Today is Day 308 without porn and masturbation for me. I’m 40 years old and married. I post regularly to my journal, but this is my first post in the Success Stories forum – I’ve been a bit superstitious about it. Today I wrote an entry in my journal that I thought might be appropriate to share here. It follows below in quotes:
“I’ve been trying to come up with a journal entry that somehow describes to a NoFap newbie to or to a fapstronaut struggling with chronic relapse what it’s really like to be at Day 300+. I have a small illustration to make that may help.
I just took a short walk to get out of the office for a few minutes, get away from the computer, get the blood flowing. I was walking past a row of cars at another building down the street and an attractive woman was getting out of one of the cars. As I walked past, she smiled at me. I tried my best to return the smile, but it was a little bit forced – I scrambled for it and came up just short of a good, friendly smile. I started to think about why I wasn’t prepared to smile as I walked by. I wondered a bit if I should work on trying to be more radiantly friendly with people I randomly encounter in my life.
A simple smile is something I am always capable of, it’s a nice and easy way to put out a teaspoon of kindness into the world, it costs nothing, and it feels good to do it! As I continued on down the street, it occurred to me that I had encountered an attractive woman, one who smiled at me, and all I thought during that moment was that I could stand to use some work on my friendly smile. Here’s a list of thoughts that I did NOT have:
Ugh. God I want to fuck her.
Jesus, her (insert body parts here) looks unfuckingbelievable.
Yep I got the smile. She wants to fuck me.
I bet she does (insert sex skill here) really fucking good.
Ja asseblief.
I wonder if she works around here? I’ll keep an eye out…
These are just a few quick examples of the kind of automatic thoughts I would have before I started reboot, and even for quite awhile into reboot. Depending on my mood, there could just as easily have been automatic negative thoughts about myself like:
She would probably be grossed out by me. A woman like that likes different guys than me.
I’m not attractive to her because of factor x, y, or z.
I probably look too old/young/tall/short/hip/square.
I’m walking too hunched over.
I shouldn’t have worn these shoes. I look like an idiot.
I bet she hates tattoos and thinks I’m a tool.
I look so lame all dressed up for work.
En so aan en so aan.
So here’s the point: I didn’t have any of these outomatiese thoughts or responses. I’m not in a daily habit of putting my thoughts on cruise control. I’m not using cyber or P to fantasize that attractive women want me. I’m not in an addictive habit that results in crippling my self-esteem or chastising and berating myself in attempt to curb my behavior. I’m not clicking through streams of photos and videos of women’s bodies and sex acts like they are in a catalog or on a menu that I choose from based on my momentary whims and desires.
Yes, I did notice that she was attractive. I saw this the way I see a jogger is wearing expensive sunglasses or a guy mowing his lawn is wearing heavy-looking boots. There was no weight attached to her being attractive. It did not disturb my natural train of thought at the time. I was not prompted to puff out my chest, to try to make eye contact, to figure a way to sneak a dirty glance. All that happened was she smiled at me and that made me think that I could use some work on my natural friendliness.
Reboot does still move up and down, but when you average it, it always moves forward when you continue to abstain from PMO. In August it will be a year of abstinence for me. I’m slowly diluting the addiction and the improvements continue. There’s no reason to think that after 25+ years of PMO that the benefits of abstinence will all be reached anytime soon. And by benefits all I mean is my natural abilities and self without the crippling effects of PMO. It might be decades before I reach a plateau in that area. That’s exciting to me.
Just wanted to open my skull so you could peer inside the brain of one guy’s Day 308.”
LINK - A Quick Peek Into Day 308
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