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POSITIVE IDENTITY

Written by: Jonathan Payne

Article Overview: The way we consciously or unconsciously identify ourselves and the words we use to describe ourselves cause us to be who we are.

POSITIVE IDENTITY

In my counselling work I have spent some time with people who are giving up smoking. I have noticed that a major issue is around who is in control. The person or the cigarette.

The smoker believes themselves to be at the mercy of the cigarette. Most smokers tell me that they don’t want to smoke. One has even said she really hates the taste and has a constant supply of sweets on hand to drown it out! Others will point to the health risks, the embarrassment of having to stand outside to smoke (there’s nothing sexy about puffing away on the fire escape outside the office), the negative feelings from family members, an awareness that they carry an unpleasant smell with them and the cost of smoking. By the way, did you know that giving up a pack of cigarettes a day will save more than R5000 in a year! Yet, knowing all this, they keep smoking. The person identifies themselves as a smoker. They might not want to be a smoker but that’s what they are so they smoke.

The basis of the therapy I use is to help them change their identity. Right up front we refer to the person as a non-smoker and get them to speak of themselves as non-smokers. They still smoke, but what they are doing is living into the identity of the person they want to be. They claim the future reality now. As long as they identify themselves as smokers, they will play out the role of that identity, and at best be smokers who are trying to give up smoking. When they refer to themselves as non-smokers they become non-smokers who might have the occasional cigarette. Guess what, they stop smoking – because non-smokers don’t smoke. I’m also very careful to tell them that if they do have a cigarette not to feel guilty. Guilt is a sure way of allowing the cigarette to take control, it dictates their emotions and demands that they feel ashamed for having fallen. If a non-smoker has a cigarette, it is because they have chosen to have a cigarette and can just as easily choose not to have a cigarette. The choice remains with the person, they retain control – they remain with their identity as a non-smoker rather than a smoker who has failed to give up.

The identity principle works effectively with smoking, and can work just as effectively in other areas. The characteristics which hold us back from finding full happiness can easily control us if we allow them to dictate our identity. “I am indecisive”, “I am not creative”, “I’m not good at conversation”, “I’m afraid of the future”, “I’m not very clever”. They are all identities which we have assumed for whatever reasons. Perhaps we were told that we were these things when we were children, we assumed them as our identities and – guess what – because we lived them as our identities they became self perpetuating “truths”. But they are adopted identities which can be changed in the same way as we acquired them.

Just as the smoker needs to re-identify themselves as a non-smoker and then live out that reality, so we can question the ways in which we identify ourselves, and those which are less helpful we can change. The smoking therapy requires the person to repeat to themselves each day for five minutes , “I am a happy, healthy non-smoker”. Take the identity which you want to change – and for five minutes each day tell yourself that you are the person you want to be: “I am a good conversationalist”, “I look forward to the future”, and so on. Claim the new you now.

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Article Tags: cigarette, cigarettes, embarrassment, emotions, family members, giving up smoking, guilt, health, negative feelings, r5000, smoke one, smoker, smokers, sweets, unpleasant smell



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