The Road to Redemption

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Breathe, just breathe....sometimes that's all I can do
I spoke with my sister this morning ans we talked about two things, first, that were raised with a sick thinking process and that we have spent most of our lives focused on ourselves rather than embracing life; second, that if you do that you potentially become victims to compulsive behaviors, addictive coping mechanisms and chronic pain.
Old ways of thinking, telling myself things all the time, rather than listening to the Spirit of the Universe...I love the thought of the Universe being the source of wisdom and the source of enlightenment.
I love dreaming about everything turning to liquid or gas and evaporating before my eyes as I myself trans-materialize into the cosmic energy substance.
Yes, that is an image I can meditate on and it really puts things into perspective.
Something different is happening in my mind these last two days...no desire for PMO at all
Potential, Possibility, Pause..................................Breathe
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
I am moving towards a break through experience I think, I hope, I anticipate....
Where is the seat of emotion in a human body?
Why are emotions so transient, evasive, but also terrifying and sometimes debilitating?
I have focused so much on physical symptoms and physical manifestations etc. and I think and talk about the mind, but perhaps only the reasoning aspect of the mind; emotions cause physical changes, urges, dependencies, compulsions
My porn problem is related strongly to emotion, and certain ones that I wish to avoid, ones that could catapult me into severe depression, and then there comes a time when porn itself will cause severe depression, and at that point it must cease in one's life
I am at that point, my friends...I have been dealing with depression all Summer.
I have been dealing with depression all my life; it's an emotional problem...perhaps I need a good therapist.
Chronic pain is a disease of the mind, chronic depression is a disease of the mind, any compulsive behavior is a disease of the mind!
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
The last 24 hours are still fresh in my mind and beyond that, well, I don't remember much. So, right now I can rejoice that during the last 24 hours I lived in relative sobriety, and I say relative, because, relative to the previous weeks, which I do remember to be quite the struggle, it is as close to sobriety as I can muster right now. And when I say sobriety, I mean my mind is not engaging in porn. Also, I am reminding myself throughout the day that I am not a victim, that I don't have to be stuck in old thinking patterns and that I can dream about the various manifestations of my inner man, my inner voice, my driving Spirit, the Cosmic Spirit, which is life, continuum and creativity...
24 hours is a lot of time, and then again it isn't, isn't that crazy?
It really depends on where my mind is. Allowing myself to feel....feel?, yes feel something, anything and then let go, it's called being human
Why do so many people want to be numb?
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
My thinking patterns default to threats, pain and problems instead of growth, opportunity and progress.
It feels like a curse.
When I think of all the suffering in the world, wars, poverty, disease...people dying, it's terrible, they are circumstances that greater forces have unleashed typically, but then there are circumstances that we have caused ourselves, and there is the condition of internal suffering, existential suffering or suffering brought on by bad thinking, conditioned thinking, propaganda etc.
Every moment of the day I have a choice, a choice of what to focus my mind on, a choice of where to put my attention...and it really is moment to moment. Despite all of the world's suffering, what can I do right now? What resources do I have available to me right now?
I have to think like a kid, a kid inside of an adult body, and that's really what I am anyways...
This sex thing, this craving for a woman...it has to stop. It's in the way, it's always been in the way, and it started with my mother, then my father...they set the stage for me, they infused me with bad thinking.
Now I have my own kids and grandkids, and godammit, I am so internally focused on my suffering!
What am I going to do with the rest of my life???????
I was hit with acute pain this Summer, right at the beginning of Summer, and the origin I am now convinced was totally psychological. It put me in a state of panic and fear and kept me in isolation for the last two months.
Of course it led me back to porn...and in the meantime the world keeps turning.
Get out of your head! And live!
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
A book I recently read about the mind-body connection helped me get out of the severe depression I was in. In it a medical doctor writes about his experiences with helping patients overcome chronic pain, and even though the pain is caused by physical issues, the mind actually creates the physical problems, so it's a matter of fixing the mind and eventually the pain subsides or ceases altogether. I have noticed a difference in the pain depending on how I think and where my focus is.
And it's the same with porn...my triggers are typically emotional, depression, anger, anxiety.
In AA they call it "stinking thinking", and it is a matter of the will...the will decides what to think and what to believe. Despite circumstances, even if I have created them, I can maintain my core self, my core self being my solid and unshakeable "me", my true potential, the "God" within me.
I started waking at night and reading again, kind of a midnight break from sleeping, the reverse of taking a nap during the day. When I look at the yin yang symbol, it represents this perfectly, the white dot in the black being my midnight break from sleeping and the black dot in the white being my mid day break from waking....I like it.
This has nothing to do with optimism, it has everything to do with sobriety and reality. Optimism is just an unbalanced focus on what I perceive is "good". I don't want to focus on good or bad, I want to focus on life, energy and growth.
Feelings arise all the time. What do I do with them?
Threats are perceptions.
All things come and go...am I unshakeable in my faith? Am I willing to accept the unexpected? Can I "roll" with life?
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Pain can be very stubborn.
Pain was and is the cause of my porn addiction.
Mental and emotional pain can turn into physical pain, serious physical and chronic pain, whatever methods the mind chooses....
When I experience pain, I have a choice whether to focus on it or ignore it.
What is happening in my life? Is the pain the "big" thing in my life or something else?
If the sky opened up today and revealed a large black hole devouring the atmosphere, I think my pain would perhaps instantly disappear.
What am I redeeming? This pain riddled body for what?
For a transcendent body, for an awareness of the cosmic, eternal dance....why have I allowed all of this worldly crap to weigh me down?
I must follow the dream, wherever it leads. This journey, this road to redemption, this lifting of the veil, the opening of the third eye, the brilliant radiance of cosmic awareness, it's all a dream and it's real.
Do we understand the true nature of our own humanity?
The endless abyss of human fantasy, nothing is sacred within it. Nothing.
Releasing this baggage, this heavy load of earthly shit...how do we do it? Reaching deep down into the core of my being, what do I find? God.
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
When will I be free from the constraints of this body?
The emotional and physical pain have become one.
Every morning I expect it and there it is.
Is it the expectation alone or the expectation and the anticipation?
Even this is based on memory. Why can't I simply release the pain?

Where is my attention?
The same old thought patterns or complete absorption of new life, of cell regeneration?
Is the focus on the problem or what I perceive to be a problem?
Do I create my own hell willingly or out of habit?
Even this will pass. Why don't I just let it pass?
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Sensation-Feeling-Awareness
The human state of being
The question is whether I want to numb the experiences of existence, which in a way is denying myself a part of who I am, a big part of who I am, the human nature vs the animal nature...am I an animal? simply just an advanced animal?
No, because animals are not addicted to porn.
The various porn fantasies are connected to the subconscious, there is the collective aspect and the individual one
Much of the degradation of women in porn is a societal phenomenon I think, a repression of hatred towards women in general, because on a subconscious level men feel threatened...
For me personally it has to do with my hatred towards my mother and then later towards my wife
I chose a wife who had similar traits as my mother because it was a form of comfort, a sick form of comfort nonetheless, so it's not her fault for simply being who she is
I think my father was sexually attracted to my mother for the same reasons that I was sexually attracted to my wife. They were both needy, pathetic, stupid.
Even though I still struggle with sexual attraction to this kind of female, there is a romantic side that craves a mature and intelligent, sophisticated woman.
I am still divided, I am still compartmentalized....
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Every day is a new beginning and I forget that, I have to remind myself all the time.
Today is an opportunity.
Tomorrow is a dream.
I had no desire for porn last night, that's progress.
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
How we doing Aeodh Dan?
Thank you so much for inquiring.
I have gained a little momentum once again. After a serious setback this Summer with my back pain, I went down the tubes for a while...but decided to start diving deeper into the nature of the chronic pain phenomenon, and what I am discovering is that it's all tied together, the porn addiction, the pain symptoms I've been dealing with for years...it's a result initially of childhood chronic stress. And of course not realizing the impact, not being educated about how the mind compensates for stress and trauma throughout life.
Yes, my pain episodes and my porn addiction go hand in hand, and I had not realized this before.
There is a modern disease called the "divided mind", the mind of modern humans...fragmented and compartmentalized, just like society.
In order to become whole once again, I must integrate all these fragmented parts.
I started off the Spring and early Summer on a high note, but was humbled once again, and I realize that there was more of life's teaching needed to fully recover.
This process can be tough as hell, but I want to be healthy and whole again, I really do.
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Embracing the whole man, every part of the psyche, every aspect of existence, all layers of awareness and consciousness...
Embracing the entirety of my being is very challenging and there is work and discipline involved. Because the mind wanders and will take me into depths of despair and/or illusions of grandiosity. All of it is an illusion really.
Harnessing the mind is the key to recovery, and this involves a commitment, a prioritization. In my case, I still have no idea how this process will manifest in "real life", but I have to take a more transcendental approach towards everything I do.

Understanding that desire is a direct response to human suffering is another step in the process, so the issue of "suffering" must be addressed. What is it? According to the Buddhists, it's the basic condition of humanity. Wow! Really? That is contradictory to modern Western thought...because in our society we think that suffering is induced somehow, either by ourselves or by others or circumstances. But if you agree with the Buddhists, then we are born to suffer. Hence everyone desires...it makes sense really.
How do we then eliminate this basic human condition? Ah, that is the question, isn't it...practice and discipline

Porn addiction is a self defeating process, because we want to get rid of the pain that we perceive and cover it with a form of pleasure, but it only creates more pain eventually. A cycle of despair and insanity.
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Maybe the pursuit of happiness is the philosophical road to hell.
Yeah, maybe so...I have been pursuing "something" on these "dating apps", but I am not sure I am ready, or perhaps ever will be?
I relapsed last night due to excessive fantasy about a woman I messaged with, none of the messages were sexual in nature, but there was one photo she included on her profile in a bathing suit that just fucking floored me...
So, yes, I am weak.
Theoretically I know the solutions to my "problems", but not emotionally, and the emotional/Spiritual work is absolutely vital.
Today I plan on focusing on digging deeper into my emotional strongholds.
And I plan on posting this evening, because I need to ....every evening, the morning routine is not enough, especially considering that evenings are the most difficult for me.
I am working through "Childhood Disrupted" (Nakazawa), which is turning out to be an excellent book and helping me with trapped emotional baggage. I may look into exploring the option of working with a therapist, but I am very hesitant to go that route, because the minute I smell even the hint of false optimism I'm outta there.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
I relapsed last night due to excessive fantasy about a woman I messaged with, none of the messages were sexual in nature, but there was one photo she included on her profile in a bathing suit that just fucking floored me...
Yes it's amazing how beautiful a woman's body can be! I don't say that sarcastically, I just loved the way you wrote that.

Sorry about your relapse.

It seems most men here at RN usually conclude that dating apps are often just soft porn, especially if you're not getting any real sex from the interaction but only texting. I currently have a lady but if that was not so, I think I would be pretty cautious too. What's more, when you look at the statistics, and articles talking about the statistics, most dating apps are heavily skewed with a greater number of men than women. Further, when one realizes that most women generally want the best man that they can get (looks, status etc.), then most dudes, unless they're in that top 20% of men, will just get passed over, or maybe texted, with nothing else coming to them, like a real date, or sex etc. For example, a test was shown that if you have a hundred women and a hundred men, most of the women wanted only 2 of those men (no matter if the women were 5s in the looks department), while most of the men would have been okay with almost all the women lol.

I don't say this as a critique on women (biologically speaking it makes sense that the sexes would have different mating strategies) but just as a way to point out the differences that I see between the sexes. I think us men on an intuitive level know all of these facts, but modern technology is only proving it more and more.

I can tell @Aeodh Dan that you're a man who doesn't like bullshit or false hope, well, there's your truth bomb for today!

If it's not real, it's no deal, and unfortunately, most of the dating sites and apps are not real, but only an illusion of possibilities, especially for us men.

Do what you wish with that information.

Best brother!

P.S. that book sounds interesting.
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
If it's not real, it's no deal, and unfortunately, most of the dating sites and apps are not real, but only an illusion of possibilities, especially for us men.
Thank you once again for a well designed response, and an honest opinion apparently based on some data no doubt. Yes, the dating app has caused some problems, and I think you are right about the desirability of certain men vs. our willingness to consider ANY woman! To be honest, every time I sign on, it's kind of a rush like porn, but porn is more "satisfying" on a different level, because at least it delivers. Whereas, the online dating just keeps you hoping or dreaming...
Well, I'm determined to have a porn free night; I haven't allowed any ongoing fantasies today and have kept focused on recovery practices and meditating on my kids and how much I love them.
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Had a decent night, active dreaming again...
Throughout the day yesterday I set myself up for success, that is the difference. The previous day I had allowed myself to fantasize about this woman on the dating app because of that one fucking photo of her in the swim suit.
Nerve pain this morning in my sciatic, already bothering me, but the more I focus attention on it, the more bothersome it is, so I am thinking about the middle road, the road to sanity, enlightenment and ultimately freedom.
Yes, I want to redeem this broken body for a new glorious one!
 

Aeodh Dan

Active Member
Decent day today, nothing eventful, but focus on recovery and spent time in prayer this morning...yes prayer, I finally discovered prayer.
Pain symptoms are moving a bit, looking for a place to settle, but I stayed a step ahead for the most part...very mindful now of pain being a possible trigger.
I have been messaging with the girl, and now that I am identifying her with some human intelligence, she is no longer only this sex object, I even looked at the bathing suit photo once, but it didn't cause any major trigger, so I think the act of conversation and sensing her humanity has been a game changer.
Anyhow, I'm just feeling a little gratitude, so I'll let that linger as long as I can.
 
Top