The no secrets challenge

Background:
Right now I'm facing a problem: My counter has reached 732 days without porn and I don't feel cured enough.

In order to live a healthy life where I can look people in their eyes without feeling any shame of holding secrets, I need to stop creating new secrets. What if all my thoughts were written down in a book anyone could read, would I happily lend out that book to people? Certainly not! But what if I could change that?

The goal: To be able to look people in their eyes without feeling any shame, guiltiness or regret over the things you've done or the thoughts you've had - while that person is unaware of it.

The rules:
* Stop creating new secrets. If you think like "what if someone knew I was doing this" or "what if someone knew I was thinking/fantasising about this", then it's a secret.
* If you realise you're thinking "what if this person knew..." and it's about something that happened after the start/reset of this challenge, it's a reset.
* If you realise you're just creating a new secret, then obviously it's a reset too.
* If you start to think about something that happened in the past that is a secret, it's OK as long as you let it pass. It's quite impossible to not think about the past, so just try to let it pass - don't blame yourself.
* Create your list of exceptions before the challenge/after a reset. You may have secrets you think are OK, like using NoFap or whatever. Just remember the goal of this challenge.
* Decide the number of days you want to go for. Start small, grow strong. Take the challenge as many times you like.

 

Starting with a three-day challenge to see how it feels.
0/3.

 

1/3

 

2/3

 

3/3, challenge completed. It felt pretty good to do this! It helped me in getting back to earth in some sense. Taking a short break before I do a 7-day challenge.

 

Starting a ten day challenge.
0/10.

 

Friday: reset the same day I started the 10-day challenge. I should have been working that day but instead I got busy with my own projects the whole day, resulting in ”what if my wife knew I hadn’t been working a single hour today”. Not very good but at least learned something.

Today: 3/10

 

5/10

 

I’m currently debating with myself how I should deal with me working with projects that could be beneficial in the long run, instead of consulting and make money. The problem is I’m not fully honest with my wife about how I prioritise, however, I’m not really dishonest either. Will think about this a day or two more before I update my counter.

 

Amazing idea!
About the problem you describe in the first paragraph: I dunno, but maybe it's time for you to let go.
Sexual fantasies are something natural. We can't "unsee" porn and while some bizzare scenes might just vanish from our mind (nearly) without a trace, others could just be to close to what we still like or desire. Or experience.
What's important is that you don't let control yourself by it.
But anyway, 'no secrets' is a good motto! - and also for myself that is worth a try!

 

Thank you so much for your feedback, highly appreciated! You bring up an interesting point: "others could just be too close to what we still like or desire" - do you actually know why you have the desires you have? Who decided what desires you should have, was it you or was it the porn industry? If it was the porn industry, could you really accept these desires as if they were pure? That's where the logic fails for me at least: If I decided to stop watching porn because it affected my life in such a bad way, why would I still accept the side effects (such as affected desires) porn has brought into my life? Unfortunately I was too young when I started to watch porn so I have no clue what desires I would have had if I hadn't been a porn consumer.

I'm glad you join the challenge in some form, I wish you a warm welcome!

 

Thank you, Force!
I don't have an answer to those questions. Maybe I'm not at that point yet.

 

So I've thought about this for a while now and I realise that even though the goal describes exactly where I want to get, it's a bit too difficult to get there at once. I need to do this in incremental steps. I simply can't stop with everything at once... how I'm prioritising my job and what I think about will have to come later. That said, my list of exceptions will now include (and be limited to) job, thoughts and activity on the NoFap forum.

0/30.

 

1/30

 

3/30

 

4/30

 

5/30

 

6/30

 

7/30

 

8/30