RubberBandThoughtStopping

After 11 failed attempts to quit smoking, it was a rubber band (along with an e-cig, baby carrots, and that wonderful gum – and the no-smoking policy of the woman who was to become my wife) that made the 11th attempt the one that took.

While the e-cig was packed away long ago (though it did help me get through the process of writing the first book; I should’ve thanked it in the acknowledgements – consider this a better late than never gesture), and I still chew gum though not THE gum and nosh on baby carrots as my manual transmission pancreas allows, the rubber band is still an essential tool – for thoughtstopping:

When my brain goes off on tangents and I start attaching to deleterious thoughts, much as the T-1000 clung to Arnold and Linda’s car, the rubber band acts as a foot smashed to fingers clinging to the precipice: but instead of dropping me into the canyon, awaiting my destiny with the anvil exclamation point, it brings me back to myself, to my breath, to the present, and lets me watch the invasive thought vanish before it takes root and shits all over the rest of my day.

Lesson: Never underestimate the replacement of mindless reflex with mindful choice – even if it takes a rewiring of the subconscious with an elastic snap to get there.