Have you ever thought of a time you left something addicting behind? Did you gather up all the willpower to finally isolate a screaming part of your consciousness, only to notice that consciousness come back screaming 10 times harder? I like to call this the “ego” of addiction consciousness.
We never really change our behavior through isolation and resistance, for the consciousness of “quitting” creates resistance, suffering, and polarization within your consciousness.
Look a time you stepped beyond a pattern that was causing you suffering. Most likely it was because you upgraded your life to something of more joy, more value, and more meaning. We can even argue to say you upgraded to a more harmonizing and less harmful addiction.
The point is, we don’t get anywhere in life by actually “quitting.” Most people who have “quit” a behavior, have experienced an upgrade of consciousness, or an integration between the part of you that wanted the cigarette and the part of you that saw the beauty in being smoke-free and “healthy.” Perhaps you upgraded to an herbal cigarette that allowed you to decrease heavy toxins, while starting the process of uniting conflicting parts within your consciousness.
As an Addiction Nurse Practitioner, I have studied and witnessed the consciousness of addiction within myself and many others. It’s never the battle of willpower that wins in the end, it’s about becoming more intimate with the parts of you that desire upgrades, or what we would call “change talk” from a motivational interviewing standpoint.
As practitioners, we reflect back the parts of you that crave upgrades, for the more attention that is brought to the consciousness of change, the more this consciousness wants to find peace within you.
By wanting or desiring “upgrades,” we begin to attract upgraded forms of consciousness or perspectives that find more peace in new ways of living.
This is a process of learning to attract your most desired perspectives.
Would you like to be able to attract a perspective that has upgraded to behaviors that find smoking less joyful? Would you like to attract a life or consciousness that finds living opiate-free more joyful? If the answer is yes, you have already started the work.
We only ever suffer in a world and perspective that remains unconscious, for when we understand how consciousness works, we understand we have the power to continually upgrade. And, when we continuously upgrade, our unconscious trappings no longer desire to remain, for we have shined the light that allowed us to see we desire something greater.
May you continue to ask for the upgrades you desire and may your soul continue to lead you to the light.
Kelsey Choate
FNP-C, NBC-HWC
— Family Nurse Practitioner, Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and X-waivered in Addiction.
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