​ Hello, welcome back to the Quit Vaping Podcast. If you're a new listener, uh, I want to recommend you go to episode 2 to start this off. Episode 2 is kind of my framework. Where I teach you the two things you need to quit vaping permanently and easily. My name is Andrew Cipriano. I'm a life coach and I help people create meaningful income in their lives and figure out a way to actually take action on the dreams that they want in a real, actionable, and genuine way.

So, this is kind of like a little passion project for me. I've vaped for seven years before that I smoked cigarettes and this has just been something that I've been working on as learning. You know how to help people quit vaping easily and permanently. And I also kind of sneak some life coaching tools in there in the process so that you can actually start to believe that what you want is possible.

But most likely if you're addicted to nicotine, uh, you're kind of blocking yourself from creating the life that you really want. So that's why I'm doing this. Uh, today we're talking about something called numbing emotions. This is one of the most important things I've ever learned in my entire life.

It's one of the most important things I teach and it's one of the most important concepts for you to understand if you want to quit vaping and also if you want to start living the life that you actually are dreaming about living. Um, when you picture yourself, you know, in that dream life. So when it comes to emotion, the most important thing you can understand is that they're just vibrations in your body, but this is the really important caveat is that every single thing that you do or don't do in your life, let me repeat that really fast.

Every single thing, every single action you take or do not take in your life is because of an emotion. Everything. Emotion drives all action and inaction. So it's really important to understand them. And now when you're numbing emotions, what you're doing is using something external to avoid emotion or get out of it.

So what you're doing is you're vaping or maybe you're using social media or maybe you're overeating or you're drinking alcohol or you're using other drugs or using porn or anything like that to escape emotion. Now the problem with doing that constantly is that one, you're not learning how to feel your negative emotions, which is not a good thing to learn.

is that you're creating net negative consequences from trying to get away from your emotions, right? Because often things like nicotine that we use to escape emotion, well, that has a net negative consequence. Like we're addicted to nicotine. The net negative consequence of overeating food is that we're overweight.

The net negative consequence of constantly being on porn sites is that you don't actually go out and seek genuine intimate connections and build a real relationship with somebody. Right. And I don't think that these things are always bad by the way. Like I drink alcohol sometimes I don't vape anymore.

Um, occasionally I go and smoke weed. Like I do things. Are really designed for me to get out of my emotions or change my emotional state. But that's a very small percentage of my life. Now, the problem with vaping is that you're constantly using it to avoid emotion. And when you avoid emotion, you're not learning how to process them.

And when you can't process your negative emotions without something external, you create a very small life for yourself. Imagine if you had anxiety, which is a very normal emotion, by the way. And your way of getting out of anxiety because you think it needs to be gotten out of is by vaping. Well, that means that when you set a big goal for yourself, which goals are naturally anxiety provoking, that's why we set them right to grow, you're not able to process and actually achieve that goal because you're scared of anxiety.

When you train yourself to get out of negative emotion with external things and not learn how to process them, you live a very small life. This is just what happens and you're not doing this consciously, right? And also you're taught that anxiety and fear and all this stuff is bad. So that's one of the first things we need to get over.

Uh, in society we are taught to avoid our emotions and the real insidious main reason that we're taught to do this truly is because it's very profitable. If you're addicted to nicotine, you're constantly drinking alcohol, you're constantly going to McDonald's and you're on all the porn and gambling sites.

Guess what? Society is making a lot of money off of you. And the government's making a lot of money taxing those things, right? Because you know that the highest tax rates are in things like that. Alcohol, gambling, uh, nicotine. So here's the problem. You've been taught by your society to avoid negative emotions so that they can make money on you because it's very easy, low hanging fruit.

And in addition, it's making you a very small, weak person because negative emotion is completely normal. And the only way to actually process negative emotion to deal with this, to learn how to sit with it, how to allow it in your body with. Out using anything external now, when you're able to learn this skill, you're able to set big goals to yourself and actually achieve them.

You're able to step into life and create the lifestyle you want, the actual life that you want in a brave and a powerful way in a bold way. But when you're constantly addicted to things, it doesn't matter if it's nicotine or food or social media, whatever it is, you're learning that whenever you have a negative experience in my body, right?

Like anxiety or boredom. I need to escape it. Well, this stops you from setting big goals and actually going after them. Because the number one thing that's going to happen when you set a big goal for yourself is there's going to be a lot of negative emotion associated with it because your brain is designed to avoid negative emotion.

That's why you're, you have such a proclivity to use the things that society throws and dangles in front of your face because historically. When you would experience negative emotion, it would protect you. Think about it. If I was in a hunter and gatherer society, and I was scared, what I would do is, when you're scared you look out, right?

You're always on defense. Well, it's really good to be on defense when there's a tiger behind trees. It's really good to be on defense when there's other tribes that are like literally looking at you from a mountain, like waiting to pounce on you. So, as you can imagine, there's actually a really good use for negative emotion.

And I want you to know that your brain is designed to do three things. Like your, your brain that has developed up into a certain point. It was designed just for survival. And it did this by doing three things. One is by seeking pleasure, right? Looking for fruits and berries, anything that's going to release dopamine, like sex, comfort, warmth, two is to avoid pain or avoid discomfort, right?

Emotional discomfort or pain. So we would avoid doing things that were new and novel and that we hadn't done before because historically. If we were going to set a big goal for ourself and go out into the wild, well, we just die immediately because we wouldn't have society around us. And then three, it's designed to save energy.

So like, it's really good feeling to sit on the couch, eat chips, and just watch TV. It feels good. Why? Because it's keeping you alive. Your brain thinks that nicotine is keeping you alive. Now, when you actually get to the truth of it, nicotine has absolutely no utility in your life whatsoever. The only reason it feels good is because it's so addictive and it releases dopamine, but it's not actually doing anything for your survival.

And you know this because if you remove nicotine, you survive completely just fine. You never need nicotine to survive at all. It's nothing, nothing about it helps you with survival. And then I want to offer if you're like, Oh no, it's good for me. It helps with anxiety, all this stuff. Like you're. You're kind of missing the point a little bit.

So when it comes to your emotions, the reason why it feels like nicotine is helping you with them is because it's numbing over them. Anxiety is an emotion that will go away if you feel it, but it's not actually going away when you're using nicotine. What's happening. This is genuinely what's happening is that you're releasing dopamine when you use your vape or whatever nicotine source or whatever overeating.

So your brain thinks, Ooh, this is good. Now that feels like it's actually gotten rid of the emotion of anxiety, but it hasn't, it's covered it up. It's as if you had this stinky, smelly dead rat in your room. Instead of just picking it up and throwing it in the garbage and get rid of it, you just throw a blanket on half of it.

You're like, Oh good. It's helped like that blanket really helped me with that smell. No, it hasn't. It's covered it up. But you're making the mistake in association and then also because you're addicted to nicotine, it feels like it's good and helpful, but that's just, you know, the anxiety that creates, it solves.

That's what addiction is. The only reason that you feel good after using a vape is because it releases dopamine and also because you're addicted to it. So it's not actually serving you, it's just the illusion of serving you, right? So I want to offer that when you're addicted to anything, the reason you're addicted is emotional.

It's always emotional. Addiction is emotional. Remember that. And remember that everything you do or don't do in life is because of emotion. So what if I could offer you a way to solve your emotions without nicotine? Well, I can. It's called sitting down with your emotions, feeling it, and then paying attention to your thoughts and what's causing it.

That's it. And that's entire about the framework I teach us. But when it comes to numbing emotion, if you teach yourself to numb emotion, then you're not going to live the life that you want. And what's going to happen is you're probably going to blame external things for the life that you are living, which is never a good move, but when we're constantly numbing emotion, that's what we have to do to justify it.

So the best thing that you can possibly do is learn how to process your emotions. I'm not telling you to quit vaping right now. I'm not even telling you to quit vaping, but I am going to tell you that a life lived in addiction. With avoidance of emotions is going to end up being a smaller life than without the addiction.

When we can feel our emotions fully, bravely, and boldly, this has been a really quick episode. This is just tapping on the surface of numbing emotion. I just want you to understand that when you're doing anything that feels compulsive or that's having a net negative, you're most likely numbing your emotions.

And when you're numbing your emotions, you're not allowing yourself to become strong and brave. And being able to set yourself up into a position where you can actually live the life that you want. Numbing your emotions makes you weak and you're doing it voluntarily. Addicts typically aren't living lives that we desire.

Why? Because we don't look up to people who can't manage our emotions. Just going to offer that. And I'm not blaming addicts, right? Like again, if you listen to anything I said in this episode, our society has set us up to be addicted to things so they can make money and keep us weak. So if you don't want to be weak and you want to make money and create a life that you want, then I'd recommend strongly that you get unaddicted to whatever it is you're addicted to.

Whether it's nicotine, sex. Food, porn, whatever substance, if your life is being ruled by a substance, that's not a good place to be in. I don't care who you are or where you live. So this has been just like one of those throat punchy episodes where I get right to the core and just rip it out. And I loved it.

Normally they're not so intense, but you know what? I'm feeling intense this morning. If you want to quit vaping, I have a course for you. You can check it out. My bio, you're about to hear the outro where it's going to repeat this, but Hey, whatever. Have a great day guys. If you want help getting off nicotine, if you want to get your life in order, Then I'd strongly recommend you find me and my other resources in my bio.