Overcoming looking at women lustfully

Oh, hello!!! Very nice answers!!

I got some tricks as well, maybe this helps... First of all, if you've been a porn addict for so long, sadly your unconscious mind changes your perception on women based by "what you are used to" so of course the very first step is to quit porn.

Second of all, I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but we all have a feminine side and a masculine side, all in all we are mixed up, everything afterwards is about enviorement. The famous stereotypes are just plain bullshit and the differences between us are merely based upon individuals' surroundings.

So this being said, it's rather correct to label people as... people, another human being. It's only about biological structures tho.

Also, there is nothing wrong with lust!!! Don't be hard on yourself!! This is perfectly normal as long as you don,t apply religious nonsense and philosophies of punishment. The difference between sexual lust and the freedom of perception upon women comes from one's maturity.

But when I talk about maturity, oh, many of us are way above this, lack of self-discipline, lack of empathy and determination or motivation. If your brain can trick you, you can equally do the same thing in reverse.

It's always about the reasons, also a non-distorted image of your identity. This sounds easy, but it isn't. Many of use would choose the wrong choice dispite the absurdity of their reasons. You can always ask yourself "do I want to be like everyone else? Am I that kind of guy?". One of the philosophical approaches to life is based on one's individuality, life is more considerate as long as you keep your unique and particular aspects of your personality.

And the opposite of addiction is connection. Look, I know this is hard, but you have to practice compassion. Based upon your own self-discipline, anything can be achieved. Even tho you'll have to repair the damage of a long period of time of perceiving women in a wrong way. Start looking at their bodies as to your own body, visualise the rational aspect of their nature, label them as human beigs, consider that life is more than sex.

And the most important... connect with them. Mentally or physically. This is complicated, sort of... Unless you have some kind of best female friend or no idea, eating psychedelic drugs with her, sharing your inside thoughts, a feeling is a feeling, you can't really achieve it by walking across the street and looking at girls. But even so, mentally you can do this... Respect her identity and body instead of getting aroused. It takes some practice, eventually you can get to a point of succes.

The last one is a little bit abstract, I have no real choice of words to describe a feeling of connection that may lead to a higher level of empathy. And after empathy it s your own "mission" to change the patterns of your perception. If you find a new meaning for women, from then on the only hard thing is to find reasons to keep that way for as long as possible.

Also, my own personal philosophy on this subject... The sexual impulse is based on unconscious insticts, we should differentiate from animals by the power of will. There is nothing wrong about lust, but there is a difference between enjoying the visual stimuli of a hot women's body and objectifying them for our own personal sexual fantasies. Also, when it's mostly about sexual attraction, you are estompating her human qualities and missing a lot of points of connection. After all, isn't life about humans and human relationship?

 

Hello, pre-apologies for long post.

Here is an answer from a Christian worldview:

I have multiple levels of armor for this topic specifically. Sometimes I skip around depending on how vulnerable I feel that day.

Layer 1: Learn about yourself. The most critical part of this journey is to continually learn about yourself. You do this by just observing your brain's reactions to things. Do not beat yourself up, just observe and record. The thing you are looking for is your dopamine hits. As you become more aware of your brain's reaction to images, you will be able to specifically mark down the moment where your brain went into that euphoric lust mode. The amazing thing is that as you continue down this journey, you will find that your brain can be completely fine one day, but then later in the day or the next day, the same thing triggers that dopamine hit. So you always have to be observant. If you are serious about healing, write down your triggers. It is not about punishment, it is about learning about yourself.

Layer 2: Is God doing something here? Ask yourself if God is doing something in this situation. This easily filters out the joggers or the women you just walk by on a daily basis. Unless you feel the Holy Spirit leading you to do something, there is no need to look.

Layer 3: God may want you to do something. So, the answer from above is yes or maybe. What do you do next? My goal is to pretend to be like a TV detective. They seem to see all the important details without lustfully looking. So I have a checklist of things:

• Body language. shoulders stooped, head down
• Face/eyes: makeup, darkness around her eyes, sadness
• Hair/fingernails/toenails: did she spend significant time on them
• Clothing: is there anything noteworthy about it? Look into the heart behind the clothing. If she is provocatively dressed, maybe she is feeling ugly and this is the only way she can build self-esteem. maybe her husband is addicted to porn and she is crying out for attention. Maybe she is just trying to be stylish.

Then, our goal is to show the love of God to them. Depending on what you see, you can compliment her on things that she obviously spent effort on like shoes, hair, nails. Just don't compliment her on her beauty or her outfit if it is provocative, we do not want to encourage that. However, if she is dressed modestly and you can tell she put thought into her outfit, definitely compliment that. Or if her body language or face is speaking heart issues, just say something like "how is your stress level?" Just be prepared to listen for a while...

Layer 4: Look above her. Listen, layer 3 is FRAGILE. don't expect to be successful all the time. It is my goal, but sometimes I get to maybe one or two items in the checklist before I realize I cant go any further. At this point, I just stop the checklist and try to look at her forehead or even above her a bit.

Layer 5: Pray for her/inflate her. Tell God that He did a wonderful job creating this woman and pray blessings over her family and her life. Pray for her heart, her soul, her mind. Our brain is trying to turn her into a 2 dimensional nun-human image, we need to inflate her into a real person that was created in the image of God.

Layer 6: Sing. When I realize that my current brain cycle isnt working, I switch sides to see if it works any better. So I sing. I specifically sing Revelation 4:8 . I figure if there are creatures singing this day and night, God must like it. If you want an example, Chris Tomlin has this verse included in one of his songs, I forget which one.

Layer 7: Pray for yourself. This can be as simple as "God, this burden is too heavy, I need help". Or :"In the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, I command these evil thoughts to leave". Be warned though, they may leave for an instant, but your brain will try to bring them right back. While at one level you hate these thoughts, there is your limbic part of the brain that still really likes the effects the thoughts have.

Layer 8: FLEE. There are times where I just say "God, I just can't do this today, you are going to have to find somebody else." So I just close my eyes or try to find a way out.

Example:
during church the other day, there was a singer who my eyes glued onto. I was caught completely off guard because she was not my type, but I felt my brain go into euphoric/dopamine/lust mode. So I ended up singing the Revelation song, praying, then just gave up and spent the rest of the worship time with my eyes closed. It just seemed that every woman I walked next to that day was wearing the most skimpiest outfits, so I just got out of there, got my kids, and went to lunch.

Remember, this is only my strategy, and honestly, it doesnt always work. Do not beat yourself up if you spend more time in the later steps. Our focus is to re-program our brain to look differently. For the longest time, I took the advice to "bounce your eyes". While that is definitely useful and is covered in layers 4 and 8, it is not our goal. Our goal is to see her as God does. A beautiful, fearfully and wonderfully made human that God knows the number of hairs on her head and knit her in her mother's womb.

 

The desires of the flesh are not the way God communicates to us. Lust does not come from Him.