Friday morning here. I've had a lot of thoughts in my head. Some about porn, some about other things.
I've been playing a lot of music. Even playing out solo. That's new for me. I've been playing guitar all my life, but in the past 18 months, basically pandemic times, I started writing, recording and releasing my own material. Playing all the instruments, singing all the songs, doing all the producing. It helped me deal with being in lock down for so long and it gave me something positive to do. However, I never thought I would perform those songs live or with a band. Actually, when I started recording them I wasn't sure I was going to share them with anyone. But I jumped on Twitter, started getting a nice following, meeting other musicians and sharing my music. Things went better than I expected. It's been fun.
So, what does this have to do with porn? Ahh, good question. Here's my answer. I was never brave enough to sing in public, on recordings, or basically anywhere. I hated my voice, I have trouble finding the right key, you know, all the basic stuff that goes along with singing. I quit porn on April 15th of this year. It was hard at first, but now it's getting much easier. But as I spent more time away from porn, I started getting braver, feeling more confident. I started reaching out to people to see if I could get together with them to play my music. I started recording live videos of me playing my songs and putting them on YouTube and I started to get some opportunities to play out. I'm heading to play my music with 6 guys today and in two weeks we're playing at a fun event in a local river town. I'm singing in front of people, I'm singing and playing my own music and it is hard to believe.
Did my time away from porn give me the strength and focus to make this happen? Hard to say. I like to think it did. Instead of launching a private browser for my "Work Breaks" I picked up my guitar and sang and played my songs. I recorded videos. I reached out to people. I made decisions that I may not have made if I was still using all that time for porn.
Stay away from porn for a month. Pick something you have always wanted to do. Take the time you would have spent on porn and put it towards that hobby. See what happens. Every time you get the itch to launch a browser, spend a few minutes on something that makes you feel great, not just for a few minutes, but some thing that you can build on. You can read about the science on Your Brain On Porn or learn how much you are losing by reading The Easy Peasy Method, and those are important, but redirecting that time and energy into something that will truly enrich your life, that is amazing.
During this time I have also quadrupled my exercise time. I track exercise on my Apple watch and I looked back the last two years at my workouts. Before April I was lucky to get 10 sessions in any month. Many months I got 4 or 5. Here are the last 5 months:
April 18
May22
June 28
July 21
August 17
September - 10 so far
Really taking stock of what has occurred in the last 5 months just blows me away. I'm not here to brag. I'm here to say I didn't believe this could happen either. I'm here to say, if I could do it, a chronic masturbator who would watch porn sometimes all day, then anyone can. We all have to get to the point where we can't stand ourselves anymore, that is important. But also what's important is to find a place to share, get feedback and support and find success stories that make you feel like maybe you have a shot at this. Oh, wait, there is a place. RebootNation.org. We're here! This place has made a huge difference for me. I have never shared like I do here. I never had a place to let all of this out of my head. I may not come here forever. Maybe I'll get healthy enough to eventually walk away, but for now checking in here is a habit I'm happy to have started.
Have a wonderful and successful weekend everyone. You deserve it, you can achieve it and you can feel absolutely great while you're at it!