More than anything else, my reboot thus far has opened doors for me to a more successful and fulfilling life overall. It is hard to walk through a door that you can’t see for lack of experience. A reboot can shine a light on those doors if you let it.
Porn aside, at day 90, I can say with a straight face that I have successfully combated a 20 year MO addiction. It was nigh impossible for me to imagine early on that I could have a nice strong libido, but no significant urge to MO day in day out. Yet that is exactly the point I have reached. When I look at the coming month of December, I don’t feel the same sense of disappointment that I felt starting out looking at the next 60+ days without orgasm. Instead my cravings and my desires have shifted intentionally to a passion that I have for lifelong learning. I won’t bore you with those details but feel free to check my journal if you are curious.
For December, I decided to continue my journey by tailoring my own version of Monk Mode to fit my current lifestyle and to take one more step in a very positive direction by mindfully avoiding fantasy and managing ogling to the extend possible. Those are two doors that I would have claimed to be bolted shut at the start of reboot, but I feel confident that I can tackle successfully now (confidence coming from the fact that I can see a clear path to achieve both goals and can visualize the steps needed to get there).
Of late, mindfulness has been a very successful technique for avoiding the intentional entertainment of long-running fantasies. The successful part has little to do with fantasy and much more to do with recognizing the general applicability of mindfulness as a life enhancing practice. I was able to use the idea as recently as last night to recognize when and why my thoughts drifted away from my studies and bring them somewhat gently back in line.
I think I have said enough for now and I’d encourage those of you to be the judge of whether or not you think I have changed appreciably in the last 90 days. Remember, you are the author of your own experiences. Make it a story worth reading!
It is tough to share meaningful qualitative feelings about how life can change after a reboot. It is even more difficult to separate life improvements that are reboot related from other successes that we’d all like to believe are caused by nofap, but in reality could have a significant causal nexus. Nonetheless, I feel obliged to take a stab at doing both despite an inherently imperfect memory and unavoidably biased outlook. To that end, I will stick with several points that I feel have been most beneficial for me recently. If you’d like to know more, don’t hesitate to ask. For a more detailed and ‘in the trenches’ report, please see my first success recap at the link below or my whole journal in the reboot log section.
I can tell you some of the things that I’ve seen in myself, though. I’m much more confident (not cocky). I think that comes from self-love. More confident about who and what I am. Confident about my purpose. I laugh at myself, as opposed to being self-absorbed. I’m compassionate. I see people more for what they really are. Just struggling with their own demons. Once I was able to see and understand my own demons, it’s as if I could suddenly feel that struggle in others.
I strive for fearlessness. And I enjoy trying to convince people that their fear isn’t as real as they’ve made it out to be. Confronting my fear on a regular basis has helped me to understand how it has held me back for so long. This has been a scary, but fun part of recovery.
I see fapping as simply the vehicle that has brought me to this path. My ex knows that I love myself. I think this scares her because she knows that I’ll walk away at the drop of a hat. But I think it makes me more attractive, because she knows I want her because she’s amazing and not because I “need” her.
I don’t voice my opinions as much, anymore. I don’t feel my opinions are as important as I used to think they were. I’m comfortable without having to be right. I can go out on dates and feel like that person’s equal, as opposed to beneath them. I kind of feel enlightened. Not like Eckhart Tolle. But those kinds of books make more sense, now. Some people hit bottom and become enlightened overnight. I was more and still am a work in progress.
I failed a lot. But giving up wasn’t an option. I finally came to a place where I just surrendered to the fact that this was going to destroy me. I wanted this more than breathing. I might have gotten carried away.
LINK – Reflection on 90 days of hardmode
by nfprogress
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