starting to doubt nofap

Me talking from personal experience would say it's sensations building up inside you that has been suppressed through O's. My advice is, just let it be there, dont value it in any way, neither negative or positive, when it comes just let it be and it should get unstuck and you can move on in the nofap journey.

 

Kamado says:

"So i have tried nofap for a couple of months now and i get to the two week stage and everytime something builds up in me, makes me feel weird, strange feel odd. Then when i O it makes it go away."

Hi kamado, I certainly don't take it wrong. I can only speak for myself, but I felt exactly the same way, over and over again, before I quit porn. It was my PMO cycle. I was constantly pushing the porn button to get the dopamine release, then quitting, hitting withdrawals when I felt weird, strange, and odd, hitting the button again, getting that high, feeling good, then coming back down. I don't want to tell anyone they are an addict. I know I am and that was exactly how I felt before I totally quit porn. We don't talk enough about withdrawals here. No one gets clean without feeling 100 kinds of shitty before it is over. Just a fact, if you are addicted.

I think for a guy like you you have to ask: "Why am I quitting?" Maybe even: "Am I quitting?" There are a lot of guys in here who are still trying to control their porn problem. They are consistently failing. Then, there are the guys who know they cannot control their porn problem, cannot keep it in their lives. They are quitting. They are renouncing porn, putting it down, leaving it behind, rejecting it, excommunicating it. They know they cannot handle it, they have the humility to know it is a drug that was in charge of them, and not the other way around. Giving up porn for many of us, including me, was like telling a dear old friend to F off and to never come around again. It has been there for us in the hard times, a crutch to lean on, a friend to help face the hard times, to deal with the stress. But it is not real. Porn is a button we push to release dopamine. It has no value, its presence in our lives does not make our lives better. Giving it up does not make our lives worse, in any way. It's extreme for some but you almost have to look at porn as the enemy, as a false friend, then tell it to get out of your life. Not ask it to leave nicely, kick it out.

My experience, anyway.

Good luck on your journey.

 

Kamado, your sentiments actually remind me of something similar: the doubt that people often feel when beginning a meditation practice. (One of my favorite descriptions of this in a classic text, Mindfulness in Plain English. In my meditation practice, I struggled with this too, mainly with the thought 'Is this sitting really changing anything in my life? If it is, why can't I see the results I want to see?') It makes me think that doubt is always ever-present when there is great change, and it's just a natural part of the process. If anything, I'd say try being curious about your doubt as a means of putting distance between you and it. Try asking questions, like "Why might doubt be happening to me now? What does doubt feel like in my mind and body? How can I be present with doubt without being attached to it?" and reminding yourself that, like all emotions, doubt is impermanent and will fade on its own, despite the appearance of otherwise. By questioning doubt, you rob it of its power by acknowledging it but not allowing it to control you. By trying to suppress doubt or feel like doubt is unnatural, you are denying the human part of this process. Another exercise may be to write down all the thoughts of doubt you have and then write the opposite of that thought. Then erase the doubting thoughts and think of this as your new soundtrack (I got it from a book I read a while ago called "No Matter What" by Lisa Nichols.) Finally, just acknowledge the doubt from a compassionate perspective in that it makes you human, but knowing it doesn't mean giving up. You are on a powerful journey to reclaim your masculinity and consciousness, defining your own mindful relationship to sexual energy and pleasure (rather than allowing the porn industry to define it for you and your brain). Managing doubt, which means accepting that it will arise and dissipate, is part of the process, so thank you for reteaching this lesson to me and to the rest of us in the community. I salute you for your honesty and am sending compassion your way

 

No matter how the O makes you feel, you should not be masturbating to make yourself orgasm. Sex is the only moral way to do so. Porn and masturbation are wrong and bad for you under ALL circumstances. There is NEVER a time when they are permissible.

 

I'm sorry, but I think that is a matter of opinion. I think most if not all of us on here agree that we need to overcome our porn addictions. But that is a physical problem caused by the over stimulation of dopamine as William has so often written about. Once rebooted, if a man is able to MO without the use of porn and relapses, I don’t see how that is a morality issue. Certain religions may frown upon it, but that is between the individual and whatever god he chooses to worship, if any.

 

Everything I say is a matter of opinion. I thought that would have been obvious, since I'm just some random dude on the internet.

 

My point exactly.

 

willhelm reich, psychotherapist, had a patient who had neurosis..massive emotional problems. He noticed that everytime his patient was masturbating, his neurosis disappeared for about one week.
Making story short, he discovered that there is sexual energy..basically electrical field buildup in the genitals.
IF you don't discharge this energy...if this energy is blocked by your body (neurosis)..it makes the neurosis worse.
Basically saying, its either you discharge in anyway (MO PMO SEX whatever..ejaculate)
or you clean your system and learn to spray this energy around your body..discharge from the genitals to the rest of the body.

many guys here hold so long in NoFap because they have sex, in sex you discharge.
Also in MO..any ejaculation you discharge.
If you hold this energy, blocked..you will never relax,energy will buildup and its going to get you at some point.

 

I am currently single and have no plans for changing that (for the foreseeable future at least) so if you could recommended one resource to get me started on what you mention what would it be (its just that there's so much stuff out there I don't know where to start) Cheers

 

I can write a lot about the subject..I'll try to give some guidelines

do yoga, as in yoga you stretch the muscles, you basically open the "pipes" to move the energy.
you don't need all existing asanas to do, mostly the muscle stretching around the body.

do energy sublimation meditation. where you take the energy up, note that it takes time to master this meditation and to feel its effect. in the beginning most people do it wrong as they don't feel their energy.

do inverted asanas, as this will make the sexual energy pretty easily..without meditation, go up the spine and spread around the body.
there is the head stand, candle pose, and few others. the basics are, if you are inverted, energy will move down to your head. When you are horny (excess sexual energy) you will feel MUCH less horny afterwards...as well as doing simple yoga will make you less horny, as it will move energy around the body, out of the genitals areas.

There are some active asanas for making the energy jump up..but you need to do some yoga to practice them.

When doing tantra, with partner..you can also move the energy up. its the best and most plesurable way. NO EJACULATION!..also sex is much better, many orgasms traveling inside your body, more loving sex very different than usual sex. And women LOVE IT!

once you master your energy, you can "make love" to yourself, masturbate, without ejaculation. Having orgasms flow around your body. Orgasms to your head, arm, legs...everywhere. its super pleasurable, very relaxing and it will take away your horniness without ejaculating, without porn, without yoga or anything.

This is the BASIC way to open your system and spread your energy.

To remove neurosis, depression, make yourself much more healthy emotionally...totally open your system..even stronger orgasmic experience. This is done with therapy with is using the body and the breath.I can talk also a lot about this but basically it goes like this.
There is this energy, this energy makes you FEEL. love, anger, sadness, joy, happiness. when you don't want to feel something usually because of traumatic experience, or education, or your parents many times. let say you don't want to feel anger because you were thought anger is bad. therefor you have to BLOCK your system..your body is blocking the energy so you will not feel anger when actually you need to feel some point anger (something happend)..when you BLOCK anger, this energy..which is same energy of joy.
You cannot also experience joy and love, because you basically blocked yourself.
I myself was depressed to the point of wanting to kill myself, only when i healed myself, i discovered i can live. I could experience love, joy..i could even cry, as before i think since age 13 i never cried.

Anyway..have to go now

 

Many thanks for taking the time to write that, I am very interested in this, I already do some basic yoga but want to do more, am on a mission now to learn more, thanks again

 

I hope later i'll take some time to write about these stuff more deeply specifically for NoFap.
For now, if you need help..you can ask questions.
If you do already yoga,i'll write more..
practice more inverted asanas when you are horny. its very powerful, better than meditations..or whatever.
There are endless meditations also, focus on energy sublimation..taking energy up the spine. Put also tiger balm (the heating paste) on your spine to make it stronger...you will feel your spine heated while meditations, super focusing.
Another meditation is simply focusing, breathing on upper chakras, like heart..or third eye. very good. but not as powerful as sublimation.

don't know how deep you are in yoga. try searching in youtube, Uddiyana bandha..its also very good for "shooting" the energy up. there are other bandhas, but this is very powerful for energy sublimation.

 

I was always more into Aikido and did some Tai Chi and the Tibetan 5 for a good while but just dabbled in yoga which is really rousing my interest lately (been doing some basic John Kabat-zinn 45 min yoga routines for a few months)

If I had a question for now it would be that I would like to read a book (not on my phone or PC, I'm old school and prefer/like actual books) about transmuting sexual energy and sublimation (I don't know what that is though?) as I am single (and am not looking to change that for foreseeable future) and not having orgasm at all and would like to be doing something with it etc. Is there any particular book you (or anyone) could recommend?

Current ones I'm considering are 'Taosist Secrets of Love' by Mantak Chia, and 'Sexual Energy Transmutation' by Jay Onwukwe but just not sure and want to make sure I get most fit for purpose??

 

i did also Tai Chi and the Tibetan 5, they not really helping in sublimation in my opinion.

Mantak chia is VERY good for preparing yourself to tantra.he talks about mostly chiqong stuff like,some meditations, chi massage, macrocosmic orbit, smiling meditations.
out of all stuff he teach, you need only one small meditation called, the macrocosmic orbit. (you can even search about it in google).
this energy sublimation meditation, is very simply..i can write about it. or you can even find tons of website which describe how to do it.
You have the option to experience orgasm without a partner. Basically, if you can do tantric sex, you can do "tantric masturbation" , no ejaculation. No only this, the orgasm which will spread around the body, its one of the BEST and most powerful ways to sublimate energy. You loose your horniness without losing energy. For this, mantak chia is good.
I had my yoga teacher training, we had our own material + i was reading many other books on qigong, yoga (you have MANY, i read a lot of Bihar books and others), mantak chia and more.
Many of them contain stuff you don't really need.
Bihar books you can also find for free, you can print them..
Kundalini training books are good as its about energy sublimation.
But basically it all goes into one main meditation, what i told you.
better focus on inverted asanas like this
http://yoganandam.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/sarvangasana/
http://yoga-posture.blogspot.ru/2009/08/yoga-postures-raja-sirshasana-head.html
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/479

 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply in such detail. I will look into the above. I scanned my bookshelf last night to see if I still had something called 'handbook for modern lovers' by the barefoot doctor which I read many years ago but on second glance it looked a bit 'pop culture', I might be wrong but am definitely going to try the above. Cheers

 

I think you should follow your instinct. Not your obsessions but what you feel is right.