Rebooting trough self-parenting

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
For some things there must be a certain place to exist for a time and your cheat day is a good idea. It's the effort to control it when it comes up during the week and say 'not now, wait until Saturday'. You'll see how it goes, please stay in touch.
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
@imsorry for sure. I am all in.

Week 29/2020 report:

PMO area: 6x clean days (a lot better than previous week with only 2 clean days)
Waking up: 4x On Time, 2x < 20 min, 1x < 1h delay.
Spine exercises: 4x (ideally I'd wish to do them every day).
Walk in nature: 5x (ideally I'd do this every day)

Week 30/2020 plan:

PMO: Again 6 clean days. For cheat day still everything goes.
Waking up: I guess it is getting easier. I wish to do 7x days on time.
Spine exercises: 7x.
Walk in nature: 7x.

I am pushing my limits of habit change before things blow up. I found some very nice exercises to help with digestion. But again feeling like a wall of resistance in doing them. But it would be too much. I'll focus on waking up on time and spine exercises.

Wish everyone a good week!
EW
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Hello EarthWalker,

perfect how you keep track of that. Stay with this, since it is too early how it functions with you.
Have you recognized something with yourself during that two weeks? Emotional change, body change?
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Hi, @imsorry.

Waking up in the morning. In terms of emotional change. I feel less agitated and less depressed. For body changes it is too early to tell. But overall I can safely say that waking up in the morning produced a noticeable positive effect on my mood. Practically from the start the positive effects were noticeable.

Maybe it also has something to do about feeling more in control. If I just wake up whenever I feel like it. It is uncontrolled. With this way I feel like I am in control of at least one tiny aspect of myself.

For the spine exercises. It is too early to tell. I cannot point a finger and say the spine exercises made me feel better overall. I can do this for waking up in the morning. Maybe I can say there are some positive subtle changes. But I would not bet on it. But this is something that I strongly feel I should do. This is more long term project. The guy in the instruction video says for best results do them every day for 6 weeks.

Walk in nature is great. I remember one day I got very fed up with everything. Went to a walk in nature. Felt much better after. The effects are immediate and very noticeable.

I read on your journal you are headed for the woods. Wish you a great time. I hope there is a lake or a river nearby. Water is awesome.

EW
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Hey,

that's great.
Maybe it also has something to do about feeling more in control. If I just wake up whenever I feel like it. It is uncontrolled. With this way I feel like I am in control of at least one tiny aspect of myself.
Maybe yes, i can see a big truth in there from my experience. Like if one does nothing, things will be get done for you. But, if you start do something, the feeling of control is improving and i think to challenge the addiction it is necessary to know how to handle the self control. We are free to practice this in every part of our life, may it be with work, in leisure or with the family / friends. In the end we maybe know how it feels to be in control and how the handle the control and convert things to positive reward without the suffering of others, i must add.

Walking or running in nature is a great instrument and comes with so less costs. Yesterday i had such a stressy day, working and working myself to unhappiness. But after my run in a nearby forest i was completely changed. When this habit turns into a regular and healthy habit, you won't even recognize how positive the effect is. It's just you doing your routine and feeling fine.

Happy to hear from you again.
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Thanks for stopping by @imsorry, appreciate it.

Week 30 report:

Wake up. 5x on time, 1x 15 min delay, 1x slept like ~30 extra mins a bit of taking it easy (Sunday). Did better than week before.
PMO area: Managed only 3 clean days.
Walk in nature: 4x
Spine exercise: 3x

Habit change is hard. I am glad waking up and going to bed is improving. My wifi cut off at 21.00 is starting to slowly take effect. I still linger on the computer after 21.00 but I don't use internet. I slowly started to listen to podcasts before bed. This is changed from just browsing mindlessly on the computer. I'll work on improving this.

It is also an interesting change with the internet everything is at the "fingertips". This way I need to plan ahead of time which podcasts to download on the phone so I can listen.

Overall. It is what it is. Habit change is hard. Can't expect miracles to happen. I am happy with waking up and getting out of bed (without much delay) is getting much easier. My going to bed time are slowly getting better.

In terms of P. I will ignore it for now. I will just make a weekly report about it for now.

This indeed is a long term project. Unit of change is a week and month.

I am having hard time with exercising. But again don't want to overload myself. Top priority for now is waking up on time and improve going to bed. The rest can be done later. I am at 21 days with the wake up. So I am curios how this week will go in terms of waking up.

Plan for this week:

Wake up: 7x on time. Sunday probably will sleep-in a little longer.
PMO: Manage as many clean days as possible. Cheat day doesn't work for me at this time.
Spine exercise: Do a minimum of 3x.
Walk in nature: Do a minimum of 3x.
Extra: Improve going to bed routine.

Additionally.

I tried a few different diets. Juicing. I spend 2 weeks "eating" nothing but juices. Like Gerson diet stuff. My brain fog and energy levels didn't improve. I also tried Low Carb/ Keto diet. My brain fog/energy levels didn't improve, I actually find it harder to concentrate. I also tried fasting. I went 7+ days without eating. I felt lighter but overall energy levels and brain fog I cannot say I saw any improvement.

I listened to Rogan Podcast with The daughter of Jordan Peterson and also listened to some snippets of Joe Rogan talking how he felt after 30 days on a meat only diet. So I'd like to try change to my diet before I put more focus on exercise.

Apparently after 1-2 weeks there is a high change some results will be seen. I'll do some research then go for it. I can commit to eat nothing but meat for the next few weeks.

I'll be updating the journal with my adventures....It looks like adventures in meat only diet.

Apparently it does wonders for brain fog and energy levels. Will see.

Take care and wish everyone a good week!

EW
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Hey EarthWalker,

i wonder if the meat diet is doing something, happy to learn about that from _your_ experience.

I changed my diet approximately 6 months ago to intermediate fasting, which is 8/16. Maybe you've heard of that?
In the morning i skip breakfast and directly go to lunch at work at around 1130 and then have dinner starting at 1800, to end it approximately at around 1830. Anyway, there are some rules for eating in the 16h cycle, you have to google it.
That "diet" or eating habit gave me a nice boost of energy for every part of the day. I recognised that i still have energy after a big lunch of meat or pizza. No brain fog or midday low like i used to have.

I'm just saying, there are plenty of methods to find new energy / avoid energy consumers and this strategy of yours to do that will help you stay strong with everything in life.
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Glad to hear IF is working for you. For me in terms of energy, didn't felt much difference, but it did make me appreciate food more. Like I am looking forward to a meal instead of being it just an after thought.

For the carnivore diet. I'll give it a go when my supplies arrive. I'll go with eating nothing but beef steaks for breakfast and dinner. Lunch will be regular restaurant food. I'll go for it for a few weeks and see how it goes.

I have poor experience with beef as the steaks tend to be hard to chew. So I am going to go with sous vide cooking. This is also aligned with my goal of streamlining cooking process as much as possible. Basically I can have a bunch of steaks in the fridge. Then just cook them in water oven. Ideally sear them and it is all done. Can put them in a freezer etc. Will see how it goes.

Week 31/2020.

PMO: 6 Clean days. Much improved over previous week of 3 clean days.
Waking up: 5 Days on time. 1x 15 min delay (I felt super tired), 1x~30 min Sunday. I like to sleep a little longer on Sundays. First week where I also woke up before the alarm clock 2 times.
Spine exercises: 1x Don't feel like exercising. Not good. Maybe change in diet will help.
Walk in nature: 5,5x.

Going to sleep is improving. My wifi disable at 21.00 is helping. I lurk around the computer a bit but there is nothing to do. So I go to bed and read a book/articles I print with the printer from websites or listen to a podcast. This is very slowly improving.

Except for exercising it looks fine. For some reason I find it very hard to motivate myself to exercise. Ok. Will try the carnivore diet and see if it will help.

Dealing with P is no small picnic. This is decade/quarter life's work.

See you next week. All the best on everyones respectable journeys!

EW
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Just perfect how you keep track.

I know very few people that really enjoy exercising and this is the most normal thing in the world. Meaning, if you don't like to do it, you are one of the people who really need it. 'Just do it' and also this _muscle_ of willpower will improve after time!

A decade seems to be a fair time to overcome the addiction and correct all the errors ones made.
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
if you don't like to do it, you are one of the people who really need it.

Spot on.

A decade seems to be a fair time to overcome the addiction and correct all the errors ones made.

Mindset is key. Just reading this. Wow. A decade.

Like companies they talk about quarter reports. A few days is nothing. A few weeks is a little something. But in a few months changes are done.

Maybe the reason why I have a lot harder time with exercise is that the results are much more subtler. With waking up it is easy. If I wake at 7 AM. I feel noticeably better. Even if I wake up at 7 AM and spend the whole day browsing cat videos I feel noticeable better then if I were to sleep until 10 AM and browse cat videos all day.

With exercise it is more complicated. The results are a lot more subtler. Maybe I'll try to do a different exercise. Something more "fun". Maybe listen to some music while at it.

EW
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Last night I spent about 30-45 mins playing Solitaire on my PC. This is after the 21.00 wifi cutoff time. Old habits die hard. Then I went to bed and listened to a podcast a little bit. With time I hope to cut down on computer use in the night and go straight for a book or podcast.

I am in the middle of this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrQayR_S8k

EW
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Another week. Just didn't feel like "myself" this week. Bad week.

Week 32/2020.

PMO: 3x clean days.
Waking up: 1x on time, 6x 0.5-1.5 hour day.
Spine exercise: 6x most probably 7x today.
Walk in nature: 5x

What went good and what can be improved.

PMO. I think the common wisdom is correct. The way to deal with this is to go cold turkey. PMO cannot be hacked. But I am not yet ready to commit to hard mode reboot. I need to prepare a solid foundation first. I'll ignore this for now.
Waking up: Just didn't feel like it this week. Felt like needing some extra sleep. Improve by going to bed earlier slightly earlier.
Spine exercise: I went with a different routine. It is more "fun". I do it everyday at the end of the day. It is less effective than the one that I am having a hard time following trough.
Walk in nature: 2 days of heavy rain didn't felt like going to a walk in heavy rain. It is fine. Otherwize I am satisfied with how this is progressing.

Week 33/2020 intentions.

Waking up. Wake up everyday before 7:00. I got this. I intend to wake up before 7 AM each day of the week because it makes me feel better. I want to feel better.
Spine exercise: Try to do the more effective routine a few times and keep on doing the fun one.
Walk in nature: Everyday for a minimum of 30 minutes preferably next to water. Pretty happy with how this is going.

Drastic diet change.

I intend to go with a meat only diet. Basically going to go with beef steaks. For starters I intend to eat only but beef steak for breakfast and dinner but keep on regular lunch (with carbs such as potatoes, rice).

I am getting a lot of internal resistance due to this. Maybe there is something on this. I'd very much prefer to be a vegetarian or vegan. But sourcing quality vegetarian/vegan food is a very heavy challenge and then all the different recipes make my head explode. With beef steaks there isn't much recipes to go about except for temperature and time and drastically easier to source high quality as you only need to source 1 food source instead of what feels like millions.

What I got from the podcasts is that it meat only diet worked wonders for a bunch of people that were struggling with low energy and brain fog. I am hoping for a noticeable quantitate jump in my energy levels with the change of diet as well. In a sense I am hoping for a miracle. Will see.

Maybe there is something about beef steaks. Yesterday I had beef steak for lunch at the local restaurant. If I order something like chicken/turkey steak. I still feel slightly hungry after eating the meal. But yesterday I couldn't finish the whole beef steak I left a tiny bit. I felt more satiated the whole day. There is something to this. Will see.

As I am not a fan of cooking in general. I went with the most "I don't give a f$@" method. Sous vide.

I ordered sous vide cooker. It is scheduled to arrive in the next few days.
A bit on the fence about the sous vide container. I'll go with the pot I have now and can make the choice later on.
Not sold on the vacuum bags. There is a local producer or vacuum bags. They are like we have top quality certified stuff. I asked them to provide me some of the certificates they are talking about. Never heard about them since. Maybe vacations? Maybe not. Not quite sold on the plastic bags. Alternative is silicone bags. So I'll go with silicone bags.

So the coming week will be about getting up to speed with sous vide cooking.

I'll see if I can go about eating the steaks without searing. As usually after the sous vide cooking they either finish with a sear in a pan or a blowtorch. Don't want to deal with a pan with the setup and clean up. Blowtorch looks like a single component easy method. If needed I'll go with this.

Self-parenting

Took me quite a while and not totally there with:

"Accept the challenges of life - Voluntarily".

I am also working on self-acceptance and self-approval. Lots of self-somethings to work on.

Self-acceptance|self-approval
Self-attention
self-balance
self-forgiveness
self-gratitude
self-witness
self-mastery
self-responsibility
self-parenting
self-love

The self-mastery. I am my own parent now. I wish to become a master of my self. The only thing that matters in a way.

I am taking first steps in self-mastery with self-parenting. This will take years.

Wish everyone a good week!

EW
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Reading some psychology book. I am paraphrasing the idea:

The premise is that people cannot be rated in terms of their "beingness". But can only be rated in terms of their behaviors.

How would you rate yourself? How would you rate your behavior?

Rating yourself is a bad idea. But rating your behavior is a good idea.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Instead of rating myself. I should just accept myself. I am a unique as is everyone else. I am just trying to "figure it out". Like is everyone else. I shouldn't put a rating on my "trying to figure it out". But it does make sense to rate my behaviors.

They have this ABC.

Activating cause
Beliefs/Demands
Consequences

I applied this to one recent situation where I felt negative emotions towards some driver. In my view he caused a bit of unnecessary slowdown of traffic. I also do not appreciate the smirk face he made. Like a big smile grin ... you deal with this situation now.

A: I expected the driver to stop at an "alcove" in the road where he saw me and the car behind me approach. This way we could have passed him and he can continue. But he passed the alcove and stopped 1 meter after it. This made me a bit angry. This is very inefficient and rude. The "alcoves" are there so that the we can pass each other without problems as the road is not wide enough for cars to pass each other. I get frustrated easily when some situation is not resolved efficiently when I see a clean and simple solution at the problem at hand.
B: I believe in efficiency. I demand others to value efficiency as much as I do.
C: I tense up. My mood drops. I ruminate. I am not in my power. I put energy on outside circumstances.

This is irrational belief. I cannot expect others to value efficiency as much as I do. I cannot expect others to see clear and efficient solutions to problems. I am an engineer. I solve problems all day at work. My perfectionism is irrational.

I like this system. It is methodological. What are the beliefs? values? demands? that got activated by the trigger? What are the consequences of having such beliefs, values and demands?

Applying this to porn and my biological parents some pretty heavy beliefs, value and demands showed up.

EW
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
I had a PMO session yesterday. Overall gave me 0 pleasure overall. Like being a robot. I was not being myself but in some sort of sub-space.

In some ways anger motivates me. Not the best motivator. But it is not stupid if it gets the job done. I am angry at P. Enough is enough.

I tried hacking my way trough P. It doesn't work. At the end of the day it looks to me it is all about superior willpower combined with a solid belief and value system.

There is the 3 brain model. The reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and the neocortex. The neocortex is also called the executive brain. I like this name. The CEO. There is a bit of gang war between all 3. Reptilian just wants to fuck all the time. Mammalian wants to feel positive emotions and be in a loving community. And the Executive is the one who needs to pay the bills on time and navigate the modern society and find meaning in all of this and some higher purpose by the way while keeping the reptile and the mammal in check.

I think it is time to bitch slap the reptilian brain. Enough BS. Let's try this again. I'd much prefer we be friends. But you work for me. Not the other way around.
Mammalian. Sorry bro. We can't do positive emotions until we cross the desert. It will take a while. Not like we are doing great right now.
Executive. I guess it really has to be this hard for some fucked up reason. What are we going to do? Roll over and die? Not on my watch.

I am going on hard mode starting now.

EW
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
At the end of the day it looks to me it is all about superior willpower combined with a solid belief and value system.

If one has a good strategy for all three it definitely helps to stay away off PMO for the time needed to weaken the symptoms and start processing the behaviour.

Hardmode - good!
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
I've been thinking about the concept of MO. As now being on hard mode. MO is out of the question.

MO is a bit about loneliness in a way. But what is also true. Just on bio machine/computer point of view. In male body. Sexual energy just builds up and it needs to be released. Like water in a dam.

I feel like women don't have such massive problems. They have this menstruation when the sexual energy rebalances itself by default as built in physical neurological wiring itself. Also I think female sexuality is more magnetic while male is more electric.

The way we are brought up and society. This electric force is to shoot out. Literally and figuratively. Either shoot out trough P, make a business, make a baby, do something. Active principle. With women they can afford to be more about holding space and be magnetic. Passive principle.

I would like to be able to just hold space without needing to shoot out energy. But that is a stretch goal. For now. I think the best course of action is to get more physically active. Find an outlet.

This also explains why I have hard time with exercises that are about just being present in the moment, the mindfulness meditation stuff. I guess too magnetic for me.

Be true to you.

EW
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Entertaining video.

Sexual energy just builds up and it needs to be released. Like water in a dam.
Yes, but luckily the dam shrinks over time as the water flow also shrinks. I havn't found proof on this but i feel less 'the urge' when not MOing as when i MO'd regularly. It comes with time.

A married friend of mine told me about his time for the marriage and not having sex with his women for about a year. In that time he thought MOing would do the trick, like a valve for letting off steam. It actually doesn't work like that. He told me, even though he's not addicted to P, that he had stronger urges after MO, like a chaser effect. It seems to me MO is like a muscle one is exercising or not. Sadly, in that case exercise isn't that good.
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
Thanks for the info.

Yes, but luckily the dam shrinks over time as the water flow also shrinks.

Didn't thought about it this way. I guess there is some possibility of rebalancing/reconfiguration of male sexual energy.

I just remember from my experience that without MO I'd get progressively more tired and frustrated and when I MO I actually feel more energetic and motivation to do stuff comes back. Maybe part of the problem is that I don't exercise. Maybe there is some link with physical movement. But after the MO that makes me feel more energetic ... obviously I wanted to do it again, then it feels like an energy drain.

About the MO wanting more MO it is simple hormone chemistry. Feel good -> want to feel good again. Let's repeat what make us feel good.

Haha, exercise that isn't that good.

I guess wet dream is where the body will remove the excess dam water if it comes to that. Not fun and a lot of mess.

So what I have now is that, the sexual energy builds like water behind a dam. There are different aspects:
1) About removing excess water that builds (the pent up sexual frustrations, the horniness)
2) About reducing the height of the dam
3) About reducing the water in-flow behind the dam

1) Solved by MO or by Wet Dream. Problem of MO is wanting to do it again. Wet Dream problem is just practical clean up in the middle of the night. In this sense Wet Dream is preferable as there is no chaser.

2 & 3 Didn't thought about it at all.

2) Maybe this is about having more meaningful life. Having some hobbies and some stuff to look forward too.
3) Maybe this is about being physically active?

EW
 

EarthWalker

Respected Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8rzo4Ik4M

I moved the video link here. It might be potentially triggering. I didn't find it triggering. There is very little emphasis on the actual photos but on the statistics. It is a guy just doing a comparison on Tinder from the point of view of a very attractive guy and girl. Doing 1000 v 1000 swipes from each profile and doing some basic statistics. The girl got like 700 messages and the guy got like 20 something messages.

As I've been entertaining the thought about trying online dating (not tinder but a more "serious" site). But I think 80% of it is about women being bored and seeking validation/attention on the subconscious level. Anyway. I guess when the time is right a woman will enter my life.

In the mean time I need to prepare to cross the desert. No P and no real life GF. Makes for a bit of a lonely journey. But there is nothing wrong in that.

I guess there is merit in crossing the desert on your own. The ultimate self-mastery exercise.

EW
 
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