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The Lord of the Rings Challenge

Discussion in 'Events & Challenges' started by RiseToGreatness, Sep 22, 2019.

Should the Thread Title be extended?

Poll closed Jun 21, 2020.
  1. No, leave like that: "The Lord of the Rings Challenge"

    18 vote(s)
    54.5%
  2. Yes. "The Lord of the Rings Challenge: The Fellowship of Nofap"

    15 vote(s)
    45.5%
  3. Yes. "The Lord of the Rings Challenge: Rising Fellowship of Eärendil"

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. Yes. "The Lord of the Rings Challenge: The Journey to Mount Doom"

    5 vote(s)
    15.2%
  5. Yes. "The Lord of the Rings Challenge: The Quest of the Ring-bearer"

    6 vote(s)
    18.2%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. Onan the Barbarian

    Onan the Barbarian Fapstronaut

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    Day 7

    So far today: meditation, prayer, walk. Kinda missed the shower this morning. Working on keeping better track of my thoughts and challenging the bad/counter-productive tendencies.

    I got a nice walk in, too.
     
  2. Don80

    Don80 Fapstronaut

    Not tonight, guys. It's 10.11 PM in my place. Only an hour before bed time :emoji_baby; and I still need to get some things ready for work. Stay sharp!!! Hope to score day 2. I'm not gonna trail behind forever.
     
  3. Don80

    Don80 Fapstronaut

    You know Conan, my most productive day is usually day 1 ( but not today) - I thought nofap would miraculously give me time and energy to carry on with my to-do list. But in fact, it usually promotes EXERCISE and EXERCISE.
     
  4. crazyhorse11

    crazyhorse11 Fapstronaut

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    Checking in friends
    3 things in reflection today which lead to commitments that I want to be accountable for

    a) fantasy and lust are in the head, they are not in the body per se, they hijack natural sexual desire and weaponise it for insidiously egotistical purposes. Sex without lust is connecting and communicating with another human being through our bodies, it is not a mental thing, it is a physical communication, a sharing, a sort of sacrificing of the ego for vulnerability, humility, humanity. Lust and fantasy hijack this most natural of acts and subvert it, we no longer want to communicate or connect, we want to extract, exploit and manipulate. We want to 'get off' on this person or fantasy. Lust and fantasy are ego-centric, selfish, it is about the me. If anything is given it is for a selfish end-goal, always, a sort of self interested trade off. The two things could not be more dissimilar

    Freedom Fight and other sites recommend using BRACE when the mental urges arise. I now understand that the main purpose of this to drop out of our heads and into our body. Step out of the realm of fantasy and into the body, via our breath.

    So I am committing now to practice BRACE each time the urges arise

    b) I am a great planner. I have lists of To-Dos as long as 10 arms. This is very good, planning is good. But last night I realised that this has become a strong form of procrastination. I feel I can't get stuck in until I have every step planned out, and so I rarely get stuck in, unless it is last minute. As on humorous quote reads "If it wasn't for the Last Minute, I wouldn't get anything done". So as I use this to prevent me doing tasks, the list of open tasks grows and grows. And so now I have the barrier of the un done tasks, the barrier of the incomplete planning and the barrier of the fact that new tasks are incoming hourly. I say barrier, because these barriers keep me in my head all the time, I use them to stop dropping into my body and just doing some tasks. But worse than that, I use the insanely long list of tasks to put off getting to key reflections, prayer, retreats etc... and I use it most importantly to not be mindful, so I am building a barrier around my true self, my core, who I am. All of this keeps me in my head, where lust and fantasy live.

    So I am committing to do a few of things here -
    1. 1. Just do tasks as I go, even if I didn't get time to complete my planning, it may not be perfect but something is always better than nothing, and lots of somethings are way way better than nothing
    2. 2. Prioritise tasks related to spiritual and mental health, to help me drop out of my head - this is the real place that the addicted part of my brain wants to avoid - so I am going to do what it doesn't want me to do, I am going to do what my soul, intelligence and conscience want me to do instead
    3. 3. As above continue to practise BRACE to drop into the body

    c) As we progress on this path - pain is inevitable. Our lives and our society are über medicated to numb the pain of reality. The longer we go along this stretch the pain we avoided all our lives will reveal itself, along with the urges to medicate it. We will need to renew our decisions, sometimes daily and remind ourselves this is what we signed up for - we are here to heal and transform our pain by embracing it, so that we may truly free for the first time in our lives, and forever more.

    I commit to embrace the pain as it arises, remember that this is what I signed up for. I will stop running away as this is the only way to be free, stop medicating, it is ok, these are growing pains, we are growing again, like butterflies emerging from our pupae and how wonderful is that?
     
  5. Don80

    Don80 Fapstronaut

    Sensei @Slider8 has a great choice for action classics and always finds deeper meaning in everything :)
     
  6. Talz

    Talz Fapstronaut

    15 days :emoji_star2: You decide to destroy the porn ring! You´re a Hobbit now. You must take the ring to the place where he was made, Mount Doom. You left Hobbiton heading for Bree.

    It's been awhile since I made it to Hobbit! My urges have been getting pretty noticeable, but I know I'm getting stronger and it'll be way easier in the end to push right through them. I also know stumbling on that file yesterday when I figured I was safe since I deleted my whole collection is contributing a lot. I recognized the model from a site I used to look at when I was in my late teens many years ago now. It was the first time I became a regular viewer of anything pornographic.

    It wasn't as big a deal back then as the hooks weren't in me so deep. It didn't take much to excite me as the guilt and shame around porn and masturbation (and fear of getting caught) kept me much more in check and so I couldn't go very deep down that rabbit hole. Around my late teens I loosened up, but I was fine with just images and basically just looking at this fairly tasteful site relative to what would come. I think it was the tube sites that really did me in!

    The reason I'm saying this is because I've been getting thoughts like: "Well what if I just went back to just the site I liked before the tube sites and stuck just to that". Yeah right... like that'll work. And why would I want to anyway? I'd rather just get to know a real girl...

    Something that I noticed after my Grey Wizard relapse is how I no longer think surfing the web for porn is okay. It actually feels like a dirty activity now... I'm not sure what the feeling is, shame maybe. It's like I understand on a deeper level I'm doing something a guy who has his stuff together wouldn't do. Before I had a good nofap streak I thought it was totally normal to spend countless hours a day surfing the web for porn. I'd like to regain the greater clarity I had during that run again and not relapse here.

    I don't think I've posted a more lengthy post in awhile. It seemed like a good day to get some thoughts out though. This run I've just been posting on journey/personal benchmarks and when I feel I need to so far. I kinda miss the daily posts, but I felt like I was going in circles for a long time there and thought maybe I'd break the routine up a bit. My men's group has been really good so far and that's helping to give me some structure.

    Anyway... Time to break out some ale and the ol' Longbottom Leaf with a wiff of Old Toby to celebrate!
     
  7. Anon117

    Anon117 Fapstronaut

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    Day 4 report: Walking through Mordor is the opposite of fun. But I'm getting closer to The Black Gate where I can finally leave Mordor for good.
     
  8. crazyhorse11

    crazyhorse11 Fapstronaut

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    Great to read you chose art over plugging in - I am going to make a big effort to get off the streaming and onto books now again
     
  9. Chi405

    Chi405 Fapstronaut

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  10. LuckyMan

    LuckyMan Fapstronaut

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    Evening check in:
    Doing ok. Still struggling with urges to relapse, which means I am still not fully committed to letting go of pmo on some subconscious level. However I am still following my routine of no tech in the bedroom or bathroom or when I feel tired. Building the habit of reading books before bed instead of playing games on my phone.
    I think that with consistent effort to change, the urges to relapse will be replaced by my desire to become the best version of myself.
    @crazyhorse11 thanks for the encouragement! Really, it is so motivating to get support from my fellow travellers. Let's destroy this ring!
     
  11. MS PBH

    MS PBH Fapstronaut

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  12. CALM IN SUFFERING

    CALM IN SUFFERING Fapstronaut

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  13. Slider8

    Slider8 Fapstronaut

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    Thanks bro !:)
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  14. Rubzi

    Rubzi Fapstronaut

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    Tough night last night. Much anxiety cuz of work, im being evaluated today by my two bosses.
    However i am positive and hoping for the best, maybe even a raise!

    Day 10 - Uruk-Hai, The Dark Tower Barad-Dûr
     
  15. Slider8

    Slider8 Fapstronaut

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    Thanks bro! Good reminder on the situation!
     
  16. Slider8

    Slider8 Fapstronaut

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    Congratulations bro!
    [​IMG]
     
  17. Prophet Moonstruck

    Prophet Moonstruck Fapstronaut

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    Had an interesting dream... I am listening to it and get back on my way!
     
  18. hakihitoro

    hakihitoro Fapstronaut

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  19. newbobido

    newbobido Fapstronaut

    Day one.

    I had a long and good talk with my therapist yesterday. It is funny to see how a therapist see and offer advice about porn addiction compere to advice here, but sometimes the two are just the same.

    There is no reason for me to stay inside alone at the house every day. I need to get and find a place both to socialize and to study in a public setting. If I go outside there is a chance, I would get Covid and that is a possibility of a health problem. But if I stay indoors alone every day I will certainly hurt my mental health. So I’m going to find a place in the city for me to be in the header pards of the day. And I would look for more people to spend time with.

    I’m not the happiest that I’ve ever been. It feels stupid but I think I still feel weak and down from the binge session two days ago. But I’m doing the right things that I should be doing and I’m trying to give myself the time to heal without being hard on myself.

    I hope that it would get better soon.
     
  20. Day 0 Relapsed

    Relapsed hard. Woke up feeling like a failure. Immediately had an urge to let it slide. I wasn't sexually tempted, and I normally am not. For me relapse always happens when I loose direction. I need to do something everyday that keeps me on my path. While I think I hace been doing that, but today... woke up, early morning in bed juat couldn't fight tue thought and feeling of self-defeat. Well what's the point was my first thought. Although I wasn't at all sexually tempted... I ended up relapsing. This isn't the first time this has happened. Times I have felt hopeless and I just swirl down in self-defeating thoughts and end up relapsing. I think I have been demanding too much feom myself. I'm holed up in these four corners 24 hrs, I have nobody I socialize with. I have obsessive tendencies and I repeat my thoughts and actions a lot. There has literally been days I speak a single word. I just sit there and do whatever I'm after all these while. I do socialize now and then, but if I do too often I tend to get intense anxiety, as if I'm not doing what I'm suppose to, so I quickly cut ties and isolate myself again. It's been a tough day today. I thougt of not writing it, because I don't trust my own thoughts and esp not my feelings. I guess it's about venting. I do have a plan and I'll need to enact on it.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 13, 2022

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