Does A Disappearing Elephant Help You Stop Smoking?

Do you remember people telling you when you first started smoking that you would be hooked, caught and captured in the process of smoking? Now you will probably see how smoking grabbed hold of you. Not only have you been caught, but you have also been locked in tight by it's false charms.

Let me explain for a moment some of the ways in which cigarettes have kept you trapped in this prison. We'll pretend for a moment that smoking just creates a collection of powerful yet subtle illusions for smokers. The dictionary describes an illusion as a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience, a false idea of belief - in other words, something that you believe to be true or real but isn't.

Although they are not real, illusions can have an extremely powerful effect. You have probably watched a master magician sawing a woman in half. You see the feet and head completely separated, and you feel with part of you that it has actually happened. Or a huge elephant simply disappears into thin air. These magicians just fool the audience. Now, I have a friend who is a master magician and a member of the magic circle. This man is truly amazing to watch. One day I asked him to teach me a couple of illusions as my daughter was having a birthday party and I wanted her friends to see some tricks. He started by demonstrating the trick on me. It seemed so real, and because of the skill with which he did it even felt real. Then he showed me how it was done. It was simple and yet so powerful. However, as soon as I understood how the illusion worked, the trick just didn't have the same hold over me.

The truth is that when you find out the solution to a puzzle, or discover how an illusion or trick works, then that illusion or trick simply loses all its power and hold over you.The same with stopping smoking. The relevance of all that is that smoking is the master of illusion. It has created a number of illusions for you. They are illusions that you may still believe to be true, but they are illusions that we are not going to help you to dispel at the moment. Nevertheless, we are going to make you aware of them. As with every good trick, one of the keys is misdirection of the audience, a shift in their attention, if you like.

Smoking subtly offers us seven key illusions. Below are the seven illusions creating misdirection that makes you think that smoking actually does things for you that it doesn't. They are:

That it takes willpower to quit smoking.

That smoking helps you to relax, or it alleviates stress.

That smokers like smoking or enjoy it.

That it's a habit that smokers have had for so long that they can't stop.

That smoking gives you confidence.

That smokers need something to do with their hands.

That you will gain weight when you stop smoking.

All are all just illusions, tricks of the mind that at the moment probably may seem real. When you find how these illusions work you won't believe a word of it. I expect you have heard people mention these illusions a thousand times.

Realising these illusions is just the start of your journey to finally stop smoking once and for all.