I have relapsed a few hours ago because of
chaser effect. But more than that I am happy to say that today I believe I found out one of the best method to succeed in my no fap journey. I wish it should also work for you because I understood from this forum that my pattern of relapse was way different from many of you.I may relapse in the future but I believe it will rarely happen
Some of you have succeeded in your No Fap journey by downloading Porn Blockers and various other apps that filter adult content. I tried this this method but didn’t work. Currently I am reading Easy peasy book along with this, so that’s also a good sign by the way. After the relapse, I was researching myself a lot about the pattern of relapses and found the following.
My reasons for relapse are
1: Lack of willpower
2: Lack of necessary steps after failure
3: My Extreme behaviour
4 : Being manipulated by thoughts
While analysing those mistakes, I found out that I was focusing more on mistake 1, 3 and 4. Later I found that it’s not my lack of willpower, but the fact that I used willpower in a wrong time. Once should not use a physical force for a mental game. It is also mentioned in easy peasy book that willpower decreases with increase in streak ( Chapter 2). Why? Because the no fap game changes from physical game ( by providing you strong urges) to mental game ( mind tricks to watch porn) as we progress towards the streak.
Yes, I am calling willpower ( also motivation) as a physical one than a mental one because it also decreases for a period of time like the strength of the muscles decrease during muscle cramps. The muscles cramps for willpower is generally flatline or the times you feel low.
I will also give the same explanation for my mistake 4 as lack of willpower means allowing yourself to get manipulated.
When it comes to mistake 3 , I accept the fact that I show extreme behaviour sometimes and also know the fact that I should avoid it. But when it comes to No fap journey, I should be in a position that the chances of happening such a situation is minimum as possible.
This leads me to mistake 2. I should take many step possible for me in order to prevent my attempt from watching porn. According to me, fighting PMO is like fighting Loki. Yes , Loki from MCU. Loki is has shown physical prowess in one of the scenes of Thor Ragnarok and also known for creating illusions like a sorcerer.
So you have to use willpower to overcome physical urges and take necessary steps to overcome mind games. Because mind games can never be fought, it must be avoided or dodged.
Earlier I have mentioned to the @Forerunner that its easy for me to overcome my urge to M but not P. Thank you Forerunner for the book. Along with that I understood that I relapse because of the mind games the mind is providing me.
I also found the primary reason for 80% relapse is that I am a night owl. I tried to become a morning bird but that was a desperate attempt. But still I have a lot of work to do and due to this reason there are times where I spent couple of extra hours after sleeping time.
So I took some steps to succeed in this journey by still being a night owl. I understood that my gadgets for relapse are my phone and laptop. Took the following steps.
- Downloaded Blocksite and Cold Turkey Blocker on my phone and laptop respectively in order to filter adult content.
- Also I understood the fact that my initial steps for relapse are using the minute version of porn. Yes, this is the reason for my each and every relapse. Unlike others I don’t jump into porn directly. I start to consume minute version of it and when I become horny enough, I jump to porn. The problem is minute version is so minute enough that it’s not adult content due to which blockers fail to block it.
- For the phone I took a different strategy
I downloaded 2 apps from Play store one is Stay Focused and the other is Your Slice.
I used Stay Focused to permanently block apps while I used Your Slice which works in such a manner that you can use a particular app on specific mentioned timing.
I deleted social media like Instagram, Twitter , Facebook etc. Now the only source of social media I cant delete is You Tube.
I used Stay Focused to block you tube.
The good thing about Your Slice app is that it can block itself. So here it as follows
- Used Stay Focused to Block You Tube
- Used Your Slice to block Stay Focused and Your Slice ( I did this to so that I can prevent myself from unblocking You Tube when my urge is bad.)
Now Your Slice will ask you to specify the time interval to use a particular app. I typed the following
Starts: 5 am
Ends : 5 am
By doing this you are blocking Your Slice and Stay Focused permanently. The only method from this is to delete the app. So but I made the process of deletion super complicated that our urge would have gone by that.
For laptop, Cold Turkey blocker does the job of blocking porn as well as blocking the app I want. But in addition it can also block the search if you search a particular word that is given as a demand not to search. For example, if you tell the app to block the search involving the word " hot" . Then you cannot type "hot girls " on YouTube or Google .
After doing all the blocking, delete this app. Yes, delete this app. Because this app is saved as an extension in Chrome. I also blocked the link for the Chrome extension so it cannot be removed.
This is the strategy I am going to follow after about 7 hours of researching myself.
Hope it will work
Thank you
Have a nice day