Life Uninhibited: 94 days and back again

I joined back in....April? 2020.

94 days became my longest streak without masturbation. Within that span, something like 54-74 days without porn.

The success, I'd break down into three main pillars.

Wait: Take note of this.

Simplicity wins. This doesn't have to be complicated.
All the tips and strategies are distillations of a SIMPLE, success-oriented mindset.

If you really want to distill it down, just take the 3 things I list here and let your mind ponder them over no certain amount of time.
The rest of the writing in between is just extra for clarification and whatnot.

#1: Desire

As in, the desire to be free from porn and masturbation.

Or the desire to be a better person and to live that. Not just to want it somewhere out there in the future. To want to BE that in each moment I could.

There is quote I came across;
"Don't give up what you want most for what you want now".

For whatever reason, that quote really made it "click" for me. I returned to it frequently.
It was simple, clear, discerning and exact.

Desire does matter.
Desire is sometimes given a bad name. Spiritual and philosophical teachings, from Christianity to Buddhism and others, are often misinterpreted as saying; desire = bad.

I know this from experience. And I understand now that is a misinterpretation.

To succeed in any task there must first be a desire.

Whether that is a desire to experience God. Or a desire for enlightenment.
A desire to be free from porn and masturbation.
A desire to be healthy and have loving relationships.

Too much or too many unrelenting and unbeneficial desires become a problem.

Align your desire(s) in the "right" things and you are now on your way.

-------

This really deserves a lot of discussion itself because many people struggle with making sense of desire. Hence, why ancient religions and philosophies discuss it, and hence why those teachings are frequently misinterpreted.

We grow up, at times being told "You can't always get what you want" and feeling scolded for making certain request or wanting certain things.
We grow up struggling to reconcile that.

We grow up seeing things other kids have that we don't.
Whether those are material things or immaterial things (like relationships).
Sometimes we don't receive ideal responses when we vocalize that.

This leaves us in a riddle with desire that we don't always make good sense of.

Here are two questions a wise man gave me that have helped me make much more sense of all this. It hasn't all been easy, but I'm better.

*In my 94 day streak, I took time nearly ever day to ask myself this question(s).

"What do I want? And how do I feel?"

PS: Sometimes you have to return to this question in "inconvenient" times.
Practice.

-----

The rest of it I can boil down to 2 things.

#2: Environment.

Creating a "success environment".

I used to think this was a somewhat static thing.
You create it or find it and that's that. You'll now succeed indefinitely.

I see now that's not necessarily true.

Why? Because life is not static.

So, there is big or "bulk" change we need to make to our environment...
That may be moving from one apartment or house to another. It may meaning moving from one city to another, or to the country.

That's not always feasible at a certain times. It wasn't for me.
Therefore, it may mean moving some furniture around. Maybe changing the paint or at least the wall decor.

* Do so with the clear intention of making the environment conducive to the success of what you are trying to accomplish.
You are trying to make your success easier, more streamlined, more fun.

Then, it may be necessary to make small changes. Slight alterations.
This is healthy.
It allows you to express your creativity in a way that is directly beneficial to your living situation.

Hey, guess what?

When it comes to ending an addiction, especially a sexually- related one, finding healthy ways of expressing creativity is very important.

Otherwise, you'll just have this energy with nowhere to go.
Guess what it'll go to then?

Don't even say it. Let's move on.

#3: "Dwelling in the winning feeling".

It has been said "Success breeds success".

There are studies out there that support this. I'll leave you to discover them with a simple search. (and when you do, recognize it as a success on your part!)

This is part of why keeping a record of your streak is powerful.

I'd recommend you keep the streak in a location where you can see it frequently.
I'd also recommend you keep your streak in any location you are more likely to relapse in.

*Make it obvious.
In the thralls of lust, your mind will likely try to avoid any effort that opposes its lusty intention.
So make it as impossible to miss as you can. It needs to be confronted (sternly yet gently).
--
I have one white board solely dedicated to keeping the streak day number on it.
Below the number, it also has a simple prompt.
Currently it reads, "What is the true worth of a man?"

It is located in the most likely place for me to relapse.

I have whiteboard calendar on which I also write the number of days in my streak.
It is located in another area.

* Each day, when you update the number, smile and really acknowledge the win that it is.

People tend to take their skills, successes and good traits for granted.
If we really acknowledged our good deeds, we'd naturally become far more successful by the way that feeling would propel and sustain us.

Dwell in the successful feeling. Return to it frequently. Dare to over-indulge in it. Consider also how you look forward to doing the same tomorrow. Just focus on that winning feeling. Be grateful for it.

PS: I'm not the first person to recommend any of this.

That's all for now.
I hope this helps despite the roughness of this first draft.

Yes, you can do it.
It's not me or anyone else that needs proving too.

If you'd like to join me, I'm starting my journey again. Today marks my first day completed.

Take it easy

-Ianjamin of Freelandia.

 

Yes, man. I look forward to meeting you in Freelandia. Here's to the journey

 

Thanks for commenting, Bean! It helps to know this was helpful. It's also encouraging.
We can do this.

 

Hey @MrBlue201, I meant to respond to you weeks ago. I was too tired to write a reply that I felt was sensible.
I just want you to know that I meant to and that I appreciate the feedback!

 

Yes, this is one of those practices that spans across at least a few religions!

If God is Spirit, then desire for God is desire for the Spirit. What seems beautiful about that to me is that such can span across particular religious beliefs and ideas, and to the essence of what religion seems to be about:
Spiritual understanding.

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24

Please don't feel that you have to accept or reject my statement here. I'm just sharing one of the realizations that has been important in my journey

 

It is new year's eve and so I wrote a post reviewing the year 2020 in regards to nofap.

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/journal-to-freelandia.290876/#post-2855567

It's a first draft and I was very tired by the time I finished it.
It seemed a good idea to share the link here.

Much of the post is focused on my own journey this year coupled with useful points for all of us in this process.

If you don't want to read the whole thing that's fine.

I'd love it if any of you would even just skip down to the "PS" section and respond to the questions there.
They are related to your ending year and your vision for the next

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/journal-to-freelandia.290876/#post-2855567

 

Review of the 2021 in light of NoFap Progress:

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/journal-to-freelandia.290876/page-5#post-3246463

PS: Just reread the original post on this thread and found it is still helpful to me, and is the foundationals I come back to.