35 and older accountability, Group 2

Thank you!

 

I can relate to this. I really appreciate your candor.

 

Congratulations @newtry!! Will you please share some insight as to how you've accomplished this?? I appreciate any advice that you're willing to share

 

Thanks for sharing man.

Few things that I check when I go through phases like that.

1. how is your diet? Do you have a very clean healthy diet that meets your body's needs? I find that can make a difference in my state and mood

2. Do you have a vision/long term goals that you can work towards? I find having goals that I know I can achieve can help my mind to become one-pointed. I write them down every morning starting with 3 things I'm grateful for - focusing my mind on what is well - otherwise, my mind likes to focus on what is not well.

3. Regarding relationship - I know the feeling big time - reminds me of the tremendous suffering i was in having similar thoughts.

The best suggestion i can make now is to treat her as if she could read your thoughts, in otherwords be kind, respectful and loving in all your thoughts towards her, do to her as you want her todo to you - focus on being kind and loving and eventaully if you two must apart you will without any negativity or you may find a new kind of joy which is different from the ideas of happiness holiwood has brain washed us to have.

Be paitient one day at a time bro - you are still going through massive mental brain chemistry change,

4. Sleep, relaxation (yoga class) and exercise (30-40min of cardio and / or weights) : I find these 3 help me so much with mood and uplifts me.

You can also try Wim Huf method - which is a combo of breathing and cold - Tons of oxygen and cold can really boost up your feel good brain cocktain -

Lastly nothing helps me more than attending a 10 day silence retreat if you want to put the ax a the root of the tree, book a time off and take a retreat - i have attended the goenka 10 day retreat over 10 timies and it has always increased my contentment and peace.

keep us posted

 

I would advise you based on my personal experiences to not dump her while you’re in this state of general depression. See if you can stabilize that first and then assess how you feel. Don’t dwell on it too much either because our minds perception can shape how we feel about a situation and depression can build patterns of negative thinking around a relationship even though there isn’t much wrong. I’ve been married for years and have long periods where I don’t feel attached to my wife and I’m generally ambivalent. It’s usually caused by depression or stress. I really can’t trust my emotions or decisions when I’m depressed.

 

Thank you very much!!!!!

 

Thank you! As an advice you can follow my example: if the urges become increasingly fast and frequent, get away from your devices ... not only avoid being close to them, but disconnect them, remove the battery from your cell phone and if you can leave your home without wearing it

 

Update - Day 37 without coffee - starting to feel really good and consistent flow of energy - Feeling a sense of peace and harmoney - though still miss coffee highs for about 20% but because i'm now becoming aware of the new sense of harmony I'm not really interested in the highs as much.

Happiness is more subtle and not as exciting but it is in a sense better because it is more reliable and content is the base.

What i'm missing is my creativity - i dont seem to have as much creativity or excitment over reading or writing - but I'm considering this a phase of withdraw sympthoms - hoping it will vanish later.

 

I have had a setback...Day 1

 

Thank you for that advice. I had urges and just decided not to turn on my computer today and that helped.

 

Sorry man. Anything you could have done differently? Congratulations on the 12+ days you had.

 

I have these emergency plans to do certain constructive actions when temptation arises, but many times I don't do any of the things on my list before acting out. I need to try at least 1 or 2 things on the list first and then see if my internal state has changed instead of just caving in.

 

Have you tried meditation? In my experience nothing but meditation enables me to regain control over my animal mind which overpowers me and dis-ables my logic to function.

When lust attacks, it is so easy to get over powered. Meditation is the most potent thing you can do to cahnge this habit pattern

 

I’m the same way. I’m trying to practice daily the thoughts that I need to have before I make the bad choice to avoid it. I try to reinforce my reasons why throughout the day so that in that moment maybe I can use those reasons. Having this group to share to when an urge comes has been helpful. I’ve just been posting the urge on my nofap journal.

 

I just wandered to a site and then closed it. I made decision that while I could do it, I don’t want to do it. I looked at the women and thought how beautiful they looked and then thought how miserable they must be doing this for a living and how tired and worn out some of them look beneath the makeup.

 

Something crazy is happening,

As some of you know I have renounced all sexual thoughts and attempts for a relationship this month as a practice of Bramacharya.

The interesting thing that is happening, I am noticing how many women are available to me as if they are testing me to see if i am really wanting to be like this or not.

I get text from girls i havent spoken in months, I get messages on Facebook, I see them on different fb groups inviting me to msg them etc.

But i am sticking to my resolve, I am renouncing the lesser happiness for greater happiness, at the end of this month i will decide if I will continue this way of life for the rest of the year or what other option to choose.

 

Hey bro check out this book - http://www.dlshq.org/download/brahmacharya.pdf

Some copy paste sections

Lust in men and in women Though a lady appears to be gentle and soft, yet she becomes rude, rough and distinctly masculine when she becomes angry.

The feminine grace vanishes when she comes under the influence of wrath, indignation, fury and resentment. Have you ever seen women fighting in the streets? Women are more jealous than men. They have more Moha and passion also. They are eight times more passionate than men.

Women have more power of endurance. They are more emotional. Males are more rational. Though females are more passionate, yet they have more power of restraint than males. After enticing men, they keep quiet. The real culprit is man only. He is aggressive. It is he who tastes the ‘forbidden fruit’ first. He is active. He goes out of control and loses his intellect, power of understanding and judgement when he is under the grip of passion and becomes the sporting lap-dog of woman. When once man falls into the trap or net spread out by woman, there is no escape for him. Woman is passive. She only tempts and deludes man. She inflames and excites the heart of man. She smiles and glances and then keeps quiet. She waits. But man is the aggressor. He is the real culprit. Man is the worst culprit. He is the real seducer.

He is the aggressor. He is the violator. All women would have become Miras, Madalasas and Sulabhas had it not been for this vilest nature of man. He must be corrected and moulded first. He has not got so much self-restraint as women have. Women are eight times more passionate than men, but possess eight times more strength of control over the sexual impulses or the sexual urge. This is the weakness of man, though he may be physically and intellectually more powerful than a woman. Women flatter, coax and cajole you. They are experts in the art of blandishment. They have made you a slave by their winning expressions, actions, youthful charm, coquettish glances, gestures and smile.

A considerable portion of your life has been wasted pursuing the phantoms of flesh. Women appear charming only for a short time, but turn destructive of health and happiness soon after. Beware of these temptresses who entangle you by their blandishments. Pass your remaining days at least on the holy banks of the Ganga in silent Japa and meditation. The scorpion has the venom in its tail, the cobra in its fangs, the mosquito in its saliva and the scandal-monger in his tongue. Woman has poisoned arrows in her eyes. She sends the message of passion to the lustful youth and pierces their heart through the poisoned arrows that dart from her piercing glances. But, she cannot do any harm to a Viveki who is always on the


PRACTICE OF BRAHMACHARYA 15

alert and who sees the Doshas of a woman and who knows the Sat-Chit-Ananda, pure nature of Atman. There are tongues and telegraphic instruments in the eyes of young passionate ladies.


They send their love shafts and love messages through their smiling glances to passionate young men and thereby allure and bewitch them. Those young men who have no discrimination are excited by these love messages and become a prey to lust. ‘They become pleasure-deer or sporting lap-dogs of ladies, though they possess academic education and hold high position and title. What a shame! Reason, will, intellect vanish altogether.

O aspirants! Do not be very familiar with any woman. You should not sacrifice a noble ideal of life for the sake of pleasing a bewitching woman.

Think of the composition of the body. Keep the mental image of the dead body of a woman or a skeleton whenever passion troubles you. You will slowly gain strength to subdue the passion. Vairagya will slowly dawn. The cause for attraction towards women is the presence of Vasanas or subtle desires in the mind. Wipe them out. There will be no attraction. Those who have renounced women and money have really renounced the world.


4. SEX IS IN IMAGINATION Sex is the distinction between male and female.

It is a mental creation. It is a Kalpana or imagination. There is no sex in the five elements of which the body is composed. The human body is nothing but a combination of the five elements. How, then, has the sex idea come? The sex idea is illusory. It is a trick of the mind. It is jugglery of Maya. It is a notion. The sex-idea is deep-rooted. Man can never think that he is a female. A female can never think that she is a male.

For a liberated sage, this world is full of Brahman only. For a passionate man, this world is full of woman. He falls in love with a wooden post if it is wrapped in a silken gown or a beautiful cloth with attractive borders and a petticoat. Passion is a terrible curse. When a man is under the influence of passion, excitement and the sex impulse or force destroy his understanding and reason, overwhelm his mind and make him utterly helpless.


A householder who has rightly understood the magnitude of the sufferings of Samsara tries to get rid of the Samsaric life. Whereas, a bachelor full of passion imagines that he is very miserable on account of the absence of a wife and children and tries to get married.

This is Maya. This is a mental trick. Beware. A passionate bachelor is ever thinking: “When can I live with a young wife?” A dispassionate householder in whom Viveka has dawned is ever thinking: “When can I disentangle myself from the clutches of my wife and retire into the forests for contemplation on Atman?” You must think over the difference. Thousands of young graduates and young doctors come to me with earthen pots in their hands, attired in orange-coloured robes, in quest of caves in Uttarakashi and Gangotri for deep meditation and practice of Pranayama. And some young research students in science and some


PRACTICE OF BRAHMACHARYA 16 Rajakumars go to Punjab and Kashmir in silk suits with stiff collars and ties in search of girls for marriage. Is there pleasure or pain in this world? If there is pleasure, why do the young educated men retire into forests? If there is pain, why do young men run after wealth, women and position? Mysterious is Maya! Mysterious is Moha! Try to understand the riddle of life and the riddle of the universe. Beauty is a mental concept Maya havocs through the imagination of the mind. Woman is not beautiful, but the imagination is beautiful. Sugar is not sweet, but the imagination is sweet. Food is not palatable, but the imagination is palatable. Man is not weak, but the imagination is weak. Understand the nature of Maya and mind and become wise. Curb this imagination of the mind by Vichara or right thinking and rest in Brahman wherein there is neither imagination nor thought. Beauty and ugliness are false imaginations of the mind. Mind itself is a false illusory product. Conceptions of the mind also must therefore be false. They are all like a mirage in the desert. What is beautiful for you is ugly for another. Beauty and ugliness are relative terms. Beauty is only a mental concept.


It is only a mental projection. It is only a civilized man who talks much of the symmetry of form, good features, graceful gait, elegance of manners and graceful form. An African Negro has no idea of all these things. Real beauty is in the Self only. Beauty resides in the mind and not in the objects. Mango is not sweet; the idea of mango is sweet.


It is all Vritti. It is all mental deception, mental conception, mental creation, mental Srishti. Destroy the Vritti; beauty vanishes. The husband stretches his own idea of beauty in his ugly wife and finds her very beautiful through passion. Shakespeare has rightly expressed this in his “Mid-summer-Night’s Dream”: “Cupid is painted blind. It finds Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt”. The Indriyas and the mind delude you at every moment.


They are your real enemies. Beauty is a product of mental creation. Beauty is a product of the imagination. An ugly woman appears very beautiful only in the eyes of her husband. Where is the beauty, my dear friends, in the wrinkled skin of an old woman?

Where is the beauty when your wife is bedridden? Where is the beauty when your wife gets angry? Where is the beauty in the dead body of a woman? The beauty in the face is a mere reflection. The real undecaying Beauty of beauties—the fountain of beauties—can be found in the Atman only. You have ignored the substance and caught hold of a broken piece of glass. What a serious blunder have you committed by your impure thoughts, impure mind, impure Buddhi and impure way of living! Have you realized your mistake? Will you open your eyes at least now? A beautiful wife is very charming. She is very sweet when she is young, when she smiles, when she puts on beautiful dress, when she sings and plays on the piano or the violin, when she dances in the ballroom. But she is horrible to look at when she loses her temper, when she quarrels with her husband for not getting silk sarees and gold necklace, when she suffers from acute abdominal colic or some such disease and when she becomes old.



PRACTICE OF BRAHMACHARYA 17 For a few years Nature bestows on woman her gift of special beauty, charm and elegance in order that she may capture the hearts of men. Beauty is skin-deep only. It will soon fade, the hair will become gray and the skin will soon be filled with wrinkles. The tailor, the weaver, the embroiderer, the toilet maker and the goldsmith make us beautiful for a few seconds. Man, in his excitement, infatuation and delusion, forgets this point. This is Maya. Never trust this Maya. Beware. O man, wake up! Find out the Beauty of beauties, which is within you, which is your innermost Self. O woman! Sing like Mira and merge in Mira’s Girdhar Nagar. Have you ever paused and considered what constitutes the basic’ ladies who excite lust in you? A bundle of bones, flesh, blood, urine, faecal matter, pus, perspiration, phlegm and other dirt! Will you allow such a bundle to become the master of your thoughts? Will you exchange your birthright of eternal peace and happiness for such a fleeting, filthy mess of pottage? Shame on you! Were your will, your reason and your discrimination given to you only for such an inglorious end? Have you not heard and seen that physical beauty is only skin-deep and at the mercy of every passing accident, illness and year?