The Road to Redemption

Well, it's not surprising that many posts are quite shallow, is it?
Putting thought into words takes time and attention, but also a level of skill, that as you pointed out, is lacking in many young people today. "Critical thinking" is also becoming a rare thing these days, the ability to debate without attacking each other, general discussion....youtube is full of lively discussion and debate, and I watch a lot of podcasts, because I happen to live in a rural area where people don't think much, they are mostly conditioned to think and act in a very limited way, like "pro Trump" or "anti Trump", which to them sums up the nature of their world. I rather not interact with them.
Nonetheless, all of us have been subject to the porn demons! So you can approach the problem from an intellectual angle or you can just decide to quit and count your days and post "one-liners". For each person, whether it's the college student immersed in modern day "academics" or the 50 year old dreamer like myself, experience has shown that a life spent fapping to porn is just not healthy. Far worse, it's damaging and hellish. So, here we are in the cyber world of online forums, swimming or simply keeping our heads above water. So many of us are at least trying to pick up the broken pieces and put them back together.
This is the first thing I do every morning after I get my coffee, and even though I get bored with it sometimes, it's the consistency that matters for me, it's like brushing my teeth or feeding the dog. Like I said before, "completing" a so called "reboot" period won't save me, but consistent practice might, and writing for me is part of that recovery work, and yes, it's work! My morning yoga is work, especially when I don't feel like doing it.
Relationships is work....terribly hard work for me. I dream and fantasize about relationships. I dream and fantasize about imaginary people. I was already insane before I got into porn, thanks to my insane parents. Insanity can be passed down from one generation to the next. There is also a collective insanity present in our "society". We don't know how to make sense of sex, do we? What role should sex play in our lives? Oh, we can theorize and we can determine, and we can conclude, but it's all in my head, or in my mind. I have been living in my mind primarily, and I think that is the disease, yes, I have diagnosed the disease: I have been essentially separated from my physical body and living my life in mind only.
Another day looms ahead...anything can happen, but up here in this wasteland NOTHING will happen!!!
Yes, my friend is right, the wife moved on and left me here with all of this shit, and I am still concerned about what she might think and how my actions might affect her etc. God help me!
Porn has left a void. It's up to me how I fill it. It's scary and emotional and exciting and terrible!

 

90 days and beyond, I'm done counting, I'm done looking at the clock, I am done looking in the mirror, I am done being worried, I am done being anxious, I am done with so many things, but I will probably still do them...you know why, because I'm an idiotic human being, and we are programmed to do things that we don't want to do....
This morning I did not want to get out of bed, but I did it anyways! Why? Nietzsche, the famous philosopher, would spend days in bed, because he couldn't get on with the mundane task of ordinary living, it was too depressing, and that is the way I feel, what's the point of doing anything at all?
All this fucking and cumming in the porn world has destroyed my brain, at least partially, and it takes time for the neural pathways to re-establish themselves in any kind of decent order, so I might as well stay in bed until that happens, but wait, I have to do things! Like what? Well, mow the grass, feed the dog, check the mail. Fuck it, I'm going back to bed.
I can't lay here anymore, I have to move...pace the house, walk the stupid trail at the park that I've walked a million god damned times. Something has to explode in my head, it feels. Can I ignite a micro sized atom bomb in my head? Because I don't want this same old shit that I wake up to every morning!!!!!!!!!!

 

Me too, but I just fucked up my back again, big time. I can barely move, so that puts things into perspective doesn't it? I have been attempting to be twenty again, but I'm not. Apparently I pushed myself too hard, but I had no idea. Change of plans again. Pain sucks, but I'm not running from it anymore.
I thought I was moving too slow, but now I have to move even slower. The porn thing will not help anymore...it never did, but I wasn't convinced; now, I'm convinced, so things are different. Reality can be harsh, and pain can make it even harsher. Yesterday I didn't want to get out of bed and this morning I literally could not! Do I hear a little chuckling? The divine comedy, the divine tragedy....I don't know if a car wreck would have been worse.
Back to crawling...I guess I have not been humiliated enough. Was this a lesson to get me to stop yelling at the dog? Is this "divine intervention"? Or just the consequence of my stupid behavior? Or both? I don't know, and that's the point. I don't know anything. Back to square one, but this time it's a little different. How? I am alone, I am a little more accepting, and I've learned how to breathe in the meantime.
Now I don't want to lay in bed....how hard is it to learn a fucking lesson???????????

 

We are all isolated in a sense, we are all in our own little shells, our own little worlds.
What about the kid that just died in the car wreck...I may say that I didn't know the kid, but somehow I did, because I was that kid. In an instant the dreams are gone. Everything that kid could have been is now only speculation.
Well, even though porn hijacked my life, my brain, my sanity...I can recover some of what was lost.
So, in contrast to a fatal car wreck, there is still hope.
When I consider the plight of others, I must also consider that we are all on this planet together. We all have a part of each other contained within ourselves. Despite the fact that we experience separation and that we live in our own little worlds, we are all connected through a collective conscious existence.
God is not this being somewhere up in the sky looking down on us...God is Unity, God is the One.
When I sit in a dark room looking at porn images, when I masturbate in isolation, when I fantasize about undressing the woman who is standing a few feet away from me...well, it is all "felt" in some subtle way by the environment around me, by other living creatures.
This realization is convicting and allows me to break out of the hole, the shell, the isolation.
Everything I hate about anyone or anything is also part of who I am.
All life is connected.

 

Can I moderate my behavior?
I can, but what about my thoughts? That's trickier, they blow in like the wind. I filter them, analyze them and hold on to them at will. And it's easy, because I see them as my own personal thing, and whether I indulge in a thought or not, what does it matter to the next person? What does it matter to the environment around me?
I can deceive myself quite easily. I can panic, I can get depressed and I can spiral upwards or downwards; I can become complacent, numb, receptive or excited....all dependent on the thoughts that I entertain.
Do circumstances change thought patterns? Do circumstances create certain thoughts? What does it mean to be rock solid? To be unwavering? I admire characters that display these qualities, they remind me of a mountain, something that can't be fucked with, because it is just steady, unshakeable, reliable, strong.
Aren't these the characteristics that people adore?
When thoughts bombard my mind, how do I respond? While on this journey of recovery, which I have decided to pursue as a sexually abstinent Spiritual seeker, I have struggled with the thought of never engaging sexually again with another person. Now, I am open to the possibility of having sexual relations again at some point, but I am also open to not ever engaging again. As many of us know, so much of relationships is a play, and especially in the world of opposite sexual attraction, when someone is too needy, it's a turnoff typically, and vice versa, if someone seems content, it's a turn on. So, people attempt to portray confidence. But is it real? How well are they acting?
I have noticed that when I allow myself to not give a shit about appearance or behavior, people look at me differently, either they are turned on or off, but when I am authentically in my "zone" or in my "zen", the people who are turned on to engaging with me, really dig the vibe, so to speak, and that's where I want to be concerning relations...right there, in that groove...it's free, it's uninhibited, it's easy and loose.
Now, the trick is that when I am in that zone, and there just happens to be a woman whom I might be sexually attracted to, and she digs the vibe so to speak...how do I react? Do I get nervous, anxious, lose my cool? It could just be a glance, a look, a smile. Boom, right there and then, that's a confidence booster, isn't it?
Right there and then, hold on to that, let it be absorbed and just relax, that's all. That's the trick. I don't need, I don't crave, I don't long for, I don't itch, get nervous etc. No, I just keep moving along my merry way.
Is this authentic or just a strategy? It must be authentic, it must! Like the mountain. People flock to a beautiful mountain, climb it, hike it, enjoy it, but the mountain doesn't "need" them.
I want to be like a mountain!

 

Sometimes it seems I am saying the same thing, only using different words.....
Sometimes it seems that my life is a spiral. When I wake up in the morning, am I in the same place? Yes and no. Yes, because it feels that way and no, because it's slightly different even if I don't notice.
So, what I perceive isn't necessarily what is. So, when I say the "same thing" differently, I am not actually saying the same thing, am I?
A spiral is different than a circle, because it returns to the proximity of where I was before, but not exactly where I was before, so it's a more relevant representation of my life.
In some way it feels like I'm twenty again, and in some way it doesn't. I didn't have a ruined back when I was twenty, but I was exploring Spirituality, which I am doing again. I also rode my bike a lot when I was twenty, which I have been doing more of lately, and I am also at a major crossroad in life. But yes everything is different. At twenty I was steeped in sexual compulsion behavior, and now I am on the road to recovery/redemption.
So, my life is spiraling, up or down doesn't really matter in the universe, there is no up or down, just momentum, movement, vibration. So many things "feel" a certain way, but are they that way? Probably not.
We are sensitive beings and the things we sense affect us, especially in childhood, when we are shaped so to speak. Can this "shaping" be overcome? Yes. But it takes effort, discipline, commitment. Can we overcome dependency? Yes, but it takes a change of mind, a paradigm shift, a process of ripping out the old foundation and replacing it with a new one. And that can be very unsettling; it can produce panic, anxiety attacks etc.
What is my foundation? The world is a threat, don't trust anyone and always be on the defensive....
And how am I replacing this worldview/foundation?
Live, breathe and love. To the best of my abilities.
People say hard times are coming, but when haven't they been? We are free to act as we please and live with the consequences...whatever they may be. And when a person has lost the fear of death, what does it matter? What do I leave behind? A story of redemption?
What is this forum about anyway? Made it day 1....made it day two...made it day three......etc.
No, it's about your life....what are you going to do with it?

 

Dreams, they are vital to my recovery.
Despite all of the night time activity in my mind I feel rested in the mornings, I wake with the sun, no alarm needed. This used to be different. After a night with porn and fapping, I would be hung over the next morning.
My dreams have become vivid, more colorful and vibrant. They are images of the past mixed with scenes of a variety of potential story lines that my subconscious mind creates. I haven't dreamed anything sexual lately. My semen production factory has been shut down.
My day dreams have revolved around future scenarios mainly. How do I picture myself in ten years? So many options really, despite the "economy" or the state of affairs in the world. What have I learned? Anything of value? That days pass by like seconds....that breath is Spirit...that sex is over-rated
Little things matter. Big things are made up of lots of little things. If I ignore the details, I can't appreciate the fullness. Sobriety has nothing to do with drugs or alcohol...sobriety is a state of mind. I can delude my thinking with fear, with hatred, with envy, with all kinds of obsession and paranoia. Thoughts start out as little things and can turn into monsters and demons. And I've dealt with demons in my dreams, waking in the middle of the night sweating and unable to move, thinking that my heart was going to stop. Sobriety is about the ability to appreciate the small things, to examine everything that enters my mind carefully and deal with it in whatever way I need to.
Some thoughts are "dreamworthy", like the one about me as a wise old sage floating through space and time. Yes, I picture myself that way ....sitting on top of the world, absorbing all that energy!

 

Rhythm.
Have you found it? It's everywhere, in the sound of the engines propelling the steel and plastic carriages along the road, in the chirping of the crickets, in the ticking of the clock and in your breath and heart beat, also in my gait.
There is rhythm in the sun and moon cycles.
I've had to find my own rhythm once again, in how I wake and sleep, in how I eat and shit, in how I work and rest. This is an important step on the road to recovery.
What do I include in my daily/nightly rhythmic routines, and are these all things that I look forward to in a way to provide stability for my life?
What about melody? Is there a melody that I can add? Have I sweetened my life with a melody? Not really. I have had to turn off all the media sounds throughout the day, recorded music mainly and radio shows etc. in order to find my own melodies, to discover what lurks deep inside, to rediscover what I may have lost in childhood.
Do you ever hum to yourself? I don't, but I should.
Since I've re-injured my back, I've had to focus and concentrate on doing my strengthening exercises very slow and controlled, so I eliminated the music from the boom box and now I just work out to my own internal music, which is producing better results.
There is music inside, deep down inside. I have a choice, do I engage in porn and kill my creative instincts or do I abstain from all sexual compulsion and re-connect to my true inner man?
We all have choices all the time!

 

The images and thoughts in my head recur over and over again. It's like looking into a washing machine, the same thoughts spinning around continuously.
When I was steeped in porn, I generally used the same or very similar fantasies and themes, it was very habitual.
I guess we are "creatures of habit", so they say. And there are desirable habits and undesirable ones. The people on the forum that say "I can't stop this or that" are stuck in a cycle. We want to engage with what is familiar, don't we? The body remembers and the mind relives the memories. What is familiar becomes what is comfortable.
What I tell myself matters, If I tell myself that I am a porn addict, well, then I am a porn addict. If I tell myself that I am a recovering porn addict, then I am that. If I tell myself that I was and no longer am a porn addict, then I'm not. And if I have to tell myself 1000 times a day, so be it!
I am in recovery. I am no longer a porn addict. But I am a dreamer, a hopelessly lost dreamer! I was a dreamer long before I was a porn addict. But porn hijacked my dreams for a very long time.
I am entering the next stage of my life, a purification, a redemptive process, a transformation, a re-orienting, a re-prioritization, a shift in attention and identity.
I am channeling my energy in a more productive way.....

 

I wake with the birds and rise with the sun
What occurred yesterday is gone and done
So many images float through the mind
So much to see, so much to find.....

 

over 3 months in to this, this absence from compulsive sexual behavior.....no desire to return, none at all
I even had a brief sexual encounter in a dream last night, but no effects down there...no, I think my sex organs have retired, it's about time. 40 years of this crap
the fantasies about women haven't stopped though...I think it would be nice to "make love", to gently caress a woman's body and be caressed by a woman, but I don't even know how that could happen right now, I have no associations, no friends, except for some occasional sales transactions and brief encounters while training, but up here I am in the middle of the nowhere, the Wild West, only the horses have been replaced by ATVs
I don't know how I ended up here, I don't know how I ended up in this body actually, what the fuck am I doing here?
why am I even on this so called forum with all of these alleged people who may not even be real people? because I want to write my morning thoughts somewhere, somewhere where somebody might see them maybe
I tried the AA meetings, but I'm not an alcoholic anymore, I'm not anything, I'm a nobody, maybe I need a therapist...where do I find one of those? preferably an attractive female one.....do they grow them on trees? Perhaps a massage therapist. No, I want to join a revolution, I just haven't seen any around here...

 

Overcoming the porn drenched mind means one must engage with life, actual life
What is the purpose of human existence? to fuck? no, that's a small part...yes, we've been given sex organs to create more humans, and is there pleasure in the act? It depends. What you typically see in movies is a cheap version, some perverted form. But the question is what is real sex? I think that depends too.
Most media porn that I've seen is cruel and heartless, and I have been attracted to this and addicted to it, particularly the bondage porn. I hate myself for it, I truly do. It's a part of me that still occasionally surfaces, but I am able to gently transform it I think...I don't want to just push it away or stuff it down.
I had allowed the hatred towards my mother and the perceived rejection by females to develop into a monstrous inner desire for control in a sexual way....a dangerous path that could potentially lead to rape or worse.
In the modern sexual world the lines are blurred, because the notion that if something is consensual, then it's OK, among "adults" that is. But many so called adults have immature minds and are like children inside. What about "assisted suicide" ? What about consensual torture? Where does it end???
What about respect, dignity and love? Regardless if some deranged individual "wants" to be mistreated....the sad part is that there are so many people willing to play the aggressor....it's a sad state indeed
When I say that I must engage with life, actual life, what does that mean? It means that life is creation, not destruction...it means that life is encouraging, building up and not tearing down...it's also transformation, change and evolution/adaptation.
Why are people bent on destruction? Why do we have to tear others down in order to build ourselves up?
Engaging with people in a healthy way is something that must be learned, preferably in childhood, it's an education that is fundamental and without that foundation, well, I have to teach myself how to do it.
It's all part of recovery, on the road to redemption...I am redeeming my old self for a new identity.

 

This morning I awoke with the sun after a crazy night on an airplane...I couldn't find my wallet, my gear, my sanity, but the pilot was patient and sitting in the cockpit waiting...
Yes, my dreams are blending with my conscious thoughts.
My sex organs are resting. But I am thinking about doing a dating app, because I am lonely, and it would be nice to have someone to talk to at least, a female preferably.
I have a desire to speak to females, to converse with them. I think it's part of my recovery process...to be able to relate to women without sexual tension. I am in no shape to "perform" anyways, and I don't want to. Human touch in some mild form would be nice, but I don't "need" it as much as I would "like" it.
At least some conversation though, because my dog makes a poor conversation partner...it's really just a way of talking to yourself when you are talking to an animal.
I will tackle a few things today. A few, not too many...slowly and mindfully

 

Sort of a difficult night, lots of tossing and turning, active dreaming, waking....just couldn't stay relaxed, the subconscious was really active. No, I didn't wank to calm down! I used to do that, but no longer, and I even slept in the nude without underwear! Wow, that's progress. I think I will continue sleeping in the nude from now on....
The day looms ahead once again. No expectations, no anxiety, no stress. Time marches on and the hours, minutes and seconds pass, but that is only an illusion, life only exists in the moment, that's all. All grist for the mill. Everything gets recycled and spit out into the ether, only to be formed again into some grotesque spectacle. What is considered attractive or "beauty" is simply some survival instinct thing combined with genetics and how we perceive as homo sapiens, which is quite limited in dimension. And when you consider this, porn becomes a joke, yes a joke!

 

Had the worst case of the "pangs" last night....I forced myself to breathe slow and steady and counted my breaths until I fell asleep, it was a fitful night, not sure what brought it on, I think perhaps some memories that were the result of watching a movie about a cult religion....
Looking back, I had no idea how to be a husband and family man...I dragged them through a lot of turmoil, all because I felt that I couldn't perform well enough, the pressure from the wife, the pressure from society, from everything....I gave up on a lot of shit, I gave in to other people's demands, I was lost
My kids have every right to hate me. But hate is a miserable thing to live with.
My hatred for my parents, for the world, for other people...it all manifested in my porn addiction. I was into bondage and hate porn, dominance and sadism. That part of me, the shadow side, the Mr Hyde side, was an accumulation of all the repressed emotions over a long period of time, starting in early childhood.
Part of the recovery process is to recognize this. Kids are grown and gone, the wife moved on too, just me and the dog now. Just me, myself and I; and the three of us (me, myself and I) are having some good conversations lately, some reconciling, some "coming to Jesus" moments.
The recovery journey is the inward journey...the journey to the soul, the journey to the center and it's scary, it's exciting and it's mystical. There is no end, the mind is the last frontier, where inner and outer space meet.
Confront the demons, sweep out the closet, face the dragon!