Take three specific instances and play them in your mind over and over again. Overlap them into a roll-
ing, loud and vivid highlight reel of times you’ve wanted to quit.
ACTION: Press and rub your left thumb knuckle into a hard surface, such as your desk or your knee.
This feeling should be associated with the following visualisation.
You know the cigarette tar that forms in your lungs that you try to cough up? Imagine coughing up
all that tar and spitting it into a bucket over the course of several days. Vividly picture that bucket of
regurgitated tar and phlegm sopping around in the bucket. How does that cigarette tar smell? What
sound does it make if you stir the bucket with a large wooden spoon? Unpleasant?
Well how about this - take a mouthful of that thick, hot, sticky, smelly tar, and chew it. Feel the tar
sticking to the roof of your mouth as the bitter taste fills your mouth. The smell will be overwhelming,
but keep chewing it anyway. Hear the “splatch splatch” sound of the vile tar squelching in your mouth.
Take a big drag on a cigarette at the same time, with the taste of the smoke intertwining with the tar.
Now see the disappointment in the eyes of your loved ones as you take a step closer to an early grave.
As you inhale the smoke, feel and visualise the smoke carrying all that disgusting tar down into your
lungs. Picture the tar sticking to the tissue of your lungs and burning away chunks of your lung tissue.
Hear the hissing sound of the boiling tar corroding through your lungs and making them bleed.
Exhale and truly feel the pain of the specks of smokey tar searing its way through your throat, infecting
your mouth and poisoning the delicate tissues in your nose. Try to cough up all that dried tar stuck to
your lungs. Feel the burning pain of the fermented smoke scabs peeling off your insides and retching
their way up your throat.
Step Two: Reinforce The Anchor
Now it’s time to reinforce that anchor. Read the above paragraph again but read it as if it was ALL IN
CAPS. Pause slightly between each word. Continue reinforcing the anchor by pressing your left thumb
knuckle into the hard surface.
Concentrate! Focus on the worst things about smoking. Feel free to repeat this a third time, or fourth
time. The stronger your reinforce this anchor, the more easily you’ll quit smoking.
Step Three: Frame The Anchor
As you complete the first two steps, you’re left with a fairly negative group of images and emotions
related to smoking. Some of these ugly smoking visions will stick in your mind as particularly nasty.
Especially the ones that are significant to you personally, in that they are especially close to the heart
of why you want to stop smoking. Perhaps it’s the thought of your loved ones watching your lifespan
decrease by 5 minutes per cigarette? Or the thought of being considered vile and unattractive by the
opposite sex because of your smoking. Whatever the reasons, use them and focus on them.