35 and Older Accountability Group

@artifact sorry if I stepped on your shoes by welcoming people....

 

That's cool to know. I see that happening - where I justify the fail because the block failed.

Felt a little torn looking at P. I definitely felt crappy doing it after and want to stop. On the other hand, it's like wow, the girls on this site are so incredibly beautiful. Some seem almost perfect and that's what I want one day. So, I forgive myself for looking at something that's pretty much my goal. I know it doesn't make sense.

I don't want to eliminate lust completely. I want a beautiful girlfriend and want to enjoy being with her. I'm also thinking - wtf is wrong with me?? Why am I home with this PMO thing? Why do I hookup with as many girls as I do and it's almost never someone I want to be with? I keep thinking if only I could attract someone a little bit more to my taste then it will be easier to settle down and be with 1 girl in a long term relationship and not PMO.

 

lol you speak so sincerely and I can relate to your challenges and suffering.

You are really nailing the problem in the head - this is exactly the nature of this illusion.

The illusion - what they call MAYA in the east - is that we really believe that we are able to experience some type of fulfillment in a physical form. In this case our object of form is a beautiful women. In other times we believe our fulfillment comes through our job or traveling the world or having this or that.

This is very convincing because we don't have the moment by moment awareness and our mind has taken over our awareness instead of calm quiet joyful presence to discern, we jump from seeking and resisting (desires and fears) and we are busy trying to get to a place called happiness in some future time.

I too have alot of experience with hooking up (easily 80+ girls in just a few years) and also have had 3-4 serious relationships ranging 2 to 4.5 yrs - and I can tell you , sexual fulfillment is an illusion and here is why.

Fulfillment happens when something is lasting and permanent.

Sexual pleasure is something that has a beginning and ending, and it depends on so many different variables. Always changing.

So by definition, we can never experience permanent satisfaction (fulfillment) from sex.

So let's say you meet the perfect looking girl with perfect body and mind and spiritual understanding, and you make love to her and it is like the best sex you have ever had in your life, and it seems to only get better, for a while.

But what goes up must come down

any time we extract happiness from an external form (person, status, job, vacation, etc) we are bound to the law of duality which eventually brings its opposite.

So eventually the very good sex becomes boring, or she starts to show her ugly side, or we start to see other hot girls who are even hotter than her, or we feel like we lost our freedom, or something happens, and then the sexual pleasure goes down and then we suffer - because we crave the same amount of pleasure but somehow the same girl is not doing it.

I just shared with you exactly what happened with my previous girlfriend.

In 2013 I made a strong determination to stop PMO. IN 2014 I successfully stopped for 6 months hard mode, and I met who I thought was the women of my dream. I dated her and the first 2 years was like magic. Then the 3rd year things started to fall apart and even though it was one of the most beautiful, mutual and peaceful separations, I experienced suffering beyond anything i have ever experienced before which lasted for a good 12 months and 2.5 yrs after I'm still choosing to be single.

So I admire you for being so honest about your desires and analysing yourself in this way because ultimately through this level of self honestly, we become WISE. an through wisdom we become liberated and free.

BTW that is not to say we can not enjoy sexual experiences. We can - Although i'm choosing to be celibate this year for my personal reasons - but if we do we must be very conscious to know that we are playing with a form, and no form can ever give us what we truely long for.

So the fullfillment, and lasting happiness we desire is not going to be found in a changing objectcive relationship that is constnatly subject to changes.

 

That's some insightful stuff. Thank you very, very much for replying. What you're saying makes sense. At same time still confused. What kind of fulfillment does one look for then? How do you feel now being celibate compared to when you were hooking up?

 

Yes, North Carolina.

Welcome @Berry F

@Heretogrow Ty. Love that counter of yours. I will take it one week at a time, then one month and then more. Reaching small goals at a time while being inspired by members here and motivating others.

Yesterday was easy as I was driving almost whole day from NY to NC on I-81.

Great going @Freeman82

 

How do you guys feel about being lonely in the future? I´ll explain. the last posts are about hooking up right now, and we generally talk about how to fight urges in the present, but in my case, I´m alone right now, and very happy with myself, but its the future that I feel pressure for. And I have faith, so I accept, and go to "hashem" or the source of it all for comfort, but it is the future, or not finding someone eventually, what troubles me. I´ve talked before about my ex and how hard it was on me and still is, that heartbreak, so yes we all know about those trips back and forward that our mind makes all the time, but I have that underling "fear" of a lonely future in the background most of the day.
I don´t know, my rawest feeling is that I´m 36, and very old.
*I read the power of know, and I´m a writer, all of my stuff are under a flag called "Filosofía Momento" which is kind of something like living in the present...
Well just wanting to know if is something you guys have to deal with to.

 

Its been a long road here. I try to quit PMO several times. This is my longest streak. At the beginning I didn´t even know Nofap was a thing, i just knew all that porn was bad, I mean no way it was a good thing, when I knew about nofap and starting watching videos everything change, I knew I wasn´t alone, some freak monk wanabe trying to go against society, ones it felt like a good thing, like I had a flow from the universe with me, that helped a lot...

 

Dear @Heretogrow ,
I have very similar feelings. And I think you are a step ahead. As I am a single as well but still do not feel comfortable. But I work on getting used to it. Because I think, you can be only happy in a relationship when you can be happy as single with yourself. Looking to the future, I don't know weather to worry or not. It can happen so much, situation your individual situation of live can change - not at all, a bit or drastically. We just don't know. And today it's very possible to find the right person even in a higher age. My mother experieneced that. And that gave me hope.

 

I think we sould go deep into this. Yes, they may them princesses in castles, but that means we are suppose to be knights looking for them... right? sick programing

 

Saying that your 36 and old tells me that you are identifying with your body as who you are. I do that too but learning to not do that as much - because who we are (consciousness) never ages.

If we are honest with ourselves, our sense of existence is exactly how it was when you were younger.
The body may feel different but that's only if we fail to take care of it consciously.

As for the fear of being old alone, I wonder about that too, but I am also aware that this is just another form of fear.

If i was in a relationship now, I would prob have the fear that I would never be free and alone again.

On the mental plane there are infinite number of fears and worries.

So while I do struggle with my own fears and mental issues but i'm learning to recognize my true identity as consciousness/awareness and disconnecting from all the non-sense egoic mind-identity.

like a hawk raising above the noisy crows.

 

Checking in. 14 days without PM. Feeling good.

 

I find what helps is when I notice those temptations the sooner I can catch them, and nip them in the bud the easier it becomes.

If I don't and play with those thoughts - it gives me some pleasure immediately but it turns into suffering as the pleasant playful thoughts turn into painful temptations and inner conflict.

Thats why the minute i find myself getting tempted to watch later, I say to myself, I decide that today i will not watch porn this usually helps but not 100% of the time

 

I think that's exactly the role society has placed for us. Most people live their life very much based on random impulses and programming rather than conscious choice.

 

I read a book once called 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' by Susan Jeffers. A lot of great stuff in there, but one thing that really sticks out in my mind is that she wrote that you should have 5 or so main areas of your life to focus on, to give each of them the attention they deserve and cultivate them. Then, if one of them turns to shit, you still have the other 4 on track to focus on while you you work on fixing the 5th. For example: You are alone, worrying about the future, wondering if you'll ever find that life partner that you yearn for, but the prospects don't look good. Okay. But at the same time, you have the other 4 things. Your career is going well. You are keeping yourself in good physical shape. You are maintaining your relationships with friends and family. Etc. So the one thing still exists, but it's not as devastating because you still have the other 4 to focus on.