Quitting Smoking as a Spiritual Affirmation

I have never been a religious person, however I believe there is a power greater than myself – a power that is to be honored for the beautiful gifts we receive in life.

One of those gifts is the gift of health. I started smoking when I was a young teenager and it always felt wrong to me. And not wrong in the sense that my parents said I shouldn’t smoke or wrong because society frowned upon it, but wrong in that my core sense of self felt violated by my blatant disregard for my own health.

I would tell myself that I would never smoke long enough for it to hurt me and that I would quit before I got to be very old. But as I wrote in an earlier blog, the addiction soon got the best of me and it was much more difficult to quit smoking than I ever thought it would be.

When I finally found my freedom from smoking addiction, my behavior became aligned with my core values for the first time in many years. This is a wonderful feeling and because it was so difficult to attain I treasure it all the more.

Today, I sometimes struggle with eating right, or exercising regularly, but I never struggle with whether I must have a cigarette. I do not wonder so much about my health anymore since I know I have done the most important thing right by quitting smoking.

I know that my heart rate has returned to normal, my lungs are strong, and my blood is clear of the thousands of chemicals that used to come with every puff I took in. My body has cleansed itself from all the poisons it was forced to ingest through those many years of smoking. And I am still healing.

I heard once that every seven years or so our bodies will have re-created every single cell so that in a sense we have become a new person. It takes years for a former smoker’s risk of cancer, stroke, and heart disease to equal that of someone who never smoked, but the healing begins immediately after quitting and it only gets better.

Quitting smoking was always the right choice for me - it just took a while for my behavior to catch up with my spirit. Today I feel at peace knowing that my actions are in alignment with the values of my higher self. That’s freedom.

 

Like what you're reading? Get email notifications when Anne Mitchell posts, or get updates on Facebook, iGoogle, your personal blog and more!