The mind should be used as a tool. The brain is a computer more powerful than anything that man could ever invent. But, we’re not in control of our mind, our runaway thoughts are controlling us, and we can’t stop them. If even we could catch ourselves thinking and instead begin to direct our thoughts towards what we are trying to achieve, towards how we want to look and this new level of health that we want to have in our lives, that would be a start. Then we would begin to have some awareness.
But even with that awareness, without the tools and techniques to gain control of the mind we would only be back to wrestling with the grizzly bear. The monumental effort that it takes to be disciplined enough to say “no, even though we feel hungry, even though we want to smoke that cigarette more than anything. To be able to say “I will not do it”, and then to abstain in the midst of a craving attack, is more than most people are capable of.
My father has that type of discipline. While he was a smoker for many, many years when he finally decided to quit, he did just that, he quit “cold-turkey” and never smoked another cigarette again, and he did so without the help of the mind control techniques you will soon learn. His discipline was so strong that he could do what no one else I know of could do; he could eat a Cadbury chocolate bar one square at a time for weeks or even months. He would keep this chocolate bar hidden away in the top shelf of the pantry and he would eat a square maybe every couple of days or a couple of times a week. How did he do that? Sure, I could eat that Cadbury chocolate bar one square at a time, but that thing would be gone by the end of the night, end of story.