I felt triggered at work yesterday. I didn't go searching, but it felt like anything I saw evenly mildly attractive became a temptation. I started fantasizing multiple times without making a conscious decision to start fantasizing.. it just starts and I’m responsible for stopping it before too much damage is done. Ugh. At no point did I want to be thinking those things. I tried to fight those thoughts as much as I could. I tried to identify thoughts as lies and thieves and turn them into God, but the thoughts just kept coming throughout the day. It has been like this most of this week, but yesterday was the worst. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” Romans 7:24-25 ESV I am on day 40 of a hard mode reboot, and I remember that last reboot days 30-60 had the strongest urges. Maybe that’s what’s happening. But I doubt it. The further I get into recovery the more I realize that how often I get release really has very little impact on my battle with my pornographic style of relating. The good news is that I slept well and today feels like a fresh new day. If I don't have things to do at work I'm going to read a book or something.. not just sit in front of my screen.
Will pray. Since when were you 40 days into a 'hard mode' reboot? Last post I can see re:this saysyou were just going for a month. If you did 90 days last year then what are you rebooting from now? Have you agreed a time with your wife when the 'fasting' mode will end (a la 1 Cor 7)? Also, I have been wondering about your counter. You saw something and doom-scrolled past it for a while. Was this really P/M, as counter says? That said, to thine own self be true. What activities / practices will help us become free of lust thoughts and 'pornographic relating' as you helpfully call it, independently of hard mode, reboots, and counters?
So my wife and I are rebuilding our sex life. Last month and now this month, we are practicing being naked together and just having intimate conversations like that. Next month the idea is to try karezza w/o O. This is based on guidance from the good girls guide to great sex and advice from my therapist. Yeah I wish nofap allowed you to type in your own goal. My goal is no ‘hunt-and-seek’ behavior, which means no scrolling After seeing a tempting image. I’m working with my therapist on learning how to look at women online as a daughter, as a sister, as someone’s wife, as a person without objectifying them. Empathy is the antithesis to objectification. That’s what I’m working on currently. Hopefully that answers some of your questions.
Hey dudes, the Holy Spirit has put some things on my heart that I need to share. Yesterday and last monday I slid a little bit into temptation. Yesterday I saw a took off my image stopper to try and see images of a baseball stadium in an article I was reading. I don't need to disable the image blocker, but I justified it. In the advertisements at the bottom, which I scrolled down to, I saw a woman with cleavage that was enticing. I thought I remembered an app on my phone having the ability to go behind covenant eyes where CE can't see. I went in there, clicked on 'Pinterest', scrolled up and down, and then my heart was racing and I left the site and texted you guys. Going behind CE is bad, bad. I feel like I'm slowly sliding toward more and more temptation. I've been needlessly surfing the internet more and more. So I was praying last night and I felt like the Holy Spirit wanted me to give you this detailed confession. The Holy Spirit is telling me that honesty is one of the first defenses that He provides us against relapse. I am not going to relapse. I am a new creation and I have a new identity in Christ this is excruciatingly honest, but not someone who meanders through sexual imagery. Today I'm going to use Stayfocsd software to disable all non essential websites. I'm going to write down on paper if I take any small steps towards impurity. I feel Jesus speaking to me in these moments and that encourages me that I am on His path of healing.
Why do you think you are being drawn back toward this temptation? Extra stress in life? Something else gong on?
Tao, thank you for reading and caring enough to ask. I allowed myself to aimlessly and impulsively surf the web, which was leading me straight to temptation. There were smaller steps that led me there. I am doing a better job of tracking the small steps and small victories with my APs. Overall, I am still learning how to see digital images of women as human, as whole, and learning how to not objectify them.
I hope to achieve this someday but I know that I cannot realize it by allowing myself to stare at images of attractive women for any reason. I know that my flawed human heart and mind will make excuses justifying what is a dangerous temptation for me. Recently I heard someone say, "5 years into the forest, 5 years out". If that is literally true, then I will be dead from old age before I will be out of the forest of PMO temptation. So, today I thank God for my weakness and the constant reminder that I need Him to keep me free from this sin. There is no justification sufficient to permit me to enter the doorway of temptation.
Thank you for listening and I appreciate what you’re saying @CPilot. I also don’t want to come off like I’m trying to persuade you to cross boundaries that God has mercifully placed before you. But I think God is wanting me to cross those boundaries with Him. Let me describe in a bit more detail. For many, many years I have seen temptation, and either indulged in it or turned away from it. These were seemingly the only two options (see Every Man’s Battle on ‘bouncing the eyes’). However, it has occurred to me that there is a third option - seeing beauty and humanizing it/her/he. Trying to humanize beauty for me is looking at an image of or at a beautiful person, and forcing my brain to think of that person as a person. Where did they grow up? I wonder if they are a wife or a mother? How is she feeling? Asking questions to try and understand who the ‘beautiful woman or image of beautiful woman’ is as a person. This is very different from using their beauty as an avenue to my own sexual excitement, or simply turning away and ignoring. I’ve kind of learned this from ‘The Sexually Healthy Man’ by Andrew Bauman, my therapist, and also there is a great ‘Bare Marriage’ podcast episode about this, but I can’t find it at the moment! It sounds pretty wild, but now when I see an advertisement online, I am trying to look at the image and see who the woman is as a person. Sounds dangerous right!?! It is. There is no way I could recommend this to others. I am relying heavily on my accountability relationships and on God for stability. The risk is, of course, failing to humanize the image and/or going on a click-frenzy of finding other images. This cannot lead to hunt-and-seek behavior. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
My initial thought is that it sounds scary. A concern I have is that advertisements feature an abnormally high percentage of women who are physically attractive, and, beyond that, who have been modified in some way so as to enhance their sexuality (photoshopping, surgery, professional make-up, etc.). Half the time you may not even be looking at a real person. What harm might you be causing to yourself by looking at images of graphically enhanced women that do not match the general population? I, for one, wouldn't be able to do it. The idea of humanizing women, though, and seeing them as the people they are, and not just objects, is a very commendable aim. But how do you do that with an image of a woman selected and enhanced for the very purpose of objectifying her?
I think Great Sex Rescue has a section on this too--what lust is. If you look away from every attractive woman you are still enslaved. If you can look at their face without lusting you aren't enslaved any more. Talk to them. Pray for them. I agree 2d women is maybe a bit different / more difficult. But if I don't manage an eye bounce right away sometimes I redirect focus to the picture-woman's face and think 'this person is loved by God' in my head.
I once heard and account of an apparition from Christ concerning events from His life on earth ("Poem of the Man God" by Maria Valtorta). I don't wish to divert this important thread to a discussion about the validity of her apparitions although I believe them to be true since they agree with all accounts given in the gospels. The event descirbed was one where Christ entered a house of iniquity in order to rescue someone inside. In this account, Christ said that He saw everyone simply as a soul created by the Father. In other words, He made no distinctions based on outward appearance. However, He told his apostles to remain outside the house because they were not sufficiently prepared to withstand the temptations within. I know I am no better than the apostles were at that point. I cannot allow myself to go inside the house and I cherish freedom too much to risk it.
I applaud those who can do things like this. As a recovering addict, though, this is not for me, not in this life. There is no shame in that. We are all called to different work. It is good to know your limits!
All, I am struggling with taking peaks, trying to get a glimpse at beauty, with the purpose of letting it spark a small amount of sexual excitement in my being. I confess this and own this. I want to keep close track of this. Resetting counter.
If we start fighting when we start peaking, it is very late in the battle. If we pray and start fighting before something questionable is before us, we can battle with it.
I have been struggling lately. I still have a deep desire that pulls me towards PMO that I do not understand. This has resulted in occasional hunt and seek behavior, which I hate and is excruciatingly painful. Whenever this happens, wise people ask “what keeps the burning flame of lust alive within you” or “what deep seeded pain are you compensating for?”. But the problem is I don’t know. I had a good family, I wasn’t molested that I know of, no childhood trauma. I’m re-doing my personal inventory and going to go through it with an AP or my therapist. Please pray that I can better understand what drives this desire underneath.
It can be really complicated to figure out. Even in my most recent dalliance with hunting/seeking P-subs, it took me weeks to really understand why I was feeling much more tempted all of the sudden. It felt like it came out of nowhere. Sitting with the temptation and praying mindfully in the Spirit in that moment was a help to me. So was debriefing through the whole thing with a trusted AP. I am praying for you and wish you the best in this part of your journey!
Turning to god and asking him to help with self control is key. Loving him more than the sin and not wanting to suffer a degraded fellowship with him. Love and obedience are linked together. Sometimes I was just looking to an old escape from the normal stresses of life, like a tough day at work, difficulties with family stuff, fatigue or regret.
I also noticed that, as I began exercising regularly, when I do not get my exercise in, I do not feel good.
