Emotional Intelligence (EQ) : NoFap : Flatlining

Hello all,

I want to share what I feel is the ultimate difference maker in someone just starting NoFap, is making it through Flatlining, or is just trying to reach NoFap goals: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence can be defined simply as:
A) Knowing what emotions you're feeling or what other's are feeling; past present, or future
B) The quality of response you use in relation to what you feel, or to what others feel

This is simple to understand, but can be extremely hard to practice. It can be extremely hard to practice because, it's not fun to feel uncomfortable emotions like, sadness, anger, anxiety, extreme confusion, depression, suicidal urges, hate, contempt, disgust, ashamedness, jealousy, etc, during the NoFap journey. All of which, serve important purposes for you.

And to make it worse, we can have uncomfortable emotions about uncomfortable emotions. "I'm so angry at myself because I let this girl down! She liked me and I let her down! And now I'm angry about my anger, because I don't know what to do!!"

It can even be hard to feel comfortable emotion. i.e We may be set up at present to feel embarrassment or ashamed when we get happy doing something we like, because for whatever reason, we were told times ago not to be happy doing the things we like, good or bad.

And there's few easier ways to deal with emotional pain, than to go fap. Fapping generally always begins with an urge to escape the most subtle or explicit uncomfortable emotion. Subtle can be, you're bored during your homework, so you Fap. Explicit can be, experiencing insomnia during Flatline (or in general), and yelling at the bedroom ceiling in total emotional agony (depression, sadness, anger, all wrapped into one) for hours on end about how you've wasted so much of your life with fapping.

But what if we knew how to handle the uncomfortable emotion before fapping? What if you understood every emotion you have? What if you used them as indicators to direct your life in the direction you're destined to go? Because that's exactly what they are there for. They are there to help you, guide you, even the most uncomfortable emotions.

How does one begin to effectively use emotions?

To anyone reading this, if you have never dove head first into Emotional Intelligence, I highly suggest doing so. Read up on it! Anyone can do it. Anyone. In my personal opinion, everyone should. It should be taught in schools over the entire globe.

Research it, practice it, excel in it.

To anyone that does know about it, I think will agree with me that it's more important to have EQ, than IQ. You hear it all the time in success stories that life becomes rather fulfilling after NoFap, because life becomes more emotional, in a good way.

In regards to stories I hear where people have been flatlining for 2 years, I'm a little skeptical that they're flatlining vs aren't effectively interpreting their emotional messages. They're emotionally stuck, trapped in some type of cyclical fear and hopelessness loop, that conveys their brain needs to figure its own-self out, so that "I" the experiencer can begin to magically be happy. This is not rational, and a conscious decision made with willpower and courage has to break this loop.

Emotional Intelligence, a very very important intelligence indeed.

Note: Emotional Intelligence does not make depression feel "good." Depression feels like depression. Depression can last for a few hours, or for the rest of your life, depending on how you handle it. Emotional Intelligence teaches you for example, with depression, what to think about in the depression state, to eventually flow back into pleasurable emotional states.

Quick Note About Myself: My day count is not very high. I heard about NoFap 4 years ago, and EQ six years ago, but never correlated the two benefiting each other till I began this streak. I've always been on and off NoFap. I never had the awareness that NoFap increases emotional confusion (essentially brainfog), just always felt it. I was glad to finally understand why my life wasn't as clear as I felt it could be. I will never be fapping again. Period. I rather experience the extreme highs and lows of emotions and get what I want from life, than to be in brain fog and get nowhere.