Fearless of triggers

Nekkhamma · Mar 12, 2019

Love this. Lots of great insight and responses.

I agree the quote about punching through stone or paper is one of the best. The inner work required to get to the point of punching through paper, though, that can be tricky! I agree we have to look deeply at lust and with as little judgement as possible look at the results of acting compulsively on our lust.

So grateful we’re doing this work and sharing on here. Finding out what works for us and sharing that with others. Good luck everyone!

ZenAF · Mar 12, 2019

Healing_Waters said: ↑

I'm going to have this as my signature. I need to get serious with this. Thanks.
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Nekkhamma said: ↑

I agree the quote about punching through stone or paper is one of the best. The inner work required to get to the point of punching through paper, though, that can be tricky!
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What really struck me about it is the part that it's supposed to be easy. Because if you read through most of the stuff here you'd think it's supposed to be a battle and you need to fight against the struggle. And indeed it was a battle before I've changed my beliefs. But the words we use shape our perception and we act according to our perception. The battle narrative is a useless one. You can't battle yourself. Especially not your lust, your lust is ancient, your consciousness is young. Don't fight it, convince it and negotiate, you'll get much further.

spirit_activated · Mar 13, 2019

Mindful Through Trauma said: ↑

Thank you for this insightful thread. The psychology involved in your approach is similar to what I try to practice; that is, trying to be mindful of what's going on in the "lower" levels of my psyche, to bring the thoughts/urges to my awareness so I can put a space between them and my conscious self. Thank you for articulating this so well. Cheers!
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Glad you saw this thread, mindful. It's been very helpful for me. Thank you ZenAF!

Are there any groups specifically about using mindfullness/meditation/spirituality as a tool in this journey?

dosomething · Mar 13, 2019

wow , than you for sharing this, i need read this again later. to remind my self

Sterkte · Mar 13, 2019

I read a number of your posts/comments about your attitude towards porn and rewiring in terms of changing the way you see porn, and the process of devaluing it for yourself. It really rocked me. I think I've been doing that over the last year anyways, but you really made me realize what my focus and attitude towards urges needs to be from this point on. You're very well spoken, and seem well educated in psychology (Freud, Jung etc.) Your almost clinical psychological breakdown is highly intelligent and refreshing to see on this forum. I think we have a tendency of making our urges to be a bigger monster than we need to, and psych ourselves up using combative imagery and language. I you combine this perception of extraordinary required effort with the porn addicts mindset of low self-efficacy, you're setting yourself up to be crushed after ensuing relapses, unless you're lucky enough to just power through on the first attempt. I know I was guilty of this myself for a long time...whereas what we need to do is assess the urge, process it, understand where it came from and why we feel it, and realize that PMO isn't the healthiest option for us short or long-term. That being said, I think strong willpower does play a role from time to time to just straight up suppress an urge or two along the way if your rational side is being overpowered.
I've finally managed to stay away from PMO for almost 80 days now, which is awesome...but my ultimate goal is to toss away the day counter and live without being too concerned with urges. Because sexual urges are natural, healthy, and let's be honest...a great part of life! The goal of NoFap isn't to become monks and nuns living arousal free lives...it's to regain healthy sexuality. So what we want is to be able to experience "triggers" (not crazy about keeping this term in my personal vocabulary at this stage in the game), and not see porn as a useful response to them. I think your approach can help me reach that goal.
Anyways, sorry for the essay...just wanted to say thanks, props, and much respect!

Asgardian36 · Mar 14, 2019

ZenAF said: ↑

Disclaimer: My streak refers to no masturbation to porn. But I did look at porn during my streak. Never to use as fuel for my fantasy or to tease myself or anything like that. I'll explain in detail why I did it. I understand if you dismiss my input for not being a pure no porn streaker. However if you want to learn how I managed to be completely fearless of triggers and relapses continue reading.

First a bit of background: I started watching porn when our home got internet, back in 2004 when I was 12. I had a lot of fun with it, but as I got into my twenties I got a feeling of the greed inside me that I had every time I watched. I decided firmly that I didn't want porn for the rest of my life, for many reasons, freedom being one of them but also to not bother my future wife with an addict.
Two years ago I wanted to quit. And I couldn't. That's when I knew that I'm an addict. Half a year later I joined NoFap. What followed were a series of trial and error of various methods, all the classic stuff you guys are already aware of. It all amounted to 17 days PMO free as my best effort (until this streak) which, you know, is pretty weak.

However I did learn many lessons from my relapses and failures. The strongest one was that I understood, that every relapse always came down to making a choice.
I realized that I've played a game with myself when relapsing, a game that was based on lies:
The first lie is that I told myself that I'm dead serious about quitting.
The second lie is that the urges in the moment were too strong and "I couldn't help myself".

To explain the first lie you need to understand some basic psychology. The psyche of a human being is layered. Your different states of mind, like anger, joyfulness, lust, thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, all act like different versions of you. That truth was discovered by famous psychologists like Freud and Jung and was later confirmed by neurobiologists who saw that the brain has different systems that act on their own accord and also have a way of harmonizing. Your conscious, or the "core you" so to speak, is what weighs what each side of you has to say and makes a decision (commonly depicted in movies as the little angel and the little devil sitting on the shoulder).
The different parts of you all have, and this is crucial to know, different belief systems and goals. Because of that it is quite normal that you can have two opposing view points inside of you, as I'm sure you know from your own life. However, because most of our psyche is hidden in the unconscious we are often unaware of our inner intentions.

That ignorance of our own hidden ambitions is at the very core of why people relapse. See you might think that your intense urges to watch porn come from your addicted neurobiology. And that's partly true, but that's just a symptom. The root cause is your lust, acting as a separate part of you, which still believes that porn has great value!

So when I used to tell myself that I'm "serious about quitting", I was only aware of what the conscientious part of me wants. The part of me that cares about the best life in the long-term for me and kind of acts like a father. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to. However unconsciously my lust was still in no way ready to let go of porn.

That's the setup that lead to the second lie. What I perceived as the "urges being too strong" was simply me not being able to stand against my own will. The truth was, every time, I relapsed because deep down I wanted to.

So I realized that all the struggle and all the mental battles were caused by me not knowing what I truly want. I was split in two and therefor directionless.

One day I read a part of a ginormous post by a chinese fellow on this forum, it was something like "6 years no relapse". He said one thing that struck a cord with me and helped profoundly. I paraphrase:
If you're not serious about quitting porn, it's as hard as trying to punch through stone with your fist. But if you are serious it's as easy as punching through paper.

This guy had it really figured out, 6 years porn free, and apparently if you do it right it's supposed to be easy.

And I'm here to tell you, even tho that unfortunately offends some people, it is easy.
The ease comes from the fact that you don't doubt yourself anymore. You don't doubt yourself anymore because you know what you want through and through.

The fear of triggers and all the advice to avoid it has one single reason. People don't trust themselves. They know deep down, that all it takes is a memory of how good it feels, and the part inside them that still wants porn will bubble up and take a hold of them.
Well for me it doesn't anymore. That's why I'm not worried about triggers or relapses. Quitting porn has become a relaxed waiting experience for me.

If you understood what I've written so far you should have a hint of what I did. I first made the desires, reasoning and goals of my lust as conscious as possible. Then I started to decompose them through logic. Porn is a bad deal I told myself. It's not that it's not fun to PMO, it's that the costs are too high and there are way better alternatives in life. And to my surprise my lust listened to reason. Remembering all the bad feelings I had after relapses helped. Also that masturbation to fantasy is really just as good as watching porn and not even half as harmful. And sex is obviously way better than PMO by default, but when abstaining from porn it becomes incomparably better. A world of joy with no ceiling. Porn and sex is like a 20 cent sour chewing gum that gives you cancer next to a beef wellington with truffle sauce which adds 5 days to your lifespan.
It took days and weeks of self-reflection, but I finally managed to change the value that porn has to me. That was last January.

Essentially I synchronized the belief systems and goals of my different parts. I became of one mind regarding porn. See when you truly no longer want to PMO you don't have to be scared that you will betray yourself.

I started this streak. But this time I didn't want to just rely on my change of mindset. I failed with the cold turkey approach too often in the past. And I learned from a famous clinical psychologist, J.B. Peterson, that if you keep failing at a goal aim lower. Succeeding at small improvements beats the hell out of constantly failing at large improvements.

So for this streak I decided to not jerk off to porn for 75 days. But if I have the impulse to just look at it I won't stop myself. After 75 days I'll also stop looking at it.

You might ask yourself at this point if all that talk was bs, because how can I still look at it if I don't want it? Well so far I've only changed the belief about using porn to jerk off. When it comes to simply enjoying the sight of hot chicks I have some more work to do.
But I can say with all honesty not once during this streak did I come close to jerking off. It wasn't even an option for me. Most time's (like three times a week) when I'd open a porn site to peek, I'd close it after 2-3 minutes, because my brain knows there's nothing to get. So I pretty much just open it out of habit.
Again I don't need to "fight my urges" or convince myself any further. It really does feel easy to not do it.
Every time I look at porn now it's like a mental stink arises in my brain, which feels familiar yet unpleasant. I'd used to always bare it because that's just what porn is, but now my brain goes like "Do I have to endure this stink? No, of course not, let's close this shit."

Which is why to me this is a success, because before I was a hardcore binge watcher, it used to be the first thing I did when I woke up and the last thing before I slept. And the only thing that I found good enough towards the end was sissy hypnosis and porn addict brainwash hypnosis, so you know, pretty much the worst stuff an addict can watch.

I'm very relieved that this part of my life is behind me. I'm looking forward to have porn completely out of my life very soon.
My sex life has improved drastically in the sense that I can enjoy the girl I'm with now for who and how she is in the moment, rather than having to imagine more dirty images during sex to satisfy my porn brain.
I've reached a new level of trust in myself. Because I've witnessed the power of free will.

So to close this off here's some advice that helped me immensely to get to this point:

If it feels hard, you're fighting yourself, you're doing it wrong! If your mind feels at ease you're on the right path.

NOTHING CAN FORCE YOUR HAND! Only your will.

Your lust is a part of you. Make it your friend not an enemy.

Brutal honesty about your own desires is the quickest way to break the delusions of your lust.

Thank you for reading and thank you for this forum.
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awesome post! Thanks for that!

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Fearless of triggers

Nekkhamma Fapstronaut

ZenAF Fapstronaut

spirit_activated Fapstronaut

dosomething Fapstronaut

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