathing self worth issues all my life, but I had no idea that this is what I felt about myself until coming to Universal Medicine. I have now gradually come to feel how harming these thoughts and action are to my body, and what was amazing to find out that it was a choice, so I choose to let my self love in and out so by feeling and living that love I can begin to bring in appreciation, something so powerful that slowly dissolves lack of self worth and self loathing issues.
Getting to that point where you absolutely know that you deserve so much more than to puff on a smoke, that you actually want to treasure the body and the being within can some times seem too hard or too tricky but when you stop and really see what is going on and how much you do feel when you care and love yourself it is a no brainer.
This is such an eye opener and very honest self-exploration of why you would want to smoke. Most people stop at thinking they enjoy it. To realise that it is used to fill up an empty feeling and continuing a pattern of self-abuse due to self-loathing is such a healing. I keep finding once I am honest about why I am doing something, it all starts to unravel, and the harmful habit can be dissolved.
It seems a life time ago when I would have been enjoying a cigarette and back then they were mighty fine in the moments of having them. It’s like it was another person who was needing such a relief. Today after 14 years attending and applying Universal Medicine principles there isn’t an ounce of me that would consider a cigarette or anything for that matter that I found abusive. Self-Love is the basis of my relationship with myself and anything that is not that is not happening.
It is interesting that physiologically we all know the harm of smoking yet people still do it, yet we have not really, as a society, gone to town on why. There is much more for us to look at and consider, there is deeper for us to go in terms of understanding what drives our behaviours that led to harmful consequences.
Your incredible transformation through The Way of The Livingness reflects the amazing potential available for us to live who and all that we are, when we draw from our love within. For it is love that is our true breath of life.
Hear, hear Carola. I love what you’ve shared, ‘For it is love that is our true breath of life.’ and when we are not breathing our true breath, we are breathing in poison.
The tragic thing is that smoking is actually increasing in some societies… You see when a country realises the damaging quality of tobacco and imposes punitive restrictions upon the sales, the companies just turn to the newly developing countries… Truly unbelievable but actually it’s what happens.
We say that there’s no smoke without fire, and that hold true here. We need to look below the activity that hurts us in some way to see the deeper reason why we choose to live this way. In the end as you show Ariana it really comes down to us accepting the fire and love that we have underneath.
I really think this is a great question, anyone who smokes knows it kills – I think it’s a legal requirement for it to be on the front of every cigarette packet, why do we do things we know hurt us? Eat the wrong foods, or entertain abusive relationships, or even choices we know are not right – it doesn’t make sense. How can we care for ourselves so little that we think it’s ok to hurt ourselves?
Cigarettes provide a convenient smoke screen, between ourselves and others and between ourselves and ourself. Smoking does not solve anything which we all know but might choose to ignore.
Great article, knowing that self loathing is s choice is revolutionary. Any one who feels the weight of self loathing may well argue this, I would have several years ago, but I now know it is a choice to treat myself this way or to hold myself with absolute love and then my thoughts are tender, supportive and oh so very loving.