Day 31 for me: reflection on my current journey

Hi everyone, this is my official Day 30 log. I’ve never made it this far to post here before, but this is it. The following is my compiled observations and deductions from my experiences. Here I will share my experience, my insights and I hope it can help you. I have tried to ordered them in the proper section, but points may overlap or be in the wrong place. Nevertheless, please read to the end, and please provide my with your insights from reading this post so that we can all learn.

Benefits experienced

• Clearing of brain fog(aided by meditation)
• Feel cleaner inside(aided by meditation and working out)
• Feel more energetic(aided by working out)
• More focused(aided by meditation)
• Increased ability to express myself(I kept to myself before nofap)

My experience for the past few days
Day 1: Lack of energy, desire to quit pmo
Day 3: erection was as hard as day 7 without positive thinking(will explain later)
Day 7: mentally anxious
Day 15: mentally calm
Day 20: slight urges to pmo

My method
Physical: kept my phone in my bag while I do my chores at home, abstained from touching myself down there unless it’s cleaning time or nature’s call. Started to work out, noted what I ate.
Mental: used meditation to be clearer of my state of mind, used positive thinking like “my body’s healing rapidly”, emphasised on day one to myself “No more pmo. No means no!”. I used my clarity to observe my thoughts, emotions, experiences and drew conclusions from them.

-mindfulness meditation: focus on hearing your surroundings. You may also choose to be aware of your body(breath, heartbeat, aches). You can do this anywhere, anytime
-concentration meditation: focus on your breath, do this when you wake up, for 5-20 minutes to be focused and clear for the day.

Analysis of pmo, consequences and my method

Causes of pmo
- initial interest due to novelty of p and m(introduced to it by peers, oversexualised advertisements or saw it on the internet accidentally)
- initial p and m gave pleasure, limbic brain sees this as enjoyable and “beneficial to survival”
- future stressful events or boredom leads to continued use of p and m

Consequences
- repeated use of p and m leads to habit forming
- p and m becomes go to habit when stress appears in life
- willpower decreases as mind is used to pleasure than hardship, will tend to procrastinate than get work done
- increase in emotion driven thinking, also emotions are less stable, such that even emotion driven thought is not always beneficial for you

Consequences not due to pmo directly:
- body becomes unfit as there may be lack of working out, eating unhealthy food as there is easy access to it
- lack of desire to socialise/fear of socialising due to shame from engaging in pmo or lack of social energy to leave the house

Solution

• Physically one should abstain from pmo for the body’s sexual system to recover from overmasturbation and for one to have time to restore the body. This can be aided by putting your usual go-to materials for pmo in frequented places at home, in less accessible places and for materials that is unessential (other materials than your phone, laptop) dispose of them as you’re going to a new life. You don’t need them.
• It takes 7 days(commonly said)/3 days(for testicles to fully recharge) to return to normal level of testosterone.
• An unfit body is not due to fapping. It’s due to you neglecting to take care of your body when you were heavily entrenched in pmo. To restore your body, note what needs to be improved(strength, health, skills) and do the activities that will bring you closer to your goals
• Mentally, you need to tackle the root of the issue. If you were curious before and made pmo a habit, you’ve had your fill. Time to stop. If your continued use is for escaping from reality, stress, you need to sit down, think about what stressful event caused you to use pmo subsequently to feel good. Talk to yourself and come to terms with your past hardships. They were tough but you were tougher, thus you made it out alive. Once you have come to terms with your past stressful event, you will now stop the source of present day use of pmo. This is done by realising that it stems from your limbic brain. It is responsible for your emotions and auto moves to keep you alive. But man is capable of his actions by using the executive control functions of the brain, which is used to solve novel situations. You can research on this to know how it works, but basically you can use this function to do mind over matter, one example being overriding your usual desires to pmo by shifting your focus from pmo to other things.
• Meditation is used to cultivate awareness and concentration. Mindfulness meditation cultivated awareness, allowing you to know when your urge to use pmo arises for you to shift your focus from your desire to the work at hand, as well as to know what are your thought patterns, emotions that lead to pmo. Meditation focused on breathing improves concentration, allowing you to be focused on your tasks.
• By being aware of the addiction you can change the habit to a better one namely not using pmo. Research has shown forming a habit takes 22 days on average yet for each person the duration differs. So, theoretically, you can recover and break the pmo habit cycle almost instantly, just not everyone can do it
• Positive affirmations help in emotionally boosting your actions, and I used it to believe I was recovering fast. This aided my healing to a certain extent(day 3 erection with belief=day 7 erection without it), however it should be noted that you need to do it consciously as effects manifest as long as you believe in them, they do not accumulate over time.

(Credits to @LifeWorthLiving!!! for the post on how the mind works)



What happens if you relapse?
Take a breath and calm yourself down. You have not lost your abilities from before, not unless you stop practising and training.

Note what you did that caused your fall. Remember not to do it again.

Insights from pmo
From my failures and successes, I feel that a life with pmo can be lived, but it is like never living to 100%. It is true that once you see pmo you can’t forget about it since you can’t delete your memory on pmo. However, I would like to refute the quote “once an addict, always an addict” and say that it is possible to be cured. My definition of “cured” is when I do not use pmo in my life, I am stronger physically, psychologically, have good habits in place of pmo and have good friends. This is done by severing the mental connections of using pmo, facing life’s challenges and treating my body well. An addiction is an unhealthy habit that we have, so we need to cut that habit. The mindset of being unable to recover from addiction is not only unhealthy, but it may also be the factor that holds you back. It doesn’t matter how many times you relapsed in the past. As long as you work towards recovery and make it, that’s all that matters. The human mind is capable of miracles, so make a miracle and bring yourself out of pmo.

I would like to thank everyone who has spoken to me here in helping me achieve my 31 days and letting me learn from their opinions.

Special mention to @RecoveringFapaholic and @Thunder Blaster for their support!

 

@bigbuford may I know what you are anxious about? Perhaps I can allay your fears.

 

After many times of failure, I wanted to know what it was that always led to this wrong path, so on my day 1 I decided to observe my actions, thoughts and emotions throughout the day and I compared with what I experienced in the past. Sure, everyone experience different benefits but we all fall the same way. By knowing how we fall, we can counter it effectively and tell others how we fell so as to give them a heads up. We all need to rise up, so let’s share what we know about pmo to help our collective fight against it!

 

Well, from what I read, I get the feeling that you may not have talked to her about the incident and the minor events throughout your working hours. People can have one look that says one thing, but what they think of you in reality is another. For ogling at her, you can perhaps do that look at a mirror so you know what you look like and you can soften your expression when you look at anyone in general, since what you think you look like and what anyone sees from your expression can be different.

For cutting her in traffic, I think you should find a time when both of you are free, and apologise for your actions. Try to have a passive stance(or assertive if she is has a strong character) when you apologise to show that you have no ill will in your actions towards her and genuinely want to have better work relations.

Generally, I’m not sure about your work community and customs, but if you think you did something wrong, you can ask her to see if you did offend her and discuss how you could portray yourself to be more friendly to your coworkers. If you try and hide away, you’re being reclusive, it solves nothing. For such stressful situations which you feel and think that you did something wrong, don’t assume. It’s better ask the person in question to clear up the situation. Your way to be better socially is to know how others see you and how you can interact effectively with others. Assumptions will not help you in any way and only distances you from others. When you meet issues you must face them to progress, you should not run away or be over aggressive. In fact, from my experience, the greatest potential to rise above your past self is to face life’s problems head on. So don’t be afraid to talk to others, learn to observe how you portray yourself to others, and learn ways of expressing yourself assertively, aggressively and passively.

 

My buddy @RecoveringFapaholic introduced me a book “how to win friends and influence people”. I highly recommend this book on improving your soft skills.