90 days complete........heres what I learned

Today is day 92 for me and I just wanted to share a few insights Ive had along the way so that maybe it'd be of help to someone..........I read a lot about guys saying this is difficult or hard or even, the "Hardest thing you'll ever do". Its not hard, and its most definitely not the hardest thing you'll ever do. If you tell yourself its tough, then I promise it will be. One of the great freedoms in life is the ability to choose how you respond to something. You can choose to say its hard or the hardest thing youve ever done, or you can choose to say that its ok and you can do it. Its literally a choice. Why make things harder on yourself by holding onto certain beliefs? This was not a hard a thing to do. I dont posses any special powers or have any more will power than the next guy. What I did was face up to whats at the crux of this matter of porn and masturbation and then made a decision that it was gonna be fine, not hard or tough. And thats what it was, fine. There was no white knuckling it, no holding on, no distracting myself to run away from urges. I stood and faced it and thats all you need do.

I read aswell about guys using Porn blockers. You dont need a porn blocker, thats relinquishing your personal responsibility, your power to choose. Its like handing over your power to someone else or something else and saying, ok youre in charge now, you decide if I watch porn or not. Again, face it, thats all you need to do. Dont avoid it, dont distract yourself, sit right in the middle of it. Otherwise you'll be running for the rest of your life. Whats behind the urge to jerk off and watch porn? Feelings. Thats all. Theyre just feelings that want to be processed and felt. Its stuff from the past that never got a chance to be felt because you shut down emotionally. But those feelings are still there, they were just stored in the hurt locker. And the urges are your way of avoiding those feelings, its a defense against emotional pain. Emotional pain freaks people out because you dont know when its gonna end. When youre faced with it, you run away because you dont know what to do with it. Its not like physical pain where you take a pill or go to the doctor and gives you a diagnosis. Emotional pain isnt as clear cut and most people have no clue how to deal with it. So they numb it with alcohol, drugs, porn, sex, hookers, gambling..........you name it. Its crazy, in school youre taught about geometry, accountancy, the difference between alkaline and acidic, the names and dates of battles that took place hundereds of years ago. But you're not taught the most important thing there is in life: Youre not taught about yourself. About how your emotions work, how your emotions and thoughts are connected and how to deal with emotional pain. You have people living these lives where theyre barely functioning because they never dealt with their feelings. Theyre propped up on pills and everything else and theres people have breakdowns and meltdowns all over the place.

If you face your emotional pain and embrace it I promise you then this is not only easy, its something that will give you insights and gifts into life, yourself and whats really meaningful. And I know most people reading this have no idea how to embrace their emotional pain and feelings. Thats ok, I didnt either, but I learned and trust me If I can do it, you can. There are no special cases, we all can do this. Theres one book that can show you aswell. Its called "Focusing" by Eugene Gendlin. Its 175 pages long but it is in my opinion, the most important book ever written. Please read it. He shows you exactly what to do to connect back in with that part of you that you have lost connection with. This way you feel it all and I promise you when you do feel it, you'll notice big changes in your life. Even in your physical appearance. I did this and everyone I know has said things to me like, your face has completely changed, you look a lot younger. ANd I can see it myself, not just in my face but my whole body feels great. When you face the emotional pain a shift takes place inside of you. It has no words, its something that takes place on a deep level and it changes you from within.



Theres so much crap and mistuths bandied about in society, one of which is that porn is healthy, natural and normal. Its not. When you connect with that deep part of you one of the consequences is you're connected to your intuition and wisdom and this part of you sends you messages and signals about your experiences in life. Porn is just something that produces a bad feeling. Its not a nice place, its a dark world which Im sure anyone on here will attest to. If porn was natural and healthy it wouldnt leave a trail of destruction in its wake, which is what it does. Plus I watched a TED talk about porn and this guy was explaining why he gave it up. One reason was (and this is pretty powerful stuff) That no little girl ever grows up dreaming of one

day being a porn star. Read that again......NO LITTLE GIRL GROWS UP DREAMING OF BEING A PORN STAR. No matter how glamorious it looks onscreen, its not. The girls who do porn are very damaged and deeply wounded. They're acting out because they cant face their emotional pain. They need love and kindness not to be put on camera and dehumanised. And so long as you look at porn, you create a demand. Somewhere in the world theres a scumbag who feeds off the demand you create when you look at this shit. But do it for yourself mostly. Do it because life really is a whole lot better without it, thats the truth. As for masturbation.........I think its unnatural aswell. I know that goes against everything that the popular media will tell you, but again, at a gut level I feel that we were meant to have sex with people, not by ourselves in a room, in front of a computer screen. And Im not being moralistic or even judgemental, Im just saying that i think theres things that dont make you happy in life and whacking off is one. The urge to jerk off in me is gone completely. My sex drive is there, believe me its there, but when you stop masturbating you literally reset yourself back to factory settings and what happens is you feel sexual feelings but you dont wanna jerk them off to get rid of them. And thats what masturbation is, a way to avoid feeling those feelings. When you dont do the act you get to clearly see what drives the behaviour and when you do that its like taking a step back and observing yourself. But most guys dont give themselves that chance, they whack off straight off the bat and never get to see whats really going on. When you dont jek off sexuality is this pleasant experience you feel in your whole body, its not this uncomfortable thing you have to jerk off to get away from, we were never meant to be like that. I saw someone the other day mention "Monk" mode. This is apparently going likehard mode but with the added factor of not engaging in sexual thoughts or fantasies..............honestly that is ludicrous. Sexual thoughts are 100% natural and normal. You can have them and not do antyghing though. You can think about having sex and experience the feelings in your body, but then leave it at that. You dont have to jerk off. Again, thats avoidance and avoidance perpetuates the problem, it doesnt solve it.
Something else that happened, during this for me was the attention I got from women. Other guys mentioned it and so it definitely is a thing. Its pretty incredible actually. Its like they sense your sexual energy and want to share in it. Like I'll walk down the street through town and women will be looking me in the eye all the time. On public transport it happens a lot. Last week I was on a tram and thorughout the journey this girl kept looking over at me and at the end of the journey when I was getting off I had my hand on a pole for support. She comes over, puts her hand on my hand, I turn around and shes looking me in the eye, and not making any atttempt to move her hand. She made sure I knew it wasnt a mistake..........I have girls making excuses to come over and talk to me. I was in a clothes shop yesterday and this beautiful brunette came over to me after giving me some serious eye contact. She was flirting with me like crazy and we're going out tomorrow night..........I literally had to do nothing. So please, do yourself a massive favour: Stop wasting your sexual energy on masturbation and porn because girls want you to share that energy with them. They really want you, trust me on that. Nobody wants you to waste it on stupid shit like whacking off and porn.

I'll never jerk off again, my body has been reset to its natural settings and the habit or way of being is not part of my natural make-up. I'll be having sex for sure, thats inline with my real self. My advice to anyone setting out on this thing is to stop telling yourself its hard. Tell yourself its grand, its easy. Dont count days either. Like make a note of the day you start and then forget about it. Check in every now and then, because theres not gonna be some dramatic crossing the finish line. You get to 90 days and nothing will happen.........at that moment in time. The changes occur thoughout the process. That old saying about life being a journey not a destination........its true. Dont be outcome dependent. Do it because you sense somewhere inside of you that its the right thing, for you. Dont do it because you want to get some award or something at the end of 90 days. Do it because right now, in this moment, you feel compelled to stop all the shit and be who you really are.

 

This was an interesting post. Yes, I concur that we have the power to choose whether the NoFap journey will be easy or difficult or even impossible through thoughts and attitude. If someone says to themselves that this journey will be hard then it really will turn out that way.

 

Thanks Joe. With regards to it being hard, I understand your point. What I meant was this: When you do the work on yourself and a change occurs from the inside out, then it's easy. If you try to white knuckle it for 90 days.......well I just think in order to do this a deep change within must occur and when you do connect with yourself it becomes easy. It's easy because all parts of you are aligned and your kind of at peace with yourself and when that's the case yiu can do anything. I gave up sugar a few weeks ago, after years of battling with myself. There was one part of me(child like part) who wanted to eat sugar while my grown up part knew it was toxic and damaging to my body. But once I connected with myself and did the inner work, there was no more struggle. It just happened by itself without any real effort.
So I'm pretty sure I won't have any white knuckle days. I know that may sound arrogant bit I have developed such a strong connection with myself that when I do have urges I'm able to open to them completely and feel them. And when I met them in, their power is gone. They only gain power if you resist and fight against yourself. I think people who do struggle with urges are not connected to their bodies. That's why the book I recommend is so important because it teaches you this skill. And if you are connected to your body you have it all, it's like getting the keys to the kingdom.

 

One of the better testimonies on here. I love how you're blunt about it. I agree that it isn't as hard as some make it out to be, but this really does depend on your mindset. At first I thought it was hard as well, because to deprive myself of something I thought was normal and "healthy" just didn't seem right, thus the cravings were big. Now I look at it as childish in nature and am of the mindset that there are no excuses anymore. Granted I haven't had a "streak" of 90 days yet, but I've been in the process of quitting since July, and in that time period where I probably would have pmo'd 90ish times, I've done it maybe 15-20, which is HUGE for me. Having the mindset that pmo is no longer an option makes this easier than I ever thought, but then again we'll see after a long streak how I feel about it.

I am also a believer in not using blockers, because I want to be able to find the willpower within myself to say no. Every time I would view porn it was MY choice, thus I want to make sure from this day forward that I make the right choice and am able to recognize that viewing porn is absolutely the WRONG choice. Looking back, when I would delete my videos and such, I would still use other sources to get my fix, such as movies on Netflix or underwear pictures (sad, I know). So even if I were to have a blocker aid, it wouldn't prevent me from getting my fix. Probably the only thing, other than willpower, would be someone standing over my shoulder kicking my ass every time I viewed any form of porn.

 

Great post.
I agree on the porn blockers and on not counting the days.
From my experience there was also a benefit from my last relapse about 40 days ago: I knew that I never wanted to go back to P and M - and from there it was an okay journey.
I also liked what you said about girls doing porn and I am going to check out the book
Thanks for sharing - posts like these are the reason why I keep checking the side day for day, even though I consider myself as PM free...

 

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the comments I've read them all and it's great to hear that others have connected with what I've said. I read something a while back that really struck me and it's very relevant to this whole thing that we're all doing. It's that we are born complete, whole and perfect and that nothing you do can take away from or add to who a you are. So all the worrying about not being good enough, or valuable or loveable is a waste of time. The whole advertising industry is based on the premise that you're not ok as you are. But you are, that's the truth and people use things like porn and masturbation to numb the pain of not feeling good enough. Thats why I tried to stress the importance of going deep into yourself in my OP, because when you become aware you can see the reasons behind why you use porn or whatever, to block it all out. But if you're not aware you wont see it. It will happen so quickly and before you know it you've spent an hour watching shit that pollutes your body and mind. So many people do this kind of thing, they think theres something wrong with them, that nobody could possibly love or even like them or that deep down inside they have this fatal flaw. But they dont. Thats the tragedy, its all conditioning. At some point when you were a vunerable child someone you looked up to or whos opinion mattered a lot, told you or acted in ways to lead you to believe you werent good enough. It was all a lie though and I think if everyone could get to the point where they see their magnificence and their inherent worth, that there would be no such thing as porn addiction. You would love yourself and wouldnt want any harm to come to you.
I guess what Im trying to say is, if you've lost sight of how great you are and you dont love yourself, make a decision to rebuild that because you can if you try. You can get to the point where you care so much about yourself that you'll be at peace and the person whos at peace with themselves is at peace with the world.