35 and Older Accountability Group

Tnx you @Timber! I really appreciate your words!
In order not to bore you with a long post, I left a summary of what I experienced this year and how I got here in my journal.

 

Thank you!!!

 

Thanks you and congratullations on your 43 days!!!

 

Thanks @discovery !!!

 

I've got this new thing I've been doing for the past three weeks with motivational quotes. I'm hand printing them out with a Sharpie on copy paper, putting them up on my wall one at a time and switching them out daily. I've got about 50 so far, and I'm adding this one. Thanks.

 

glad to hear it was of help! I do firmly believe that every challenge is an opportunity and a lesson. But then again I believe that the world is sentient and that we are all one and we are in God and we are becoming God, so I am a bit crazy.

 

Hey gents! I hope all is well this Friday.

Happy to see the 2 week mark in my sights. Has been a pretty calm week with urges. I know this beast well, and I need to be ready for the big rationalizations that try to knock me down.

The last 2 weeks have been so great without PMO. This is the man I want to be.

 

90 Day Hall of Achievement's cup I'm coming for you!!
As the philosopher Jon Bon Jovi said "Wow! (I'm surprised) I'm half way there living on a prayer! "

 

Hahahahaha I love it! Yes, you ARE halfway there!

I'm actually in the process of growing COVID hair, meaning the short hair I've always had, I'm growing it long. Last time I cut it was around March 9th. And coincidentally, I've been using 80's Jon Bon Jovi hair as a model for what I think it will look like. Unfortunately, I am nowhere near halfway there yet.

Keep it going Mr. Free!

 

All night my dreams were basically a porno movie! Today is going to be rough!

 

Well I messed up again. It's like I've forgotten how to do this. I'm trying to get back on my feet and have been thinking about meditation and cold showers. Never done them before but maybe there's something to it. Any of you have experience with these? Timber, I think you have been on the cold shower train before. What was your experience? Thanks guys. I am glad to see some pretty decent numbers on the leaderboard. Keep it up.

 

hey, yes cold showers are amazing. I would also recommend Wim Hof breathing - it empties your mind and gives your body a reset.

check out a wim hof app - it’s free. You can do a cold shower challenge on it. It goes like this:

• it’s four weeks long
  
• You take a warm shower first and then end with a cold shower
• Week 1: you are in cold water for 15 seconds
• Week 2: 30 seconds
• Week 3: 45 seconds
• Week 4: 1 minute

After that it’s pretty easy to do longer showers. I’m almost at 3 minutes and I find it gives me a huge reset.

coincidently, I did not take my usual cold shower last night and I had huge temptations today. I don’t know if these are related in any way but today is the worst day of my current streak so far!

the app also takes you through guided breathing. It’s a bit out there but again if you see what wim hof accomplished, you can’t ignore that there’s something to his madness. I do it regularly.

At the very least, it won’t make things worse!

 

Hi all just checking in.

Hope everyone is doing okay?

 

Crashed and burned.

the day I relapsed I felt confident If I stuck to the plan I might never fall into the PM trap again. It was a nice feeling. I thought to myself “is this a good thing, Or the old trap.”

stressful and procrastinating it about a side gig I took to relieve money stress.

all alone from the world for days at a time.

Aww well. I will get away from PM at some point. I’m still doing much better trying with NoFap than without.

Also, I don’t even like PM. I really actually don’t like it at all. It’s gross. It’s not as good or alluring as I tell myself it will be. All the negative brain stuff aside, it’s not as enjoyable as I tell myself it will be.

I’m feeling like an old guy junky in a movie who doesn’t like anything about the drug anymore... just a washed up addict.

But unlike that sad junky in the movies, I’m getting up dusting myself off and moving forward.

 

Haven't checked in for a while but today is 41 days

 

I’m not going to back off the idea I had before the relapse. No more PM for me again. I’m starting this streak with a commitment to make it my last.

I realize my track record isn’t exactly great (0 for thousands) but in my mind it’s a done deal. Time will tell if this a trap or a good thing lol.

 

Meditation is my main priority now. It is the biggest of all the takeaways I've gotten from the Yale happiness course.

The benefits are huge, but it is hard as hell. The reason most people give up on it so quickly is that people think it should be easy to sit there for 10 minutes and not think about anything except what you've chosen to focus on. But the course provided data from scientific research studying meditation which showed that we use completely different neural networks when we are task-focused and when we aren't. And when we're not, we switch to mind wandering. This is where the brain naturally goes when we meditate which is what makes it so hard.

The good news is, there are a million ways to meditate. I have 3 primary go-to methods right now that I switch up to make sure it doesn't get boring.

1. In my room with earphones in, listening to appropriate audio files. I will both sit, and walk slowly around the room doing different simple things in a highly focused way.
2. Walking around my neighborhood in the early morning hours. The birdsong chatter is incredible here and I focus on that, as well as my footsteps.
3. The beach. Listening to the waves, birds, wind, other sounds, as well as focusing on my footsteps.

Basically you could do anything, as long as it is not distracting and is something you can focus on. When I was in college I had a professor who said that when you meditate to the sound of cars passing, it sounds like waves on a beach. At the time I lived next to a busy six lane street, and I found it to be true.

The key is to be patient and not expect huge results right away. It is hard. There will always be distracting thoughts. I am in my 4th week already and there are still plenty of distractions. But when I compare it to how I was before I started, it is much better.

Thanks for the advice on wim hof and cold showers Timber, I will take a look.