I started studying hypnotherapy about 3 years ago. During that time you get to learn really interesting stuff like how words can really effect a person's state and occasionally, if you get a passionate tutor, you get given a bundle of 'scripts' that can be used during therapy.
One of these scripts really stood out for me and in the time I've been a member of this forum it has been banging around in the back of my seedy little mind. It's taken me ages to find it.
This is for those of you who lurk in the 'wings', reading posts, wanting to quit smoking.
Six Shooter
I would like you to image the following situation with me. Think about a man that was told by a his doctor that if he ever smoked a cigarette again he definately would die instantly.
This man leaves the doctor's office and is confused about what he had just heard. He wonders to himself "Is that really true? Would I die instantly if I smoked a single cigarette?"
The man decides to get a few more opinions. He travels to a second, third, fourth, fifth and a sixth doctor. After an examination the five doctors tell him that they were not sure. They said it is possible that if you smoke another cigarette that you could possibly die instantly.
This man is now driving down the road in his car mulling over what he has been told. "One doctor says I would die instantly if I ever smoke again, but five doctors said that they were not sure."
As the man drives down the road trying to decide whether or not he should smoke again, he hears a news broadcast on the radio. The newscast is about a man that had just killed himself playing Russian Roulette. Apparently the man put a single bullet in a gun that would hold six. He spun the cylinder, put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He died instantly.
The gentleman driving the car was shocked at this newscast.
He wondered how could anyone in their right mind participate in something so deadly?
Even though he had five chances to live and only one to die, it seems like such a waste to gamble one's life away.
Instantly the man driving the car realised how closely this sitatuion resembled his own dilemma. One doctor has stated that one cigarette would kill him instantly, whilst five other doctors were not sure.
The odds where exactly the same. One chance to die and five chances to possibly live. What should he do?
This man chose to live. He threw his cigarettes out of the window and never smoked again.
Of course I've already told you that this is just a script that I have found, nothing more than a made up story to be used in a therapy session. Just a story to help someone who has decided to give up smoking. But you have to ask yourself "what would happen if the situations in this story were true?"
Would you take a similar sort of gamble with your own life?
But then you've not read this post to learn about gambles, have you?
