My future is awesome!

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7 EMOTIONS 6 DESIRES

there are many different interpretations of what these 13 items are, but suffice to say,
Negative practices leads to poor habits with regular cravings and desires that ultimately destabilize emotions whereas
Positive practices and habits normalize desires and pacify emotions.

Humans are a social species. All primates live in communities.

If we continue to practice isolating behaviors and habits that are viewed negatively by the community we naturally will feel disoriented.

The path to health is to build relations with the community. Intrinsically we will become more at ease with ourselves.

Make more friends.
Do charity work.
Be generous and forgiving with others.
Practice kindness and compassion.
Let go.

Learn to derive joy through natural interaction with our surroundings in a give and take manner. Reduce stimulation spikes and increase incremental moment to moment joy.
This is mindfulness.

Accumulation of incremental joy is more sustainable and fulfilling that unhealthy stimulant bursts.

 

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CBT & DBT

CBT. Correcting wrong impressions
1. Recognize and Identify
2. Quiz and test, qualify
3. Replace & Reinforce

DBT. Holistic balance living.
1. Mindfulness
2. Effectiveness
3. Manage and tolerate stress
4. Regulate emotions

CBT
Is it a habital response or an actual need?
If need, why?
DBT
What are both sides of the coin?
What do I desire
What is beneficial
How can I acheive it

 

[TakeActionNow]

If sex is featured so prominently in our life, then it only begs the following:
1. Why is this so
2. If so, it can only mean that other forms of joy are entire deminished or non existent.

For 1, there are probably historical and emotional and psychology reason.
Perhaps we have had childhood neglect.
Perhaps we were exposed too early.
Sex has a social context.
It is primarily acceptance.
It includes safety.
Taken to the extreme, it features lack of discipline and control.

For 2, why then can we not derive joy from other areas?
- Hands on productivity
- confidence through new learned skills and knowledge
- feeling from improved relations with others
- Joy through peace and tranquility

Were we lazy?
Why do we seek emotional burst?
Why are we craving attention?
Do we not know how to love and care for ourselves properly and realistically?
How do we address these?

We begin by normalizing, socializing and making more real world efforts, letting go of self and focusing more on living a good and productive life.

Once we are able to feel better about ourselves and our achievements, we should be better at letting go of attachments and dependencies.

Morbidly, if you can see life as a march towards death, where death means absolute independence and renouncement, the journey that best help us reach that is constant giving away of our time and energy towards self improvement and helping others.

There is no room for excessive self indulgence if a good natural death is what we finally seek.

 

[TakeActionNow]

INCREMENTAL JOYS

I came to consider that most addictive behavior is an over compensation for something lacking in life now, or in the distant past. Moreover, lacking may not mean without. It could also mean having but not recognizing.

Secondly, everything accumulates incrementally in small amounts. If we fill our lives constantly with hate, worries and dislike, eventually we will come to hate and dislike our lives and ourselves. This is a downward spiral with only dread and depression as the final outcome.

In my run today, I've come to wonder why PMO is so central in my life. I've "loved" and depended on PMO more than anything else for my source of "joy" and comfort.
Through this, I recognized that "to love" is very important and central to joy and to have more joy, I should love more things so that they would all incrementally add up, instead of having just one source of love.

So I turned my attention towards recognizing (1) what I can love:
The trees; the open spaces; the safety; the opportunity; the environment etc.
And I considered (2) what I can be happy/grateful for.

I group them under:
1. Appreciation (love/gratitude)
2. Achievement (success/completion)
3. Access
4. Satiation (food/rest)
5. Safety

Finally, I reflected that it is more important to internalize/imprint than collect/record. To build more positive emotional connections than just accumulate score or data. This means living the moment than looking back.

For example:
Appreciate all vegetation and good weather; good roads etc.
Recognize I accomplished a good long run and learned new things today.
Have enough sleep and eat healthy
Be grateful that security where I live is good, and amenities that I need are available.
Be glad that I found a good deal from nice seller.

I consider doing this reflection 3 times a day so that I am constantly reminded of things that incrementally add up my joys.
I internalize these feeling so that emotionally I would feel safe, secure and complete.

I want to replace dependency on one into joyful connection with many.
When I am filled with love and joy and happiness in relation with my environment and myself, there will be less cravings and needs for me.

 

[TakeActionNow]

LOVE

following the last post, its is clearer to me now:
1. i kept with PMO, because i loved the experience
2. i was interested in her, because i fell deeply in love with her
3. i was interested in maths, because i fell in love with my teacher
4. i enjoyed my favorite sport, because i fell in love with it
5. i enjoyed my devices, because i loved them

for most things in my life, i enjoyed them because i loved them
my problem currently, was that i've become more critical and defensive towards most things and people in life
thus my circle of love became smaller and smaller
and with the smaller circle it became harder and harder for me to be happy.

i am now gradually rekindling my love for all things:
people / nature / objects / environment etc
to appreciate them, internalize them and not collect them
( because collection is a burden, and focuses on ownership not appreciation )

i know gradually i will also be rekindling my love for myself
and with that comes great happiness and kindness for all things.

 

[TakeActionNow]

Knowledge and perspective

Unless there are severe physical functional or developmental issues, much of additive behaviors stem from psychological or perspective defects.

When an opinion or act becomes deeply rooted because of repeated practice, we can't blame in on any reasons another than ourselves, especially if nothing biological can explain it.

A person would be stuck in a bad place if
1. They do not make an effort to learn and improve themselves
2. They do not make an effort to change

Those who do generally find success and independence.

For my personal happiness, let me make more effort to learn and improve myself.
Let me change my perspective towards things
Let me focus more on accomplishment and less on self indulgence and centeredness.

 

[TakeActionNow]

The mind and body signals for help and action.
But the learned ways are poor, and so are the outcomes.

What should I do to lift myself up?
Stop limiting activities and self blocking thoughts.
Let go of the past.
Open myself to new learnings and effort
Let go of the past

 

[TakeActionNow]

BONDAGE AND RELEASE

An addiction is basically a bondage, locking addicts into a vicious and unproductive cycle requiring their time, energy and focus, and prevents them from release.
The addict is compelled to serve the addiction and is unable to pursue other activities.

It doesnt matter where the addiction supply comes from.
Fundementally, the relationship is only between the addict and the addiction

It takes a long time for the addict to be released from the addiction
this is because thoughts, practices, beliefs, behavior and even physical properties have been modified to fit into the addiction lifestyle.

there are many steps needed to detach from the addiction
1. contact (seperation from actual source of addiction )
2. psychology ( continuous CBT to replace mental inclinations for addiction )
3. practices ( physical actions to help avoid the addiction )
4. replacements ( actual activites that replace addiction )

The benefits of addiction release
1. FREEDOM The recognition that one is no longer compelled to SERVE the addiction and is FREE to pursue other sources of interest is the most powerful and liberating.
2. FOCUS. With out the preoccupation with the addiction and extra time, one is better at focusing and attaining suitable rest and recovery.
3. CONFIDENCE & INDEPENDENCE. With freedom and focus, one can persue improvements in life, the result gives them greater confidence and belief in themselves when in the past, addiction create high levels of dependency on substance and others to fulfil their basic needs.

 

[TakeActionNow]

BONDAGE AND RELEASE 2

Either I am getting older or wiser, with longer seperation and distance from PMO, some things are getting better and clearer
1. there is less and less joy to be derived from PMO
2. i am getting a better hang and understanding of my emotions
3. i am getting less self centered, preferring to focus more on self development
4. i am getting more independent and less demanding of others to meet my needs or expectations
5. i am getting more sources of joy and happiness
6. i am getting more focused and less distracted
7. i feel freer to pursue other interests.
8. i feel less need to distance myself from others

 

[TakeActionNow]

BONDAGE & RELEASE 3

Addiction disrupts life by developing bad practices, beliefs and behaviors :

1. Avoidance
2. Aversion
3. Self centeredness
4. Pleasure focused
5. Instant gratification
6. Dependency and attention seeking

Through this, we fail to discover
1. Purpose
2. Goals
3. Development paths needed
4. More beneficial longer term outcomes

 

[TakeActionNow]

HAPPY WITH ONESELF

While watching this art related video, a thought came to me

If I am happy with myself, I will be happy with whoever I am with, and wherever I am at.

And many articles do write that:
Before we can love someone else, we need to be whole and complete ourselves first.

It is easy to be attracted to people who are attractive or charismatic. They seemed knowledgeable and successful. We want to be like them or be with them. They seem to make time pass quickly and interestingly. They seemed to have a good life.

I find that often I hoped that my partner can lift or complete me. That my partner find deep need and interest in me.

In actuality, I should be the one who lifts and completes myself.
I should be the one who deeply needs and is interested in me.
This is not about self centeredness. This is about self interest, self care, self development and being proud of oneself.

Addiction is the reverse of selflove. The foundation of addiction are:
Avoidance
Externality
Dependency
Addiction essentially takes us away from ourselves, and the more away we are, the less we can care and develop ourselves.

Stop giving our precious time and attention to people, things and activities that don't matter.
Focus on improving ourselves.

The path towards a better life lies mainly in improvement through effort and intelligence.

 

[TakeActionNow]

Distortion and depression.

After we give ourselves to strangers, the feelings of emptiness when we return to reality is worse than had we not given at all.

It is no different than spending a few hours everyday imagining we live in a fancy big house, and then coming back to reality to whatever we have.

It is no different than spending a few hours everyday imagining we are some famous celebrity that everyone falls head over heels with, and then coming back to the average human being that we are.

The outcome is devastating.
1. Depression about our lives
2. Disappreciation with what we have
3. Disillusioned about our future
4. Disproportionate perfectionism about life

The world becomes darker and darker, the future more and more bleak.

The long term psychological damage is totally disproportionate with the few minutes of carnal pleasure.

Stop distorting and destroying ourselves.

 

[TakeActionNow]

THU 1
AVOIDANCE AND PLEASURE SEEKING

With greater distance from PMO comes greater clarity of choice and behavior.

Why PMO?
Seeking relief

Why seek relief?
Avoid suffering / seeking pleasure

Why seek pleasure?
Preference of pleasure over pain

Why avoid suffering?
Wrong perspective

Why wrong perspective?
Just as night and day, pleasure and suffering must come together. To only want pleasure and no pain is like to only want day and no night. Too much daylight leads to sunburn and insomnia. It's unsustainable. Greater suffering ensues.

One should not see challenge and discomfort as negative. One should not feel bad when one is found wrong or inadequate. True learning only happens during challenge or failure. This is where improvement has an opportunity to happen.
If one only has pleasure and no challenge, one remains stuck and cannot learn. The stuck state then creates more discomfort and a vicious cycle begins.

To be truly happy is to improve and grow. Growth by nature is an uncomfortable experience.

Perspective should change. When faced with challenge or discomfort, ask what is the opportunity here for true liberation.
Look deeper.
Don't be caught up with the shallow emotional feelings of discomfort.
Look deeper.
Explore the improvements and true liberation when we overcome our adversities.

 

[TakeActionNow]

THU 2
ABSOLUTE VS INCREMENTAL

Because PMO is so powerful in terms of sensation, PMO addicts are gradually trained to become all or nothing absolutes when in comes to joy and pleasure, and desensitized towards incremental joys.

So even when life gives us morsels of happiness along every moment of the day, we somehow learned to ignore them, preferring the megadose of PMO.

Thus when we have no PMO, we feel that there has been zero happiness. This attitude is wrong.

We must relearn to true relationship of joy.
Rarely does joy come in large doses. Mostly it comes in little bits:
Good weather
Delicious food (or simply having something to eat)
Music
Sharing the joy of others.
Etc.
It's clear to see that the accumulation of all these incremental joys across a day will easily exceed whatever joy a session of PMO provides.

Moreover, daily incremental joy is cumulative, especially when we know the fruits of our labor continues to benefit us and our loved ones. Whereas whatever joy PMO delivers is immediately negated once done.

Learn to harness every little incremental joy. This is the foundation of gratitude.
It will bring optimism and negate cravings and dependencies.

 

[TakeActionNow]

THU 3
GIVING AND RECIPROCITY

When we love someone we often gift them many different forms of love, such as our time and effort.
In return we are rewarded with their time and attention.
A healthy relationship is reciprocating.
The feedback we get from them helps us to adjust and develop the relationship better.

PMO is not such relationship:
1. We "gift" them but get nothing from them in return. This is very disturbing for our psyche and distorts our view of the world.
2. Do we really "gift" them or someone else? Too often the promoters of PMO are hidden men working to profit from others. Were we gifting ourselves to unknown people seeking our suffering and subservience?

We soon develop issues in areas such as
1. Self esteem (because we get nothing back)
2. Dependency on others (by wasted opportunity to develop ourselves)
3. Negativity
4. Depression
5. Wrong beliefs (that simply money and time begets everything)
6. Distorted world view (everyone loves us without any effort)
7. Confidence problem
8. Relationship uncertainty

In real life, there are requisites to good relationships.
We know because we will walk away from bad and harmful ones.
Why we find it difficult to walk away from PMO is because it is not a real relationship. It is idealistic and a figment of our imagination, our creation.
Uncertainty of real relationship is often a huge problem becase real relationships are not a function of our imagination and does not follow whatever we want, like in PMO. So we are often clouded in uncertainty and unsure of ourselves and others. Eventually we will retreat from real relationship to the safe, secure and predictable, but ultimately false, PMO relationship.
This is detrimental to how we can live happily and harmoniously with others :

 

[TakeActionNow]

FEAR & COMPLUSION
SELF LOVE

Andrew Huberman's latest podcast on OCD recommends CBT and physical exposure.
What is interesting is that the CBT recommends greater discussion about the reasons for the compulsion in order to build tolerance.

I find that I turn to PMO mostly for comfort.
Why comfort?
Because I felt fear and stress in daily life.
But this frequent desire for comfort takes away the opportunity to develop greater resilience and tolerance to daily life stressor.
I needed to
1. build more tolerance
2. Have more self CBT to rationalize myself logically over my emotional wavering.


I also found that focusing on PMO to relief stress puts the responsibility of self care towards others.

In this, I am missing the opportunity to better understand and self care myself. By relying on others for self care, I become subservient to others, frequently watching their behavior in order to react accordingly instead of based on my own best interests.

Tolerate
Self love and care.
These are better choices for me.

 

[TakeActionNow]

WHY

1. Why did I want PMO?
Acknowledgement
Attention
Recognition
Accomplishment celebration
Etc

2. Why am I turning to PMO immediately?
Old habit
Not recognizing or acknowledging other forms of healthy feel good
Not collecting micro sense of feel good across the day
Too overly dependent on PMO as the main and only source of feel good.
Don't know how to take better care of self
Don't know how to be more self dependent for personal feel good


Therefore the way to a healthier happier non PMO dependent me is to do the reverse of #2

I must find more and better ways to feel good about myself.

 

[Aeodh Dan]

I must find more and better ways to feel good about myself.

Yes, and I would add "feel good about myself in relation to everything else."
How do I fit into this world? What is my relation to it?
I have always tried to be someone else, because I thought I had to fit somehow.
Well, the truth is that I do fit. I don't have to be someone else, I can be the weird, dreaming, idiosyncratic, philosophizing, impulsive me!
I can fit however I want!

 

[TakeActionNow]

@Aeodh Dan , when we put it all together, long term PMO abuse does create a warped sense of self.
Kinda like social media overdose.
We become unclear of our image and Identity, who we are, and what we should become.

Recovery is claiming back of self.
But it's not simply taking back.
We have to go back to "self school", something we stopped so many years ago when we resigned our self-care responsibilities to imaginary virtual "partners".
This false relationship thus creates the false sense of self, becoming someone we are not.

Back to self school!
Self love, self care, self me !

 

[TakeActionNow]

Which goes to show
When we constantly look or think of someone else
To yank and feel good
We are really training ourselves
To be fully dependent on others
to make ourselves feel good
And if this continues to be the best feeling we get to feel
We eventually become chronically unhappy
Because no one can continuously make us happy
And we also don't know how to make ourselves happy by ourselves.