Good morning my fellow Fapstronauts! For some reason, this thought came to me this morning and I wanted to bring it to the community. What does the phrase "hard mode, soft heart" mean to each of you in this new chapter of your journey of reclaiming your life vision? (Of course, one way to think about this is 'hard mode, hard heart' which often I think of as meaning unnecessary beating up on myself while going through hard mode, which inevitably leads to relapse. At the same time, the 'hard mode, hard heart' approach is often playing off the mainstream image of what a 'man' ought to be and so it's hard for a lot of us, including myself, to see that as just one of many cultural ways of being masculine.) Just wanted to throw it out there and see what you guys think of it. Does this phrase speak to you in some way, particularly as a way you would like to experience the process (regardless of if you don't know how to go about it)? You can also PM me if you want to share your thoughts with me privately, as not everyone feels comfortable speaking up on forums. Also, one of the things that has helped me over the past few days is to redecorate my living space with a few positive affirmations on colored notecards. My favorite ones so far are... "I am fully supported by everyone and everything around me in the new vision for myself." "I am free to live a life guided by mindful responsiveness to everything around me." Just something to try out, for those looking for new ways to make this transitioning stage much more fun. My belief is that we are always doing affirmations all the time in our minds, and many times they are negative ones. Writing them out for me has been a way to imagine what kinds of thoughts that the sexually-responsive being I wish to be would have and practice saying them aloud. (Plus you can post them in a public place and not have to worry about people having 'clues' about whatever it is you are seeking to transition into. And in some ways it's true because, at least for me, the NoFap Yes Life challenge is actually not about sex, but developing a more responsive/less reactive attitude to life in general.) Have fun on the journey today!
I think it's an interesting idea. One thing I see a lot on this forum and the reddit is the wavering of the community between "don't go hard on yourself, forgive yourself and move on" and "don't be so nice to yourself when you relapse, you do this or you die". So while affirmations are great and important, they tend to flare up a response in people who see "getting soft" as a reason for relapsing so much. Perhaps the truth is someplace outside this entire thing. Maybe positive affirmations should not be "administered" rather than "assumed". You can say to yourself: "I am a strong person who is loved", and this will provide motivation for a few days, but it may not last. Reflexively, you can say "I will battle the demons of my PMO addiction and be victorious!". Similarly, you will have great motivation for the short-term to avoid urges, but because self-control is a limited resource it can eventually lead to a relapse. Back to the answer being "outside" this whole thing. Being a strong person with willpower, love and goodness should be assumed so that guilt does not arise when it shouldn't and apologies shouldn't be made. In this ideal mindset, control over actions becomes second nature, so when an urge appears (or any sexual stimulus), you don't even need to respond or react. The item simply fades away into the past as quickly as it appeared. Your brain understands the entire mechanical process of dealing with these urges that it is done unconsciously now. This might sound like a bunch of high-flying new age crap, but I really believe this can be achieved. The way I do it is through meditation. I'm an agnostic; I don't call upon a "higher power" when I feel an urge to save me, so I think a good alternative is to understand the aspects of consciousness so they can be manipulated to avoid these temptations and break the cycles that need to be broken. Anyway, tl;dr. Thanks for bringing up this topic.
Thanks Kosh32! I actually think you are on to something too. I too think affirmations should be changed regularly, as I think we are never the same person in each moment, and the same old affirmation can get stale over time. For me, the point of the affirmation practice at first is to get yourself used to inhabiting that mindset and allowing it to become second nature over time. It's like an artist learning a new song, that's all, and over time giving it her or his own stylistic flavor to it. Then they go on to learn new songs. (I also think affirmations are not so much about the words perse, but about the feelings that underlie them, and the goal is to get to those feelings rather than lofty statements. The affirmations, for me, are just a means to the underlying emotional arena, which when I look at your great example of two affirmations that appear to mean the same thing, I actually see two different emotional endpoints for each of them.) And for me, I think that responsiveness is just allowing any stimulus to be there without having to react to it in some way (or the action of peaceful not-doing). From one fellow meditator to another (I practice vipassana), I do think that perhaps another way of doing 'hard mode, soft heart' is simply through equanimity and nonattachment to the process, which is different, as you and others may know, from attachment and detachment. So I think what you and I agree on is that there is a middle path between the two extremes, and it's up to each of us to find our own way to it and in our own time. I believe such a middle path of 'hard mode, soft heart' allows us to see and nurture the skillful qualities in ourselves and also recognize that the journey has no final destination, for one change always plants seeds for another, setting the stage for impermanence once again
Also, I've been thinking about what if the "Hard Mode, Soft Heart" approach is also about cultivating a stronger sense of playful curiosity? This has been on my mind because of Todd Kashdan's work on this topic (see links below), and it makes me wonder if perhaps the missing ingredient for countering anxiety around the NoFap Yes Life challenge for many of us is that we haven't found a way to integrate playful curiosity as part of the transition? Anyone have any thoughts on this? http://www.psmag.com/health/curiosity-the-killer-catalyst-3368 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzBageKXuys
I can only speak for myself. It had to be hard mode period. Before I got to quit, I spent months "trying" to quit. Although I did not use the term "transitional", that was essentially my approach before I got to quit. Ultimately, I did not link my porn abuse or quitting to my own masculinity, and I feel such would be unhelpful to one who is determined to quit. For me what helped was understanding the science behind the problem. Porn = button, pushing button = dopamine release. Dopamine = addictive. Answer: quit pushing the button. Although I did quit for my wife's self esteem, the decision to quit pushing the button was ultimately a decision to quit feeding myself dopamine. Taking this very narrow approach allowed me to quit porn, quit PMO, and quit MO over 5 months ago. Thanks for posting. Reading posts and responding are part of my recovery. So, thanks.
Nice! You mentioned one of my favourite Richard Bach quotes somewhere earlier 'never mistake the wrapping for the gift' which was nice to see on here
I started to add something to this thread but it ended up too long so I started another http://www.nofap.org/forum/showthread.php?2930-Easy-Tiger!!&p=17201#post17201 Cheers
Here is what it means for me. It's important for me to be celibate, and it's out of love: love for God, love for my future wife, and a healthy, proper love for myself (which is to say, my life is about spiritual transformation and renewal).
