BEFORE[?IMG]
I have suffered so much in my life, for over 3 decades of dysfunctional relationships, a stressed/dead marriage with lousy sex(mostly cause of me) ED, porn addiction and sex addiction. Intermixed with all that is anxiety and often panic and lots of anger and blame.
My path is littered with self-help books, different therapists all over the Southeast. and more recently SA that I find very useful actually.
NOW [?IMG]
90% or more of ALL OF this has been lifted and I stopped anti depressants 3 years ago. I feel as clean and wonderful as anything at 50 years and my PIED is 90% better, my marriage is way better, and my focus at work(programmer) is better and I feel connected to life.
IT?S ABOUT LETTING GO
I learned to let go of stuff. It?s all about letting go and being present- just Being. And realizing that you are full. Already full. All other things (money, status, praise, sex, food, women) are bonuses that we cannot control and that never fill us anyway. I mean everything-yes even women and sex. Especially women and sex. But nobody told us men that growing up did they? And here we are on these forums.
It seems simple doesn?t it?just ?being? and perhaps it is?but simplicity is not stupidity. Simplicity is refreshing and closer to the truth. My new attitude is like a relief valve from the agony and chaos and fears of suffering from before. Life is all about letting go in fact ?and the more you do it, the more present you are, the more blessings get heaped on your plate. Then you give and love better and the cycle repeats with more again.
Have you ever tried just being? I do not mean zoning out or relaxing-those are nice too occasionally. I mean being aware of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, histories, patterns, fetishes, addictive urges, anger triggers?and sitting with them?and not reacting?having your ?beingness? transform them and watching them dissipate. And feeling fuller- more solid yet spacious. It?s the best?but not in an intense addictive way that you and I are used to. This is what I mean by letting go.
You let go through acceptance, rather than stay hooked through denial. Let go and choose rather than stay addicted with no choice. Let go through gentle awareness rather than stay stuck fighting with it. Or through grabbing and practicing your addiction which only reinforces it. MINDFULNESS HAS HELPED me hugely as it naturally brings the awareness to things...so that...we can face it...and ...let go!! isn't that the whole point?
It?s the reverse of what we?ve been doing and are taught.
ACCEPTANCE IS SPIRITUAL
Acceptance is a deliberate choice- and it becomes a fantastic lifestyle when practiced each day-each hour. The most amazing role models I have in my life that have inspired me and pushed the limits of being human?are those that have accepted suffering and not only survived but thrived.
Think about it?aren?t people who FULLY accept shitty circumstances amazing? Go ahead and accept yours. All aspects. When we become present with painful things, they don?t necessarily disappear (although they could!) but they don?t have to. The solution to pollution is dilution. They become downgraded and even neutralized in the truth of presence making them unnecessary; unnecessary in their false promise to give us security or freedom or completion.
EGO OR PRESENCE?
Freedom is therefore not in the mind but the mind should takes its cues from freedom-from our deeper parts- from that higher place in side of us. Not vise versa. Us humans and certainly addicts have it backwards? identifying and getting entangled in the mind. When this happens we don?t ?drive and co-create? ? we are instead ?the driven? and self-destruct?.
Our beliefs about ourselves, our needs, our fears, our histories, our identities and our world seem so real, so painful an so utterly massive and overwhelming in terms of our ability to deal and control them. Worse, even though that is true, we silently nurse and rehearse these hurts, these desires, in an addictive fashion, often without our even knowing it. We react then to them, act on them and others in turn react back to us, and all this does is reinforce them, making our fears and fictions, or addictions and memories, our fetishes and longings our legends seemingly even more true. Our minds easily find proof for things. No wonder we feel powerless?it?s so exhausting!
We believe freedom comes in more understanding, more analysis, more justice, more control, more righting of wrongs, more this and more that. ? If only? thinking feeds this. Nope doesn?t work.
The truth is that freedom lies outside all that, and that ?if only? is an illusion, a fantasy that itself removes us from the peace that is all around us. Freedom is in fact right here, right now! What we glorify or fear has the power to remove us from freedom, almost as if we are trading it away. But your lust and fear to not remove/destroy the freedom of presence inside you-they only obscure it. You obscure it.
AWARENESS AND ACCEPTANCE
Your current route...habit?or belief offers no more mileage down that familiar road?but yet you cling to it as you know no other road. Fear of uncertainty and change keeps you mired in your own misery. So more pain is then brought on to help you understand that it is ok to let go and move on. This is the subject of this thread?that it is not only OK to let go of things?but that is the ONLY way to freedom, and in fact the point of life.
Do you actually believe that God, freedom, spirit , whole self and truth?actually requires you to go out and get/acquire anything? Letting go is the only price of admission to healing.
LET IT GO
I prefer to say ?let it go at that? honoring the truth that you have tried other ways, addictive ways, so gently lay them down. It is physical too! Billions of neurons have bundled and will produce physiological responses. But when we let go ?don?t forget we unwire too. But this will take time.
When we let go we don?t die and or diminish like or ego promises. That is the delightful news that our mind ?the ego- does not wants us to know. However it will feel like a dying and this is a good sign since it?s the dying of an ego, the dying of an attachment or illusion. Let that part die. What actually happens is you let go, grieve if necessary and move on and up and flourish.
YOU GIVE UP TO GET
You NOT shrivelling up and dying when letting go is ALWAYS the case . It does not matter whether it?s an urge, thought, belief, fantasy, addiction?that seems so personal to you. In fact ?all the better. More rewards. The very purpose of our lives is to discover this freedom and each of us walks a twisty, individual path that no school or less will ever prepare us and that is why it is so scary. The mind, with its noisy warnings and attachments will have you believe otherwise and will attempt to keep you safe on your miserable road going in loops , as that is all it knows.
HARNESS THE STRUGGLE
There is a way to use this dark place, to harness this anger, this fear, this powerlessness to awaken into something greater. It is neither fighting it nor pretending it does not exist. Our minds, our thoughts, our beliefs, getting our needs met?NONE of these leads to freedom as freedom as they are ALL conditional and depend on something.
The reverse is true- We must give up our fictions, and fetishes, our fears, and addictions and legends and stories and open up to life without them, and freedom will enter into you. You may be vulnerable, wide open, and tippy like in a canoe about to fall into the unknown?let it be so. Choose it and smile despite. That is progress, not the usual muck.
LET GO OF DEPENDENCY ON WOMEN
You may never get rid of desire but that?s ok since that is not the problem. Desperateness is. And that comes from dependency-THAT is your real addiction. Porn, sex, masturbation all flow up from that dependent lackness.
I first had to ?cut my umbilical cord to women?. Could that include a particular woman? Possibly. It might include that. But for me ?women? means that familiar, imaginary feminine figure?at the far reaches of my imagination?beckoning me?promising to smile and validate me or punish me and dom me. I paid thousands of dollars to that ficticious figure in the form of prostitutes and lost entire tracts of my life due to an obsessive imagination that has left me empty and wanting. Not anymore.
I write this feeling a warmth of hearth inside me- my spirit. I did not build my spirit up- it?s already there-the real me. I found it by letting go of the other shit that obscured it. It then revealed itself- The complete me- the me of life. The spirit part of me.
PRACTICAL WANTING SOMETHING?
Our inner reality reflects our outer reality. What is occurring internally will always show up in the world outside.
Spiritually connected is about being completely present. Relationships with sustainable, healthy relating embody the feeling your own internal warmth and connection ?in external form? in someone else.
You will never find externally anything to fill an internal ache. Any relationship formed from the intensity of wanting (or lack), will never be enough.
Are you single? Do you ever ask the question ?when will I find love?? The answer is simple. You will find love when you choose to experience love within you-the warmth, aliveness, presence in you. THAT is living. All else is secondary. When you experience love internally, it absolutely must show up externally in some form-perhaps a romantic relationship? A group? A person? A pet? Close friends ? You cannot control that. The only reason it does not show up is because you are seeking it outside yourself to fill an inner ache. Operate from your fullness and things will come.
Last edited: Today at 12:45 AM
I have suffered so much in my life, for over 3 decades of dysfunctional relationships, a stressed/dead marriage with lousy sex(mostly cause of me) ED, porn addiction and sex addiction. Intermixed with all that is anxiety and often panic and lots of anger and blame.
My path is littered with self-help books, different therapists all over the Southeast. and more recently SA that I find very useful actually.
NOW [?IMG]
90% or more of ALL OF this has been lifted and I stopped anti depressants 3 years ago. I feel as clean and wonderful as anything at 50 years and my PIED is 90% better, my marriage is way better, and my focus at work(programmer) is better and I feel connected to life.
IT?S ABOUT LETTING GO
I learned to let go of stuff. It?s all about letting go and being present- just Being. And realizing that you are full. Already full. All other things (money, status, praise, sex, food, women) are bonuses that we cannot control and that never fill us anyway. I mean everything-yes even women and sex. Especially women and sex. But nobody told us men that growing up did they? And here we are on these forums.
It seems simple doesn?t it?just ?being? and perhaps it is?but simplicity is not stupidity. Simplicity is refreshing and closer to the truth. My new attitude is like a relief valve from the agony and chaos and fears of suffering from before. Life is all about letting go in fact ?and the more you do it, the more present you are, the more blessings get heaped on your plate. Then you give and love better and the cycle repeats with more again.
Have you ever tried just being? I do not mean zoning out or relaxing-those are nice too occasionally. I mean being aware of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, histories, patterns, fetishes, addictive urges, anger triggers?and sitting with them?and not reacting?having your ?beingness? transform them and watching them dissipate. And feeling fuller- more solid yet spacious. It?s the best?but not in an intense addictive way that you and I are used to. This is what I mean by letting go.
You let go through acceptance, rather than stay hooked through denial. Let go and choose rather than stay addicted with no choice. Let go through gentle awareness rather than stay stuck fighting with it. Or through grabbing and practicing your addiction which only reinforces it. MINDFULNESS HAS HELPED me hugely as it naturally brings the awareness to things...so that...we can face it...and ...let go!! isn't that the whole point?
It?s the reverse of what we?ve been doing and are taught.
ACCEPTANCE IS SPIRITUAL
Acceptance is a deliberate choice- and it becomes a fantastic lifestyle when practiced each day-each hour. The most amazing role models I have in my life that have inspired me and pushed the limits of being human?are those that have accepted suffering and not only survived but thrived.
Think about it?aren?t people who FULLY accept shitty circumstances amazing? Go ahead and accept yours. All aspects. When we become present with painful things, they don?t necessarily disappear (although they could!) but they don?t have to. The solution to pollution is dilution. They become downgraded and even neutralized in the truth of presence making them unnecessary; unnecessary in their false promise to give us security or freedom or completion.
EGO OR PRESENCE?
Freedom is therefore not in the mind but the mind should takes its cues from freedom-from our deeper parts- from that higher place in side of us. Not vise versa. Us humans and certainly addicts have it backwards? identifying and getting entangled in the mind. When this happens we don?t ?drive and co-create? ? we are instead ?the driven? and self-destruct?.
Our beliefs about ourselves, our needs, our fears, our histories, our identities and our world seem so real, so painful an so utterly massive and overwhelming in terms of our ability to deal and control them. Worse, even though that is true, we silently nurse and rehearse these hurts, these desires, in an addictive fashion, often without our even knowing it. We react then to them, act on them and others in turn react back to us, and all this does is reinforce them, making our fears and fictions, or addictions and memories, our fetishes and longings our legends seemingly even more true. Our minds easily find proof for things. No wonder we feel powerless?it?s so exhausting!
We believe freedom comes in more understanding, more analysis, more justice, more control, more righting of wrongs, more this and more that. ? If only? thinking feeds this. Nope doesn?t work.
The truth is that freedom lies outside all that, and that ?if only? is an illusion, a fantasy that itself removes us from the peace that is all around us. Freedom is in fact right here, right now! What we glorify or fear has the power to remove us from freedom, almost as if we are trading it away. But your lust and fear to not remove/destroy the freedom of presence inside you-they only obscure it. You obscure it.
AWARENESS AND ACCEPTANCE
Your current route...habit?or belief offers no more mileage down that familiar road?but yet you cling to it as you know no other road. Fear of uncertainty and change keeps you mired in your own misery. So more pain is then brought on to help you understand that it is ok to let go and move on. This is the subject of this thread?that it is not only OK to let go of things?but that is the ONLY way to freedom, and in fact the point of life.
Do you actually believe that God, freedom, spirit , whole self and truth?actually requires you to go out and get/acquire anything? Letting go is the only price of admission to healing.
LET IT GO
I prefer to say ?let it go at that? honoring the truth that you have tried other ways, addictive ways, so gently lay them down. It is physical too! Billions of neurons have bundled and will produce physiological responses. But when we let go ?don?t forget we unwire too. But this will take time.
When we let go we don?t die and or diminish like or ego promises. That is the delightful news that our mind ?the ego- does not wants us to know. However it will feel like a dying and this is a good sign since it?s the dying of an ego, the dying of an attachment or illusion. Let that part die. What actually happens is you let go, grieve if necessary and move on and up and flourish.
YOU GIVE UP TO GET
You NOT shrivelling up and dying when letting go is ALWAYS the case . It does not matter whether it?s an urge, thought, belief, fantasy, addiction?that seems so personal to you. In fact ?all the better. More rewards. The very purpose of our lives is to discover this freedom and each of us walks a twisty, individual path that no school or less will ever prepare us and that is why it is so scary. The mind, with its noisy warnings and attachments will have you believe otherwise and will attempt to keep you safe on your miserable road going in loops , as that is all it knows.
HARNESS THE STRUGGLE
There is a way to use this dark place, to harness this anger, this fear, this powerlessness to awaken into something greater. It is neither fighting it nor pretending it does not exist. Our minds, our thoughts, our beliefs, getting our needs met?NONE of these leads to freedom as freedom as they are ALL conditional and depend on something.
The reverse is true- We must give up our fictions, and fetishes, our fears, and addictions and legends and stories and open up to life without them, and freedom will enter into you. You may be vulnerable, wide open, and tippy like in a canoe about to fall into the unknown?let it be so. Choose it and smile despite. That is progress, not the usual muck.
LET GO OF DEPENDENCY ON WOMEN
You may never get rid of desire but that?s ok since that is not the problem. Desperateness is. And that comes from dependency-THAT is your real addiction. Porn, sex, masturbation all flow up from that dependent lackness.
I first had to ?cut my umbilical cord to women?. Could that include a particular woman? Possibly. It might include that. But for me ?women? means that familiar, imaginary feminine figure?at the far reaches of my imagination?beckoning me?promising to smile and validate me or punish me and dom me. I paid thousands of dollars to that ficticious figure in the form of prostitutes and lost entire tracts of my life due to an obsessive imagination that has left me empty and wanting. Not anymore.
I write this feeling a warmth of hearth inside me- my spirit. I did not build my spirit up- it?s already there-the real me. I found it by letting go of the other shit that obscured it. It then revealed itself- The complete me- the me of life. The spirit part of me.
PRACTICAL WANTING SOMETHING?
Our inner reality reflects our outer reality. What is occurring internally will always show up in the world outside.
Spiritually connected is about being completely present. Relationships with sustainable, healthy relating embody the feeling your own internal warmth and connection ?in external form? in someone else.
You will never find externally anything to fill an internal ache. Any relationship formed from the intensity of wanting (or lack), will never be enough.
Are you single? Do you ever ask the question ?when will I find love?? The answer is simple. You will find love when you choose to experience love within you-the warmth, aliveness, presence in you. THAT is living. All else is secondary. When you experience love internally, it absolutely must show up externally in some form-perhaps a romantic relationship? A group? A person? A pet? Close friends ? You cannot control that. The only reason it does not show up is because you are seeking it outside yourself to fill an inner ache. Operate from your fullness and things will come.
Last edited: Today at 12:45 AM
