Bashi's notes on recovery

This.
A trigger is a trigger, sure, but so what? The reaction is what matters.
Nice food triggers my appetite. Pictures of a sunset trigger my need for holidays on the beach. And a beautiful woman triggers my sexuality.
But do I start to eat despite the fact that I want to stay fit? No. Do I randomly book a flight to Costa Rica? No. And do I watch ■■■■ and jerk off to it? No.

It’s not the trigger we have to fight, it is our initial reaction. This is what discipline and control over yourself means. It came easy in other aspects of our life because we were taught to behave like that. Since nobody (well, more or less, depends of course) really talks about sexuality in a down to earth way (it’s either exaggerated or prude), we have to learn it now.

Thanks for your thoughts and reminding me of that! :slight_smile:

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A very important reminder for all of us.

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You are right in every way. Thanks.

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Happiness Index
Quite often, our current mood can determine whether we slip back into old habits such as edging, watching porn or masturbating. Therefore it’s important to know how our actions impact our current state and where we stand at the moment. The Happiness Index is a powerful tool to do just that.

Do you remember the times back at school, when you used to get grades? In the “school of life”, you have 6 subjects and you are both the student and teacher, if you take responsibility. Your subjects are:

Health: How is your diet? Do you hydrate properly? Do you eat lots of greens and vegetables? Do you avoid processed foods? Do you exercise regularly?

Relationships: Do you socialize with other people? Do you meet friends? Do you have healthy romantic relationships? How do you get along with your family?

Spirituality: If religious, how well do you follow your faith? Else, how well do you connect with yourself and practice mindfulness? (Or however you define spirituality)

Career: How are you doing in your job? Or how well are you working towards your dream job? Do you see a meaning in the work you do?

Finances: How well do you manage your money? Do you follow your budget plan?

Hobbies: Do you cultivate habits that further enrich your life? Do you find time to take care of yourself with healthy habits?

While thinking about those subjects, keep in mind that what you do or do not do contributes to your grade in that area. Give yourself numbers:

4 = I’m doing great, couldn’t be happier.
3 = Doing somewhat okay, could be improved.
2 = I’m doing bad, improvement is needed.
1 = I do really bad on this subject and this needs immediate action.

How do you score in life? What actions contribute to good grades? What actions do contribute to bad grades? If you’ve got any 1 or 2s in your subjects, that’s where it would be worth checking what you could do to improve the situation. Realize that you are both the one in charge making those grades better and also the one deciding how you are doing in those subjects. It’s up to you to take action.

Taking action means setting up small achievable goals for that subject, so you can improve in that area. For example, if you score a 1 or 2 in spirituality, an option would be starting with guided meditations once a week, to get to know how this works. The idea is to implement small steps so you move forward and get used to new healthy habits. After doing that, you will see how you score better in life.

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Embrace The Power Of Choice
60 days. I’ve been there a couple of times. I’ve gone way beyond that a couple of times also. However, one thing I’ve learnt is that inner part of you, that part of you that wants to use porn in order to escape/cope/numb feelings and situations in your life, does not care about your streak at all.

At one point on this journey, the actual physical seek for dopamine with PMO weakens. As science states, this happens something around 90 days. Your brain is “rewired”. I’ve experienced this myself and I’m confident that a couple of 20-30ish day streaks after another will do have the same or at least very similar effect as 90 days without porn in a row. Why is it that we still go back?

The bad habit is still there. The habit of going on autopilot when life becomes difficult, when something makes us feel angry/sad/isolated/tired/stressed whatever, you name it. That’s the way we have treated ourselves for year. It’s a habit and it’s a choice.

As Craig Perra says, “embrace the power of choice”. Be aware of what’s going on in your head and use tools to increase your awareness. I’ve mentioned a couple of tools on this diary. The power of choice is in you, you have it!

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Journal to connect with yourself
Today I had a phone call with my accountability partner and one of the topics was a method I use when writing my journal. For me, a journal is a tool to reflect, see the lessons in my experiences and connect with myself. Do this every morning or evening. It’s part of your routine. Fill in the brackets and you will see how this works:


Dear [your name],

[In this paragraph, you write about your recent experiences. In most cases, picking one specific thing that sticks out to you in your recent memories is a good choice. Just write about what that thing was and how it made you feel about yourself.]

Boundaries: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of your boundaries. I mean boundaries that keep you safe, boundaries that represent your values, boundaries that signalize when something you are doing hurts you.]
Empathy: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of the empathy you have for yourself or how you can cultivate it. Relate to your past self and realize what emotions were present in that experience.]
Equals: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of your equality to other people, because we all go through whatever sort of experiences in our lives.]
Forgiveness: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of the forgiveness you can give yourself without any condition. Let go of grudges, painful experiences and forgive yourself.]
Independence: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of your independence and personal growth. Focus on how this experience can make you grow as an independent individual who takes ownership.]
Control: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of the reach of your control. You can control your reaction to your thoughts, the way you think and your behaviors but not other people.]
Coherence: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of the alignment of your thoughts, actions and how that fits the situation. Perhaps you wish you had reacted differently in that experience. Learn how you can be more in alignment with yourself from that experience.]
Self-Appreciation: [Write a couple sentences on how that experience makes you aware of how much you appreciate yourself. If you have little appreciation for yourself, give yourself words of appreciation and gratitude without any conditions. You are you and that’s okay.]

Take care,
[your name]


I hope this showcases that a journal can be a way to connect with yourself without any judgement but with curiosity, compassion, and empathy instead. Engaging in compulsive porn use is distancing yourself from you and others, numbing your feelings and coping with life in a destructive manner. With a journal you practice the opposite.

Take care.

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The benefit of doing NoFap
Beyond all the “super powers” and “semen retention benefits” people talk about in the community, such as a clear mind, more confidence, better relationships and so on, there’s one single benefit that’s really important for me and I think for everybody else too regardless of their streak. That benefit is being free of this modern self sabotaging slavery, in other words, it’s freedom.

Think about all your past PMO sessions. Considering all the people involved in those sessions, from the people working behind the sites, to the people in front of the camera, to the viewers and you, you are the only person walking in there to make the worst possible deal for yourself. You can look at this from a spiritual, physical, health, relational, or sometimes even financial point of view and all things considered, you are losing. In the process of doing PMO, you are damaging your spirituality, your brain and your health, your relationships and perhaps wasting money… all while the other people involved, from the camera men to the “stars”, they are making money and fame at your costs and thus walking out of this with a much better deal than you. Each PMO session you do further increases your loss while making you a slave of their product.

Freedom is …

  • the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.

  • the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

and that’s the biggest benefit of doing NoFap you could ever get.

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Well said brother! Freedom is the most invaluable benefit we receive on this journey. Nothing beats no longer being a slave to PMO.

Keep going man!

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Yeah bro…you are absolutely right… Freedom thats all we want. Keep going brother. May god bless you.

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Congratulations brother @anon13059885 for completing 90 days.

I cannot give you any usefull suggestion now for further journey… you are more experienced than me in this… but i want to motivate you for further journey.
Stay strong brother and keep going like this.
This is for you…

Screenshot_2020-05-09-15-25-22-1

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That’s a great quote @neo_150 Keeping sights ahead and focused on continued growth and self-improvement.

Congratulations @anon13059885 on 90 days of your new journey! Keep making better choices!

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Affirmations for now

  • PMO and other forms of instant gratification, like social media, shitty meals and trash alike, provide no genuine pleasure. They create instant damage, have no value, do not fill any void but create one instead.
  • I’m not making a sacrifice since there’s nothing to give up and no reason to feel deprived. PMO created those bad feelings and the lack of energy in the first place.
  • I have stopped and escaped this trap. I’ve chosen freedom. I’ve done myself a favor. There are positive gains to achieve. The time to be free is now. I’ve made the positive decision to kick this addiction for good.
  • I enjoy being a non-user and only that can bring me true calmness, sharpness in my mind and compassion.
  • There’s no such thing as just that one peek, since it’s that one peek that got me hooked and created the illusion of enjoyment in the first place.
  • Whenever I think about porn, I see a filthy lifetime of spending eons of time behind a screen for the privilege of destroying myself mentally and physically, a lifetime of slavery and hopelessness.

Thanks @neo_150 and @Forerunner for the congratulations.

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Stoicism
This philosophy is more than just an attitude. Stoics think that everything around us operates according to a web of cause and effect, resulting in a rational structure of the universe ( Logos ). We may not always have control over the events affecting us but we can have control over how we approach things. A stoic tries to deal with the world as it is, while persuing self-improvement through four cardinal virtues:

  • Wisdom: the ability to navigate complex situations in a logical, informed and calm manner.
  • Temperance: the exercise of self-restraint and moderation in all aspects of life.
  • Justice: treating others with fairness even when they have done wrong.
  • Courage: not just in extraordinary circumstances, but facing daily challanges with clarity and integrity.

Sometimes, even to live is an act of courage.

Stoicism does not encourage passivity. The idea is that only people who have cultivated virtue and self-control in themselves can bring positive changes in others.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Many of the stoic principles can be found also in self-help/self-improvement movements or modern psychology.

We suffer not from the events in our lives, but from our judgement about them.

Stoics remind themselves that everything takes up space, either mentally or physically, hence the virtue of temperance.

We don’t control events, but we do control what they mean.

Your mind can create all the abundance you could ever imagine, so you need to protect it like it’s the only possession you have.

Think of your problems in relation to the sky.


Taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OCA6UFE-0

I’ve read about stoicism in the NoFap community a couple of times and recently I looked up a video and took some notes. Out of those four virtues, I know that temperance is the one I definitely lack the most progress. I don’t necessarily buy myself a lot of things but I consume visually. A lot. Throughout years of my life, I’ve consumed a bunch of trash on youtube, instagram, ■■■■ sites and other sites that do not bring any actual benefit. And as the stoics say, those things take up space, both in my time and mind.

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Mindfulness in recovery
Mindfulness is…

a mental state achieved by concentrating on the present moment, while calmly accepting the feelings and thoughts that come to you, used as a technique to help you relax.

In these two and a half to three years that I’ve been doing NoFap, trying to quit this PMO addiction, mindfulness has been probably that component of my recovery which gave me power to make the right choices and became my downfall when I stopped using it.

A lot of good advice on quitting PMO out there is based on mindfulness. Good examples are The Mindful Habit System or Zen Habits. Recently, I’ve been thinking about what mindfulness means to me in my recovery.

To me, being mindful in recovery means noticing the intention and taking distance if needed. Why are you using your computer or smartphone? Why are you browsing the internet? Why are you watching youtube? Why are you looking at that women? Why are you touching yourself? Why are you eating this? Why are you buying that? Why are you behaving like you do towards other people? Why are you thinking about something?

In recovery, being mindful will help you see your intention behind your thoughts and actions. If that intention aligns with who you want to be, that’s great. If not, it’s a chance to pause, acknowledge that, breathe and change the course of action.

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Control in recovery
I’ve read this interesting article and I’d like to share it with you…

The basic nature of life is that it is everchanging, uncontrollable. When we think we have stability in life, something comes up to remind us that no, we don’t. There is no stability, no matter how much we’d like it.
And this kinda freaks us out. We don’t like this feeling of instability, of loss of control. So we do things to cope, out of love for ourselves. These are strategies for control, security and comfort.

You’re feeling lonely. You don’t want to face this feeling, because it’s uncomfortable and you don’t feel under control. So you eat. Or you shop online. Or you watch TV, ■■■■, Youtube. The feeling doesn’t go away. So you do it again. Or you turn to alcohol or drugs.

does this sound like you, too? Then read on…

Start by just sitting still, and try to pay attention to the sensations of this moment, around you and in your body and even in your mind. Just notice what’s going on.

Notice this urge to run, to control … and don’t act. Do nothing. Just observe, taking no action.

The full article is here: Our Everloving Quest to Control Our Lives : zen habits

Take care.

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What is the most important thing today?
I received this mail in the ZenHabits newsletter and I thought I’d share it with you all:

For many of us, the days just blend together. We forget what day it is, the months just blur past us, and life is just one stream of time.

This experience helps us forget how precious and few these days are. Our days are numbered — each one is an incredible gift!

And so I’ve been finding it a useful thing to ask myself each day, “What’s the Most Important Thing today?”

It might be a certain thing I’m writing, a video I’m recording, a project I’m working on. It might be a call with a coaching client, or my Fearless Mastery mastermind group.

But it also might be connecting with loved ones, or my Zen practice. Or just appreciating life.

There’s no right answer to this, so don’t go looking for one. You have to feel it in your heart.

If you want to take on this practice, you might start by asking yourself this each morning, as you’re planning your day, before you launch into emails and messages. What’s the Most Important Thing today? Feel it in your heart.

You might ask yourself this later in the morning: What’s the Most Important Thing right now? And again in the early afternoon. Late afternoon. Evening. Even moment to moment, what’s the Most Important Thing right now?

You might notice the answer change as the day goes on. Whatever happens, it’s a beautiful practice of grounding ourselves in what we care about most.

Leo Babauta
Zen Habits

The benefits this practise brings in your nofap journey are perhaps not clear at first sight. Think about all these times you were sitting in front of the computer, watching ■■■■ and/or masturbating, perhaps just “edging”, or watching arousing content on youtube, maybe just scrolling through instagram or maybe checking facebook and looking at ton of pictures… were you doing important things? Were you doing what mattered most to you that day? Were you using your time wisely?

Take care.

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Another relapse
Within the last 365 days, I’ve relapsed nine times, so that’s 40.56 days/relapse. Although this is progress indeed, as opposed to the (multiple) daily relapses I had when starting, I feel stuck sometimes. Just this evening, I relapsed, wanted to confess but relapsed again. After such a long time, having been doing nofap for so long, plenty of streaks beyond 90 days… I’m binging. What is it that keeps me stuck?

The addicted part of me lately has been triggered by boredom or the feeling of loneliness. I then proceed to unlock content like youtube and start watching nonsense but at some point I reach semi-sexual content. At that point, I know exactly that I’m going in the wrong direction. My mind goes: “hey, you know this will lead to a relapse. Let’s stop here, tell the accountability partner and keep the streak”. I didn’t stop there today though and eventually I was on the sites relapsing. It’s time to reset the counter and confess, another time… it’s pathetic.

So… knowing the tools, having tried a bunch of them, taking other guys’ advice and what not… what is it that allows my mind to go back to porn? Why allow myself to make these mistakes?

Thinking about this… I don’t have any answers yet.

Take care guys, we can do this.

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People keep reading self-help and revisiting the same ideas because that’s precisely what we need: to be reminded…!
The problem is not that information is unhelpful, but that ‘attention is fleeting.’

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60 days completed
I’m back on a more decent streak now, although the important thing is taking this day by day. As others have pointed out, frequent reminders are crucial on this journey. I read these prompts to myself daily, usually while I’m on the train in the morning, and I think about the answers in my head:

• What mindset do you need today in order to stay away from PMO?
• What benefits do you get from a life free from PMO?
• How do you deal with urges?
• What do you focus on in life?

There are many challenges yet to come.

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What I have learnt from 7 years of relationship - and breaking up
Being in a relationship is comfort, intimacy, excitement, highs, lows and lots of other experiences. At some point though, I had to realize, or “convince” myself, that ending the relationship with her was probably the better thing to do. It took me days to make a decision from a place of love, instead of a place of fear or anger. I received much needed support at that time from others and I’m thankful for that.

Regret, loneliness and fear came after the breakup. It was, and still is, a new situation for me and new things and more challenges are yet to come. I have learnt some important lessons during this time and those lessons allow me to move forward:

:arrow_forward: Prioritizing sexual pleasure in the back of your head, specially if you are single and a NoFapper, is a mistake. This wasn’t obvious to me at first. Throughout the last 7 years, I had sex regularly. When I started NoFap during the relationship, I went for the “classic” mode. I do not regret that decision. It’s just that post breakup, when I saw her or received a call/text, I began lusting over her again, in a different way though. That lust didn’t come from genuine love but horniness and a compromised mind instead. It boils down to focusing on yourself, your own growth and what you can control. You can’t control others to want to have sex with you, when you feel like you “need” it.

:arrow_forward: As a man, connecting genuienly with women is far more rewarding. Post breakup, I found myself in situations where, deep in the back of my head, I wished to date a woman or meet “the one” in some kind of social setting. In those situations, I was already there sorting out, comparing and objectifing the women in front of me to some degree. I do not know if the years of PMO made me think this way or this way of thinking got me into PMO in the first place. What I do know is, that being in social settings and connecting with all kinds of people in a genuine manner is far more calming and rewarding. It’s not even about the objectification that is bad, because it is, but it’s about your own mind that is going to be at ease if you take encounters with people as they are, appreciate the moment and just enjoy connecting with others. Leave that “chaser” mindset behind.

:arrow_forward: No relationship can fix you, because only you can fix yourself. Before I got into that 7 years long relationship, I was already hooked on PMO, without being aware of it. At that time, I had the illusion that getting a girlfriend would sexually satisfy me so I would stop watching porn or masturbating. During the relationship, I still watched porn regularly and it was only my discovery of NoFap that made me realize what a problem this is. However, dragging on the issues and not properly working on myself, I kept relapsing and at some point I escalated to even worse things. Long story short, no relationship could possibly “fix” me and make PMO obsolete, I have to do that myself.

I have the impression that some of you guys might appreciate these lessons and hopefully they allow you to move forward faster on your own journey.

Take care.

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