The Lord of the Rings Challenge

Day 0 Nazgul

Failing again. Watched P and edged this morning.

 

Checking in day 210.

 

Maybe my terminology is wrong and I don't know what edging means, or maybe you misunderstood when I said that I started, but I did not go through with anything. I did not masturbate or self stimulate. I had a very strong urge and began to rationalize how easy it would be to give in, and I was right at the edge of falling to the temptation before I mentally shouted "No!" and changed locations and went into evasive manuevers (deep breathing, cold shower, and filling up my schedule until the urges passed). Sorry if I confused anyone. Maybe you can tell me what edging means that would be a streak-breaking behavior. I'm 44 and my use of sexual lingo is not always up to date!

I hope you get some good feedback from the big streakers too, because we all benefit from their wisdom. I may not be in the elite ranks yet, but as far as porn goes I don't feel bound by that anymore and will offer just two key suggestions:

1. It sounds like you are dealing with a lack of meaning in your life. If you want to stop watching porn compulsively, you need to find purpose and pursue it. Find 2-3 things in your world that you can find satisfaction in improving, and make it your driving purpose to improve those things in a meaningful way every single day. Start with improving your physical health; you could focus on gaining energy through a routine of exercise, meditation, and healthy eating, and find purpose in how you prepare your meals, what milestone you hit for fitness, or how much quality sleep you get each night. Then improve a relationship or two; come up with meaningful daily rituals for strengthening these relationships by doing thoughtful acts of kindness, learning how to listen better, or scheduling quality time with the people you care about (or want to care more about). Finally, find a cause or project or hobby you really enjoy or care about, and spend significant time every day on it; perhaps learning a musical instrument, or nature walks, or trail running, or writing, or volunteer work, or whatever motivates and energizes you when you are doing it. None of these purpose-driven activities need to cost money.

2. If you have meaning and purpose in your life and positive activities filling most of the time when you aren't sleeping or working, then the challenge of defeating porn becomes much, much easier to work on. If you can substitute healthier online activities whenever the urge for porn pops up, that's a great place to start. Committing yourself by making porn frustratingly hard to access (using filters, blockers, or accountability software) may be helpful or even necessary as well. And then just be gentle with yourself about it. If you mess up, don't turn ten minutes of porn surfing into hours of compulsive binging--break the addictive cycle, and demote your porn use to the level of an occasional bad-habit slip up rather than destructive complusion.

You can do this--one step at a time.

That's my check in for today.

 

Sitting pretty on 43 days with no PMO to haunt me

 

Relapsed yesterday day 1 check in

 

Day 3

Today was a bit of a topsy-turvy kind of day. Going through quite severe and scary mood swings.

Finally confirmed my plans to stay at a monastery for 2 weeks at the end of the month. I think it will do me a lot of good.

Also very much looking forward to staying with my friend in Austria next month. Got a lot of good things to look forward to. Just in a difficult period of my life right now. Will slog on til then.

 

Day 162

Today I made an account on Tinder; this is something I used to do frequently when I was consistently relapsing, and I would often flirt with other girls. As soon as I started swiping I realised I was just wasting my time, and that I’d probably only made an account as I was tempted to start flirting again - I think this is one of my triggers, so I promptly deleted the account.

From now on I will not make another dating account. Even if I want to get into a relationship, I don’t think I can safely use these apps without arousing more temptation and encountering triggers. Even though I feel like I slipped by browsing aimlessly (my reboot is primarily to help my struggle with lust), I did not use it as a sub or begin edging as I previously would have done. I think it’s safe I just stay away from them from now on.

 

4 days, every day sober is a gift

 

Day 482

 

Day 6!
Low urges yestarday. The key to mantain low urges (at least for me) is to matain logged out from social networks, so I want to keep it like that. Today I hangged out with a girl that I met in instagram, I had a good time.

Keep strong my brothers.

 

Day 45 .

 

Bro, why are you watching p and edging? you are cheating yourself. You can do following steps and lot of brothers have replied to your problem. you can get some details from their answers.
Hey ! bro I think I haven't a big streak but i think following details are helpful to you. These are things what I use to fight with bad thoughts
1) Start home workouts or Going to gym is very helpful to clear bad thoughts in mind.
2) Get cold showers after workout.
* This will help to reduce the muscle pain after workout.
3) Eat healthy foods.
4) Tracking your muscle gain.
***** If you are doing masturbating you can't see muscle gain and you can't do exercises*****
5)If your mind tells to watch porn this time you must watch lot of workout and body building videos on YouTube .
* you can watch Larry wheels videos.()
6) Don't waste time by watching girls in Tiktok and other social media platforms.
7) Don't be alone. engage your time with friends or your family members.
These are the steps that i follow to overcome the addiction. You can use it bro.

 

Just want to say thanks for the write up. It didn't go unnoticed and I am grateful for your reply. I keep hearing the same stuff over and over again. I just have very little anymore that I care about. I would rather end my life than continue. If I could set up a really good system to block P it would definitely help. I already exercise and meditate on occasion.

 

Dr. Jordan Peterson, whose work I recommend you to take a quick look, once said:

"Never underestimate the hole your absence would leave"

 

Tough day guys
I ended home alone through all afternoon, started to watch a normal movie, but only because I knew that it was very sexualized. I managed to stop through some 20 min of it, thanks God. But it indeed affected me. After that I repented and went listening to some sermons.

Today was day to realize how tricky I can get to myself

 

Day 2 complete. Sorry for not checking in yesterday, Fellowship! No longer a Nazgul.

Don't have much to report. Recognizing boredom and conquering it through some meaningful activity are very helpful for avoiding occasions where one might fall to PMO. For this simple purpose I like finding activities with visible results of productivity, such as unloading the dishwasher, grinding a few levels on a video game, or even making sure that all my clothes are neatly folded.

St. Joseph the Worker, pray for us!

 

So far I'm just doing body weight exercises, but I'll likely go to the gym eventually partly because I want to be in better shape to give my best to the world and it'd be good to be around people that are trying to be healthy. I just see it as a self improvement thing, not planning to be a roid-head!

In regards to Robert Greene I get that a lot of people don't like his works, but he seems like a realist to me. I have a lot more to read though. I like 48 Laws of Power so far though because even though it talks about some very foul deeds (I'm honestly shocked at the evil of some of the people he talks about) it has made me realize on a new level how naive I am. My favorite writers are those that can shock me out of my bubble.

 

1 days >> Orc (The spell of porn is strong in you)



I am once again a creature of flesh and blood after surviving the first day! I spent a bit of time cleaning my Orc den today and would like to make a point to get it fully up to par. I think I'll make that my main task over the next week!