GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please - join us! We kindly ask that politics be left out.
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A message to all quitters: you don't have to avoid GUS if your latest attempt to quit didn't work out. We won't give you a bad time and we consider the attempted quits as "practice" for the real quit.
On my mini-vacation (okay, really no more than a glorified long weekend, time-shifted a bit) I did lots of fun things. I hung out with my family for a while (awesome Sunday night combo: take-out Chinese food and a thorough mocking of the gloriously cheesy Eurovision Song Contest -- highly recommended. Moldova was robbed!! Go ahead, click the link, you won't regret it!). I indulged in a wee bit of retail therapy (a visit to my favorite bookstore and a fun consignment shop) and got highlights and a spiffy new haircut during a very long-overdue salon visit. I drank excellent coffee and chatted with my sister, and got to go out to dinner at a yummy Korean place to celebrate my oldest niece's birthday.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, I got to watch another niece become the Cambridge schools citywide Meringue Champion for 2011!
Ever seen Mad Hot Ballroom? Well, Cambridge does the same thing in its schools. Such fun to watch, for the usual reasons (hilariously awkward impromptu interviews with nervous fifth-graders; dead-serious expressions on very young faces; the novelty of seeing kids perform dances last popular when their grandparents...or great-grandparents were young) and also for the genuine happiness you could sense from the kids and the crowd when the competition/exhibition/nerve-wracking part was over, and they got to do a giant, loud, Electric Slide in the middle of the Cambridge Rindge & Latin School gym. Younger siblings and even some parents joined in. For a little while, everyone kind of forgot how they might look or if they messed up a step along the way, and just had a blast.
I'm thinking we should spend a little more of our lives taking that kind of approach, and spend a little less time worrying about how we appear to others, or wondering whether we'll mess up (and what will happen if we do). Kids are usually much less self-conscious than adults, for a lot of reasons, so you really notice it when they realize that eyeballs are on them, that others are watching (and maybe judging) them. They freeze, and panic, and start second-guessing themselves. They don't want to disappoint their families or friends.
Sound familiar?
Most grown-ups live in a more self-conscious head space, of course. We just assume people are watching us, judging us, and that our behavior is influencing a host of things and affecting decisions others make about us that might impact our lives. We forget to live in the moment, instead carefully planning next steps or figuring out how to survive the relentless scrutiny of others. We think twice about taking risks; we worry about appearing foolish, or uncoordinated, or dorky, or over-emotional or age-inappropriate...all sorts of things stop us from acting on the kind of joyful, uncomplicated impulses that most kids take for granted.
We do this sort of thing when we're trying to overcome addiction, too. We worry about admitting we need to quit or asking for help, for fear of appearing weak. We wonder how people will deal with us if we can't keep our emotional responses in check or safely behind a mask of control. We fret about odd behaviors we might display when we're all fidgety or anxious or stressed-out. We don't allow ourselves the freedom to be however it is we need to be while we're quitting. And seriously, who needs the extra stress that comes with that? I know I sure didn't!
Perhaps it's time to dance like no one's watching?
"Dance as though no one is watching you.
Love as though you have never been hurt before.
Sing as though no one can hear you.
Live as though heaven is on earth."
Anonymous
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