Life Lessons - Mastering the Inner Game

The Inner Game refers to the mental battles we face in our minds, the constant ruminations, the bombardment of self critiques, the neverending doubts and worries. The book The Inner Game of Tennis says that we each have two selves. It talks about self 1, the controlling, egoistic self, the self that is always nagging you about why you didn't do this or that better. Self 2 on the other hand is the body, the performer, The Doer. Then it explains how self 1 prevents self 2, your true best self, from being unlocked. Self 2, is the self that does things on autopilot, and part of being in the zone involves minimal interference from self 1. Self 1 instructs, Self 2 acts.

So now I will share the lessons I learned from the book The Inner Game of Tennis, touted as one of the best books to help your mental game. It is helpful I believe not only for sports but can applied to all aspects of your life. Here are the top lessons that stuck out to me:

- Be anxious for nothing. Yes, for nothing. Not even for the deadline thats due tonight, or the crisis your family is in. This is actually a proverb from the bible, and if you can adhere to this, you will significantly lower your stress level and improve your health
- Put fear in its place. Don't let it rule you. Attack your weakness and welcome obstacles as an opportunity to challenge yourself and discover the true limits of your capacities and extend your true potential. You never know if you can go higher, so don't be afraid to play people better than you. The potential may have always been within you, but until it is manifested in action, it remains a secret hidden from yourself
- Obstacles are a very necessary ingredient to the process of self discovery. Recognize the value of having difficult obstacles to overcome.
- Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value in winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. If you always win every game you play easily and without effort, the value in winning would be diminished
- The surfer is not out to "prove" himself; he is not out to show the world how great he is, but is simply involved in the exploration of his latent capabilities, thus increasing his self knowledge.
- In competition, it isn't the other person we are defeating; it is simply a matter of overcoming the obstacles he presents.
- The cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment
- Each self 2 is endowed by birth, with an instinct to fulfill its nature. It wants to enjoy, to learn, to understand, appreciate, go for it, rest, be healthy, survive, be free to be what it is, express itself and make its unique contribution
- Self 2's needs come with a gentle but constant urging. A certain feeling of contentment attends a person whenever he or she is acting in sync with this self.
- Freedom from stress happens in proportion to our responsiveness to our true selves

- What else can be done to promote stability? The message of the Inner Game is simple: focus. Focus of attention in the present moment, the only one you can really live in, is at the heart of this book and at the heart of the art of doing anything well. Focus means not dwelling on the past, either on mistakes or glories; it means not being so caught up in the future, either its fears or its dreams, that my fully attention is taken from the present. The ability to focus the mind is the ability to not let it run away with you. It does not mean not to think- but to be the one who directs your own thinking.

- Stability grows as I learn to accept what I cannot control and take control of what I can


What does this have to do with SR?

To lose semen is to sever the soul from the body. Mastering yourself sexually will give you unshakable confidence, but it will also increase your self awareness and more importantly will help free you from attachment. Why? Because you become closer to desireless when you have mastered the strongest of desires. When you retain, you don't feel the "need to prove yourself" in order to compensate for some insecurity. You instead feel secure in yourself, anchored, full, backed by your future progeny stored inside of you. I believe that, as the book noted, this feeling of security also arises from the contentment that attends a person whenever he or she is acting in sync with their true self.

SR gives you a greater ability to remain calm in the face of turmoil, to remain steadfast under pressure, to maintain your poise even amongst all the chaos around you. Why though? I believe the answer lies in the book as well: Freedom from stress happens in proportion to our responsiveness to our true selves. If that is indeed the case, then it follows that by not spilling seed, and in so doing becoming closer to our true selves, we feel less anxiety and stress, knowing that we are acting in accord with our true selves. This also goes in line with one of the main premises I have come to stand by which is to never do anything that violates your conscience. If you stand by this principle, then you will not succumb to peer pressure, because what your peers think about you cannot possibly measure up to the uneasiness you will feel for having violated your conscience.

I also believe that when you are well established in SR, and are back in equilibrium in body and mind, the past will seem like a distant dream. The old you, the spiller, the loser, the coomer will seem like it was someone else. The right approach is to not be angry at that former you, but to laugh it off, and be glad that you found the way out. Consider what you did years ago, or even 2 minutes ago if you just relapsed, to be as buried in the past as the signing of the Declaration of Independence or some other ancient historical event. Its history!

Excessive spilling of semen causes great inner turmoil, and a disturbed inner world. You tend to think other people are always watching you, judging you. It has been experienced by not only me but many others. With SR however, You are just there, steady as a rock, cool, calm and collected, knowing you are in alignment with your highest self. SR is the ultimate self discipline/self mastery on steroids.

 

Hi brother, thanks for sharing your favorite part. I at first wasn't going to include that part since I felt it was a bit off topic... but I'm glad I did and that it benefitted you.

I too have felt very angry at my past self and that would only lead to relapses. Its the whole "I already messed up in the past, so screw it. Im already a failure" mentality. It doesn't work I realize. Trust me, that when you leave the habit of pmo behind and look back in hindsight, you may still have regret that you didn't do this or that sooner, but the sting will be significantly dampened and you will be too content with your current awesome life to be feeling sorry for your old self

One of the reddit posts I shared with you in a PM about a guy who went 2 years of nofap said what I am telling you. So its not just wishful thinking on my part