My journey to self mastery- DisciplinedSelf's Diary

anon71280103 · July 31, 2021, 5:41am

EasyPeasy, chapter 6

It’s fear of feeling future withdrawal pangs that create the pangs. Fear is the pang itself. How can a physical drug cause withdrawal in people months after they last use it? It must be something mentally hindering them.

■■■■ systematically destroys the nerve and courage, leaving DeltaFosB to form powerful neural water slides in its wake, progressively destroying one’s ability to say no. By the stage where virility has been killed, the user believes ■■■■ is their new partner and is unable to face life without it.

Users often associate stress relief with PMO. However PMO does nothing to reduce the stress- it only adds to it. A better method would be to plan out what tasks may be done to overcome the cause of the stress. Personally, for me, exams cause stress, therefore my best solution is to be diligent and study more.

Internet ■■■■ isn’t relieving your nerves, it’s slowly destroying them. One of the great gains of breaking the addiction is the return of your natural confidence and self assurance.

■■■■ relieving boredom is a fallacy because boredom is a frame of mind- which ■■■■ can increase. Boredom is because you are not used to normal dopamine levels, due to the high dopamine from ■■■■. Rewiring is getting the brain used to normal dopamine levels- here less really is more. That’s why it’s important to stay productive while on nofap- an empty mind tends to wander back to the causes that gave it more dopamine. Hence it becomes the devil’s workshop.

PMO makes one more lethargic and tired, leading to more boredom. Escape from it. Not only that, most people watch ■■■■ when bored, making it seem more interesting to the brain than it really is.

Masturbation and sex don’t help concentration, when you’re trying to concentrate you automatically try and avoid distractions

Concentration is also adversely affected by PMO as the dopamine receptors are desensitized due to natural tolerance to the large surges, reducing the benefit of smaller dopamine boosts from natural activities like taking a walk, or studying, or talking to someone. Nofap greatly improves concentration and focus- something I need for exams.

■■■■ does NOT help anyone relax. Honestly, how relaxing do you think PMO is?
PMO users cannot relax without PMO. Non-users don’t need PMO to relax in the first place.

One of the ■■■■ trap’s subtleties is that the effects it has (both physically and mentally), happen so gradually and imperceptibly that we remain unaware of them and instead regard withdrawal as normal. While PMO has horrible effects on energy and self confidence and the like, unlike other addictions, fortunately the benefits return back to normal quickly after one stops.

Imagine yourself on a 21 day streak. How focused, relaxed and calm are you? How much more confident to handle stresses? How much more a better person?

Done imagining? Then work towards it.

The EasyPeasy way out of PMO- credits EP PMO Hackbook

anon71280103 · July 31, 2021, 8:07am

Had another strong urge so I’m reading another chapter of EP.

EasyPeasy, Chapter 6

There is nothing to give up in PMO! Only tremendous gains to achieve- which helped me fight my urges as well because I do not want to go back to the zombie I was while I was a user. Change in mindset: PMO is my past. I was a user. I am a happy and more confident and better non-user now.

Porn doesn’t fill a void, it creates one!

Addicts are not happy with their addiction, they are just miserable without it. Imagine feeling sad all the time due the fact that you are unable to PMO- and only feeling joy when you give in and relapse. PMO is taking away the happiness you deserve. Then picture being happier than ever, without any PMO use! Sure, there will be stress and failure and problems with life, but you will be able to handle them much better and not use PMO as a means of escape.

This nofap is really helping me- I have a lot of stress right now and I don’t want to keep escaping anymore and letting the stress build up. I am going to face it and destroy it, one bit at a time.

It’s so nice to be free!

anon71280103 · July 31, 2021, 8:21am

The benefits to naming emotions

Emotions are NOT automatically triggered by events. They are constructed by our brain. So yes, control of emotions is possible- but quite hard and not always a choice. And besides, humans are meant to emote and show emotion- there’s a reason kindness beats stoicism. There’s a lot to like in stoicism, but I think it has failures too. It’s not possible to be entirely rational, nor is it always good to be so.

Since our brain constructs emotions, we can teach it to label them more precisely so that we can use it to take the most appropriate action.

2 tools to handle emotions better

What
a. Name the emotion
b. Categorize emotions so you know what you’re feeling
c. Read books and learn more about words describing emotions. Don’t be happy. Be ecstatic, or excited or vibrant. Or don’t even use words in english- I’m currently feeling προμεριμνάω (no I am not a Greek).
d. Don’t be afraid to tell others who care how you REALLY feel- it might be awkward at first, but when I change from saying I’m good to how I actually felt, I was able to connect with people a whole lot better.
How
a. Practice emotion labelling. Don’t say I’m angry! but rather say I’m feeling the emotion of anger! that small change makes a lot of difference.

Interesting: When people speaking in public recategorize their anxiety as excitement, their sympathetic nervous system still creates jittery butterflies but they perform better

Dean_Ambrose · July 31, 2021, 8:26am

Easypeasy is a brilliant book to escape this addiction …

Nice Keep Going bro.

anon71280103 · August 1, 2021, 3:26pm

Thank you very much for your support

Also something I would like to point out- I am using the dark mode of this app and it is very much a nicer interface in my opinion. Just thought of sharing.

anon71280103 · August 1, 2021, 3:32pm

I am ashamed to say I relapsed again. I think it was because I saw sexual images but didn’t take action.

What I have changed this time to do better:

I relapsed on my laptop, as always, due to Chrome. I have now disabled the options of incognito (which was already disabled), guest mode (which was already disabled) but also New Profile creator (newly disabled). Microsoft Edge I have already disabled entirely. If anyone needs help on how to do this I can show, but disclaimer: it involves editing your computer registry. Though I have not ever faced bad effects from this, it’s always good to warn.
Created a new time schedule to follow ( I can work out again) and will ask my girl to keep me accountable to it.

With the help of my dear friends like @VARAD @erenyaeger @Dean_Ambrose @Abishek @Yash21 @Forerunner I hope to do better.

Time to re-read my EasyPeasy summary notes here- but on the flip side, that was why I posted them here anyway. So anyone who needs to can refer them, if if only one post a day.

VARAD · August 1, 2021, 3:37pm

No, brother you are stronger…
Just Fight back with more energy, power and determination… You will succeed… Trust you…

VARAD · August 1, 2021, 3:39pm

About your hackbook I will definitely read it … no, doubt…

anon71280103 · August 1, 2021, 4:06pm

Thank you very much for you support!!

I hope it will help you when you need it

anon71280103 · August 1, 2021, 4:11pm

What do I do if I relapsed?

10 things I would suggest that I do.

Change my mindset. I am not a bad person. I am a good person that made a bad decision. ~~Well I’m not inherently good cause I’m human but that’s religious so not the full focal point here~~ Guilt says that I did something bad, but shame says I am bad. There is a difference.
Relapses are often due to extra time not being used well- time I need to learn how to use better.
Don’t get caught in PRS (Post-Relapse Shame)
Take a cold shower, and pretend to wash-away the old self and become a new you. As cold as possible. But don’t take it as a punishment, but rather a training.
Post here on Rewire Companion cause there are great companions who will encourage. Then go do something I love.
Drink lots of water
Do not binge possibly the worst mistake
Investigate and find the cause of relapse (already done)
Eat healthy and watch a nofap motivation video- especially Lucid’s ones, I like those.
Write down your goals and get your mind into beast mode to do them.

Yash21 · August 1, 2021, 4:19pm

Bro, there is nothing to be ashamed of that’s just a setback. keep analysing what made you relapse & don’t repeat it.

All this motivation & willpower bs won’t last long. maybe you can go for a week or two after that you’ll lose motivation.
So discipline & patience is the key, those two are the most important ingredients in No fap or any other goal you want to achieve. I learnt it the hard way, I failed many times in the past due to lack of these things.

Start again brother with a stronger commitment towards nofap & don’t fall for the chaser effect.

Dean_Ambrose · August 1, 2021, 5:08pm

Rise Again

anon71280103 · August 2, 2021, 1:19am

Thank you for the wise words @Yash21 yeah motivation doesn’t last long but nether does food, that’s why we eat everyday and willpower I agree we have little so it should be used conservingly.
Discipline I agree but I hadn’t thought about patience- but that’s also important. Thanks for pointing that out

@Dean_Ambrose yes I hope to rise again. Thanks!

anon71280103 · August 2, 2021, 3:32am

EasyPeasy, Chapter 8

People triumph from that fact that slavery is dead- but that’s a lie, it’s just changed forms instead.
Now the worst slavery was one that was late to come- self-imposed slavery is the worst kind of one.

The more brainwashing is removed, the easier it is to rewire.

Most users don’t consider that ■■■■ is usually a life time addiction- unless you fight it off. Even a very little use (just half an hour a day) is a whole month a year. Imagine that-
Using a whole month in a year in no productive work but rather to just destroy yourself and your future
Why would anyone want that?

Internet ■■■■ is a chain reaction and a chain for life if you don’t break free.

anon71280103 · August 2, 2021, 3:36am

Success story I found on YBOP. My daily dose of motivation

anon71280103 · August 2, 2021, 4:04am

Act smart, not hard.

The CEO of a Toothpaste company was always looking for ways to make his factory more efficient. One of the areas he was looking into was the problems caused when an empty box somehow made its way to a store without containing a tube of toothpaste. When a large box packed with individual boxes of toothpaste arrived at a store, the store would check in the big box and then unpack the individual boxes onto the shelves. If one of the individual boxes was missing a tube of toothpaste, it caused a lot of inconvenience for the store and the company because of the amount of time it took to straighten out the accounting, refunds, etc. On top of all that, empty boxes made the toothpaste company look bad to their customers.

He knew he could improve their efficiency and bolster their relationship with stores if they could make sure they didn’t ever ship out a box that was missing a tube of toothpaste. A high priced consultant was brought in who studied the assembly line and installed a laser system that would shine on the side of each box as it came down the line. If there was no tube in the box, a faint red glow would show up on the opposite side of the box. A sensor could detect this, stop the line, and set off an alarm to notify workers that the box needed to be removed before it got packed. If a tube was present, the sensor wouldn’t see the glow and the box would continue normally down the line.

The system was expensive and by the time it was all wired into the controls and the consultant was paid it cost over half a million dollars. Still, the CEO was satisfied. It worked well in all their tests and the cost of dealing with even infrequent empty boxes was high enough to justify the investment.

After the system had been running for over a month, the CEO was pleased to see in his monthly report that they had not shipped a single empty box. Happy that everything was working as designed, he continued going through the report but was confused when he got to a new line on the report that indicated how many times the system had detected an empty box. There were a few detections the first week the system was installed, but none in the last few weeks. This was unusual and he assumed that something wasn’t reported correctly, so he went down to the line to take a closer look at the laser sensing equipment.

Everything was still there and each box was correctly illuminated with the laser. Starting up the line to get an empty box to test with, his foot crushed an empty box. Looking around he saw a handful of other boxes strewn randomly across the concrete floor–all empty. Then he noticed a desk fan on the opposite side of the conveyor belt blowing toward him.

About that time, the line manager came over to see what he was doing. “Why are all these boxes on the floor?” asked the CEO.

“Oh sorry about that,” said the line manager, “the new system kept stopping the line and setting off an annoying alarm.” After the first two or three times, Bill had gotten tired of the interruptions and had brought that fan over from his desk and set it up to blow the lighter empty boxes off the line so he didn’t have to deal with taking each one off and restarting the line. The line manager said, “I guess I should get a bin over here so we can reuse the boxes instead of dumping them on the floor.”

So in the end, who knew that you could use a fan to do the same work as a whole machine? The one who thought smart.

anon71280103 · August 2, 2021, 4:01pm

Day 1

Daily goals

Over 8 hours of study/work (6 hours )
No peeking/edging/relapsing
One cold shower at least, besides my regular bathing
Working out
Meditation
Check-in here
No perusing unneccesary sites till my exams are over. This includes things like gaming of any sort, browsing through reddit for memes or jokes (checked out some memes again :/)

New schedule was okay, need to stick to it.

Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.

anon71280103 · August 3, 2021, 5:21am

EasyPeasy, chapter 9

If you had to face a choice between watching ■■■■ and your head exploding or staying alive, obviously you would choose the latter. ■■■■ has a lot of poor effects on helath, and younger people think they have time and they can ignore those effects but they are lying to themselves.

if we felt there was the slightest fault in an airplane we wouldn’t go up in it – even though the risks are millions to one – yet we take more than a one-in-four certainty with ■■■■ and are apparently oblivious to it? What does the user get out of this? Absolutely nothing!

It’s better to quit PMO when young, since the body has a greater capacity to produce dopamine when young. so withdrawal symptoms will be less and the rewiring will be easier. Don’t wait for tomorrow, start today. Take care of your body and don’t abuse it, it’s the vehicle that will take you through life.

■■■■ is not just a single peek. That peek will lead to another and another and another. It’s a never ending chain unless you break free.

When you think that you are scared or bored and that ■■■■ is pleasurable, remember that it’s not. It’s fear speaking. It’s not that ■■■■ is pleasurable in anyway, it’s that you don’t know how to be happy without ■■■■.

Non-users don’t feel miserable if they aren’t allowed to use ■■■■ – it’s only users that suffer that feeling. Internet ■■■■ doesn’t relieve the feeling, it causes it.

Next lines are direct quotes from EP:

Effects of the brainwashing make us tend to think like the man who, having fallen off a 100 storey building, is quoted saying as he whizzes past the fiftieth floor, “So far, so good!” We think that as we’ve gotten away with it so far, one more ■■■■ session won’t make the difference. See it another way, the ’habit’ is a continuous chain for life with each session creating the need for the next. When you start the habit, you light a fuse. The trouble is, you don’t know how long the fuse is. Every time you give in to a ■■■■ session you’re one step closer to the bomb exploding. HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF IT’S THE NEXT ONE?

I had an urge just now so that’s why I decided to continue my summary of EP. It’s gone now. Urges last very short but they hit like a truck.

anon71280103 · August 3, 2021, 5:22am

Easy Peasy, chapter 10

This whole chapter is about the advantages a ■■■■ user has. Here’s the link it’s a quite comprehensive list.

Also check this well written post by @Forerunner

anon71280103 · August 3, 2021, 8:53am

Feeling demotivated right now, so I am posting some motivational quotes so that I don’t give in. People who are liking and reading my diary, thank you for that motivation too @Abishek @Dean_Ambrose @VARAD

Character is what you do on your third and fourth try.

Winners never quit, quitter never win

It always seems impossible until it’s done

How long should I try? Until.

You can’t beat someone who never gives up

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who kept on trying even when there seemed to be no hope at all

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn

The most certain way to succeed is to try one more time

If you fall behind, just run faster

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

A winner is someone who gets up one more time than he is knocked down.

I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward.

Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful.

It is not wanting to win that makes you a winner; it is refusing to fail that does

Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering ‘I will try again tomorrow.