I Need a Cigarette!

Photo by Irina Iriser on Unsplash

I know! It’s not your typical blog post or chapter title for a mindfulness-themed writer, but I can explain.

I grew up as the eldest sibling in a tribe of six. We were all close in age, with two of my sisters born nearly 12 months apart. My baby brother was the outlier - five years younger than the sister ahead of him. That background is important in getting a sense of the sheer chaos that often filled our home.

We were not pacified with tablets, phones, or other digital entertainment devices. We barely had a television, and the one we had for years was black and white. The kind with replaceable TV tubes that you tested and bought at the drugstore. The TV had rabbit ears, manipulated in undulating ways in an attempt to eliminate the “snow,” with only marginal success. It was equipped with five network stations that you actually had to get off the couch to switch between.

Just a little more background to set the scene…

There was a cacophony of high-volume voices nearly every day. Physicality regularly rampaged through the space as our modality of entertainment. And a toy trail littered the floor space to the extent that care had to be taken to prevent an ankle sprain.

What does needing a cigarette have to do with any of this?

Smoking is often considered a vice, but for my mom, it was her salvation. In the midst of all the aforementioned chaos, multiple times a day – more than a carton per week – Mom paused. She struck her match, lifted the cigarette to her lips, lit up, and inhaled the most delicious breath, blowing out an equally delicious exhale.

As I recall, she also closed her eyes during those first few puffs.

This was her meditation, her pause practice, her stop practice, and she was very, very good at it. She was a consistent practitioner.

There are so many aspects of this habit, albeit not a healthy one, that would serve many of us in our crazy, stressed-out world today.

Let’s do the math.

Mom smoked in excess of a carton per week. A carton contains 10 packs of 20 cigarettes, and it takes about five minutes to smoke one. That’s 200 five-minute opportunities to pause each week. It’s 1,000 minutes of breathwork per week, or approximately 143 practice minutes per day, equating to nearly 2.5 hours of breath practice daily.

Do any of us do that?

Could any of us do that?

Maybe, if we lived in a monastery.

I’ve been on dozens of silent retreats, and that’s the only time I have come close to that level of practice.

My mother practiced this way for nearly 30 years.

What did it look like for her, or for me as I watched her multiple times a day?

First, she recognized her own state of overwhelm. She would often name it in the form of, “I need a cigarette!”

Then she would pause, stop, and create a relaxing, centering ritual by engaging a number of her senses. She would take a cigarette out of the pack, tap it down, feel it, hold it between her index and middle fingers, then place it between her lips.

Next she would pick up the matchbook, tear off a match, strike it, and bring the flame to the tip of the cigarette. Then, in one fluid motion, she waved out the flame, closed her eyes, inhaled fully, exhaled completely, and softened.

It was fascinating to watch as a kid. I would get the sense of, “Oh good. Mom is quiet now. Calm now.”

She did this about 25 to 30 times a day. As I said, we were a loud, rambunctious, physical group.

Imagine what any of our lives would be like if we took a five-minute breath break 25 to 30 times a day.

What would it look like if we stopped, engaged our present-moment senses, closed our eyes, went inward, breathed in fully, exhaled completely, released, and let go?

Rather than declaring, “I need a cigarette!” as my mom so often did, we could declare, “I need a breath break!”

We could take the time needed to regulate our nervous systems from chaos to calm.

My mom carved out nearly 2.5 hours of practice time each day, even during the busy, chaotic years of raising six children. Now, I’m not suggesting that we take up smoking. I am inviting the possibility of taking up breathing with ritual and awareness.

The only way we will know what its impact could be is to try it.

The invitation is to build your foundation first with a 2 x 4 approach: either two four-minute breath sessions per day or four two-minute breath sessions per day. From there, gradually build toward five minutes, multiple times daily. 25 to 30 a day? Maybe.

Now for the rest of the story.

My mom just turned 90. She smoked throughout all our growing-up years. She quit in the ‘80’s, when my son, her first grandchild, said:

“Thair goes gua-ma smokin’ eer bawayn’s out.”

It was her first push to quit.

She has been a nonsmoker for over 40 years!

Sadly, she also gave up her breathwork.

In-joy a breath-break.