NEW 90 Day Challenge - Start on Sunday 22nd May 2016

Hey, just checking in for today!

@fookeh each time, how long would you mediate for?

From posts I've seen on this website it seems that some guys have trouble motivating themselves to achieve goals. I also have trouble with a scattered mind but also feel that I've achieved a lot so far in my life and have followed through on a lot things e.g. I have travelled to nearly 40 countries so far and i am living in my 3rd country at the age of 27. I've always been seen as a driven individual. Although this is a strength, I am starting to feel that it is also a double edged sword as I am often motivated by fear. For example, I recently did an interview for a university course, nailed it and got accepted. I'm thinking that I won't accept it for various reasons so I'm waiting for the 1st choice to contact me. I had a panic attack at work today and emailed the recruiter worried about not getting into my first choice. Instead of taking encouragement from the fact that I did so well in the first interview which can only help me I went straight to dark and worried place where I torture myself with worst case scenarios in order to motivate myself to get a result. I think that is one of the reasons I want to sort myself out. I am want my actions to come from calmer oceans where I am not as tied to the result and can enjoy the ride.

Also I want to improve my communication with people and make more friends. I feel that I have been closing myself off for some time and have caught myself judging people (and myself). I'm sure this comes from self esteem issues that I need to front up to and believe that the first step is to stop self medicating through Porn.

If my posts seem a bit disjointed, I'm thinking this through as I write so apologies!

 

Well folks, it's time to man up.

I relapsed today.

How it happened

I have the place to myself today. It started off as a pretty normal today. I got into the shower and all of a sudden, I got hit with an urge. Pretty typical I thought, I know how to handle these. But then, I thought, wouldn't that be nice right now, I'm all alone, no big deal, it's not like I'd be committing a crime or anything! Then, before I knew it, that urge became the worst urge I've ever had. My body started shaking and I started thinking about it even more.

Suddenly, I said "F*ck it, I'm going to do this". I had my ah-screw-it moment. I told myself I didn't care about the challenge (even though we all know I do) and that I wouldn't come back to this site after I fapped because it would be too embarrassing (well, here I am).

Leading up to fapping, my heart was racing, my body was shaking. I stomach was in knots and I felt like I wasn't even in my body. All logic went out the window - it wasn't even considered. For five short minutes, I didn't care about this challenge, I didn't care about my life, I didn't care about anything whatsoever. As a last fail-safe, I opened my email to see if there were any replies to the thread. I tried to come here instead, but I didn't care at that point. Nothing was going to stop me. Before I knew it, it was done. I sat here feeling completely disgusted, angry, upset, ashamed, and disappointed. I worked so hard to get to where I was just to have a moment of weakness come and whisk it all away. And of course, I have to be a man with you all and be brutally honest.

That's how quickly it can happen...

Why it happened

After it was over, I sat here reflecting on the why. Any other time I got an urge up until today, I killed it instantly. I reminded myself how badly it impacted my life, how great life was right now, how much better my sex life was with my wife - I'd pretty much verbally slap myself in the face to get rid of it. And up until today, it always worked.

In reflecting over the past few weeks, I can see what contributed to it happening. All the good habits I built drifted to the wayside. I injured myself running a few weeks ago, so I have significantly cut back my mileage as a result. I haven't meditated consistently over the past few weeks. I have had no consistency in my life. I am questioning my career and how I have no passion for what I do and desire to do something that will help others instead of meeting a corporation's bottom line. My eating habits have fallen apart and I have been eating processed junk instead of healthy meals like I was a few weeks ago.

On top of all of that, I sit here trying to figure life out. Why can't I gain any momentum forward? It seems like every time I turn around, I get hit with some unexpected financial expense, I have a brutally rough week at work (last week), and I just feel so damn lazy and lifeless. I am in a rut. When you go on a mental downward spiral, slowly but surely, everything is impacted. I was so close to drinking booze over the past couple of days as well but I was able to deal with that.

Be Humble

After I hit the two month mark, I thought I had this addiction taken care of and I would never go back to it again. Ever. There was no what ifs, no "after this challenge I'll do it once because I'll be in control", it was simply "never again".

Practice What You Preach

I remember around the 50 day mark, I made a post here about being prepared when you have a really bad day or week and don't give a shit about anything. What will you do then? I sat here and asked that question, but didn't even answer it for myself and here is the result of that. I'm like the alcoholic who thought he could have that one drink and now realizes he made a huge mistake. I should have taken the time to prepare myself for these situations.

Don't let your emotions drive - use logic and disciple instead.

I'm Not Giving Up

It is so disheartening to have lost it after 70 days. But I will start again. I will try it again and this time, I'll get my life in order and be prepared. Today is Day 1...

There you have it folks. Be gentle.

 

Ideally, I meditate for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. But if you look at my last point, you'll see I've slipped quite a bit. I need to get back into it because it was very helpful.

It's interesting what fear can do to us, and furthermore, how easily we can become fixated on fear instead of the great accomplishments we've achieved (50 days no fapping when you're getting over the addiction is a big accomplishment, but not one I really thought about until now). Instead of WOW 50 DAYS THAT'S AMAZING - we think, WOW, 40 MORE DAYS?! I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN DO IT.... When you start asking the wrong questions, you'll end up with the wrong results.

We all need to believe in ourselves and in each other.

Even though I relapsed, I know I'm among those who will support me (and perhaps be disappointed with me as well, and rightfully so!)

I'm not going anywhere!

 

@fookeh tough break! I can relate to the feeling of shame and the embarrassment of coming back on hear and admitting to it. Try not to be too hard on yourself we all make mistakes! I'm glad to see you owned up and are back up for the fight. When it happened to me I was tempted to go on a binge, thinking I can easily get back on a streak but luckily I caught myself from falling back into the cycle where I could have been stuck for another few years before I got serious again. That is a scary thought!

I guess sometimes we need something like this to happen for us to fully acknowledge how deep and how far journey will be. Good on you for kicking the drink too, that is a bigger monster to tame. Were you having problems with that too?

I'm back focused on my challenge. I feel I'm past the chaser effect that plagued me for the 1st couple days after my relapse and my mood is a bit lighter. Nothing much to report today.

 

@fookeh Hey man, no shame in what happened. Sure, it's not the outcome we're looking for, but just making the decision to come clean about this shows so much more humility than anything else.

The second part of this phrase is what is important here:
"It is so disheartening to have lost it after 70 days. But I will start again."

Also, please don't say "You've lost after x days." You didn't lose it. You simply went the wrong way and didn't reach your goal yet. So just get back on track and it will be all good. That's the only thing I ask you, please don't go back to your old habits.

Stay safe guys.

Cheers

 

Hello everyone, been away a holiday for a while so not been around, but as it happens am alone today and found myself thinking i could... so I logged in to see whats going on. I'm impressed by the honesty and vulnerability here there is great strength in that. Yes counters may have gone down as well as up. I'm reluctant to say this in case I break it for anyone but I think we're all far enough down the path, just that I think the counters are kind of head trick to get us to give up, but its obviously the giving up that is the real thing. Real good has already been done to our heads and our relationships and won't be undone that easily.


I know I use porn (and recently fantasizing) to cover up, to paper over, an emptiness I feel and don't want to face. What I've been doing recently is rather than push that feeling away is to try and stick with it and ask what it really wants, why it feels that way, and it’s not easy and i don’t always do it well, but I’m learning things about myself threw that.


Meditation wise I use an app called headspace, it's a really nice easy way into meditation for beginners (like me) the first 10 sessions are free and then it wants some money but I'm sure similar guided meditation things exist on youtube once you've got going. Apparently meditation helps build better more focused connections in your brain, thats got to be a good thing for guys like us.


Keep well everyone.

 

Nice post! Meditation has been extremely helpful to me and I'm glad to hear to hear that it was of help too! Meditation helped me in a couple of ways. The first was that it taught me to be more aware. When you meditate, you just sit with your own thoughts and breath. That's the same thing we face with an urge, just our own thoughts and breath. Meditation is teaching me to be more aware of that. The other thing was discipline and willpower. By taking the time to actually meditate, I'm developing the habit of sticking to a new habit. Now that I'm more aware of my patterns when looking for porn, etc., I am aware of that and redirect to something else.

If you're looking for an alternate bare-bones meditation timer, you might consider Insight Timer.

 

@stephanD well said! Slipping isn't the thing that defines this challenge...it's getting back up and trying to sort out our lives.

I had some urges today and let my mind drift for longer than I would have liked. Luckily I got out of the house and had a great day besides, I feel I need be more focused or else another slip mightn't be long in coming.

@fookeh how are you doing today?

 

@fookeh i've just read your post... I'm in vacation and had not enough connection to keep in touch with the thread... Well, I won't add nothing more than the others: don't be too hard on yourself and there is absolutly no shame. The title of the thread uses the term "challenge", but it's not appropriate to me. We aren't in a challenge, even with ourselves. We are on a path to learn knowing ourselves and it's just what you are doing. no doubt, we learn from failure, not from success.

 

Thanks for the support everyone.

It's not getting knocked down that defines us, it's how quickly we get back up.

I am better prepared this time around and even though I've just reset, I am more confident than ever before that I will follow through in successfully completing this challenge. I've learned the importance of being humble and not cocky.

 

Glad to see you are on the up again @fookeh

 

Morning everyone. Just here pushing aside some morning urges bought about by not wanting to start a stressful day - and checking you are all ok

+1 for getting out of the house.

 

Hey, question to you all: During nofap have you felt any kind of emotional rollercoaster effect? What I mean is this, before nofap I sure wasn't as confident or happy as I am right now, but I was definitely more consistent with my emotions I believe. Let's say it would loosely range between 30-50% on a scale of emotional contentment, whereas today with nofap it seems almost like I have bipolar disorder or something like that, I'd say that this scale is pretty much around 20-80% now, and it can go from "Awesome, life is beautiful." to "Fuck me, I hate everyone, myself included." in a day.

I feel like I'm much more close to achieving the things I want to, but at the same time the bad things that happen every now and then draw so much energy from me, in a way that usually didn't happen. I feel like PMO actually did work as a drug in a sense that it made me numb for both good and bad stuff.

 

@maske yes I felt that a lot too. Sometimes I can be focused and fell healthy however other times I can get really frustrated and angry.

 

@fookeh I thought about you a lot today. few days ago, when you relapsed, I told to myself that I was really confident about my situation and that I hadn't had urges since a while... Pfff... today was really really tough! I managed to get through, but you're part of this victory buddy.
I didn't had sex with my gf since almost 3 weeks and it is really hard for me. I don't know how I could have manage this challenge being single...
I was thinking to myself: Women are evacuating ovules every 3 weeks, but if we don't O, we can't do the same... aren't we programmed to reproduce ourself?

@maske @Joseon2016 same for me but I think that it's a question of energy and awarness... Physiologically we have to drive efficiently this new energy arising. We have a surplus of vitamins and amino acids now that we don't use it to recreate sperm. That's my theory and I don't know if it's accurate

 

I'm sick today so must hangout around home. This is usually a time that triggers cravings in me so just coming on here to try to keep myself grounded.

Hope all of yee are doing well today!

 

Had sex with my gf earlier and now at home chilling. Feeling the draw of P now so checking in here instead.

 

@fookeh
Wow, it is really rare to see people like you on this forum. People who actually spend time to reflect on what went wrong and why they relapsed. I am 100% sure that you will end this addiction because you know what needs to get done.
Best of luck!

 

Hello people, I am feeling tired and a bit stressed. I'm at home alone and my rational self knows that P would be a false comfort, and I know you know it too, which is why I'm coming here to share with you right minded people and counter act my impulses. I am glad to be on this journey just need to be reminded of that sometimes.

 

Hello @stephanD I hope you went through. When I'm in this kind of situation, I go for a run or leave home, take some air. What works best for me is sport and the dopamine it brings