well, guys, it’s been real. i’m done. PEACE
just kidding. if anything, 90 days is only a beginning. i’m starting to learn just exactly how to live, not just to survive to another day and through another tempestuous night. God, prayer, church, Bible, and spending time with Christians instead of pagans and lunatics is really good for me.
Here are some things that have changed for me:
- I am not attracted to a lot of media that I once consumed. Like, violent video games, crude television (even the new Star Wars movie (because of its gnostic and New Age spirituality of a God-Force that can be manipulated instead of serving humbly), and vile comedies like South Park or a lot of what’s on Netflix anymore. I was going through the Netflix trawler a couple nights ago, and I was amazed at how profane things have gotten, a condition I hadn’t even realized until now. Movies like “Zombie Beavers” about zombie softcore or shows like “Dexter” that glorify serial killing … flicks that I might have been tempted by before or really did like years ago … I can’t stand them now. I get disgusted with it. Like, the other night i watched “The French Connection II” thinking it would be a great cop thriller. Instead, what I saw was Gene Hackman playing a totally disrespectful, unlikeable, and just plain awful human being who hated good cops, who killed good cops, who slept with random women, and who was totally oblivious to anything but his own ego. I also had watched “Three Days of the Condor” and got completely disgusted with how the movie romanced a woman cheating on her longtime boyfriend with some stranger she just met on the street. I would not have wanted to be her boyfriend. This culture makes good of evil, and it makes evil of good.
- Prayer. It’s taken me awhile to get to know that God isn’t going to hurt me. It’s still a process, but I’m making progress everyday and I’m happy with this. I like healing. I’m starting to take my pain and go to God with it, instead of taking it to porn and masturbation, to exercise, to delusions of grandeur, to my journal, or to people in my life I made the mistake of trusting.
- Memory. My memory is sooo much more effective now. Short term and long term. Lots of old memories are coming back or becoming more vivid. And I can remember things I’ve been taught now , and even think critically more effectively.
- Assertiveness. I still suck at this. It’s been a lifelong thing. My mom crushed me before, and it’s taking me time to stand up straight again and learn what to do in the face of someone on the attack. But I’m gettting better. I don’t take everything so deeply personally anymore. In addiction, a rejection would send me into a tailspin, and I’d usually crash in PMO. Now, I am starting to take it to God, and to remember and believe the lessons I’ve learned from authors and peopel I trust.
- Work. I got a job!
- NoFapWar. I was part of an epic struggle with 2000 other men to break the cycle, and my army pulled out an astonishing come-from-behind upset at the very last day. We rallied from over 30 men down, to prevail against an army that has beaten us the last four wars. And my own regiment, Ruby, which trailed in last place most of this war, went 3-0 in inter-regiment battles and took down the opposing army’s top seed. Go /r/rubybarracks! Visit /r/nofapwar to prepare for the next war, those of you who want to be part of a great cause. the next war will likely start mid-July to August, and will last 40 days.
- Women. It’s not a mentality that is as dominant as I’d like it to be, but I’m starting to see women as sisters rather than as sexual prey. Like, I was watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzvUZwAHjNY this clip of Faramir with Eowyn from “Lord of the Rings” and I thought to myself, “Is he going to kiss her? Will they have sex?” And then he just held her hands, she leaned into his chest, and they just stood there. I would have done that for my sister. It’s the right response. So much media I’ve watched ends in raucous sex, and I am really glad to see little clips like this where people aren’t scorning each other, taking sex from each other, or living disgracefully. There’s a sincerity and an earnestness in these stories that ennobles me, and I like this. I like living nobly, and not thinking about if a woman is going to be sexually gratifying. I want to be kingly and noble. to be a good man, a good brother to women.
- Men. Over the last 180 days or so, I’ve gone from feeling very feminine to feeling more like a man and a part of men than ever before. I’m not alpha or anything like that, I don’t think at least. But I’m not insecure either. I saw what Bruce Jenner has done to himself, adn it disgusts me. It’s seriously revolting. What an abomination. I don’t mean that about Jenner’s core, about who HE is really, but he is so confused and has just dilapidated into something so ugly, hideous, and accursed. And the way the media spins this and talks about how much courage he must have, the way they celebrate this man’s downfall and call it good instead of evil … what a disgusting mess. They should be helping him in counseling to connect with who he first was. God made him a boy. And the media can’t wait to kill him off the more. I can’t read those lies. I hate them. I used to feel very effeminate, having been rejected by my dad a long time ago, but I’ve been since loved. And it’s made sooo much difference.
- Parents. Up to this point I’ve mostly hated them. I still struggle with being angry a log. But I’m learning to be their son again. Not in the sense that I obey whatever they tell me to do, but I am accepting where I come from, that I learned good and bad things from them, and am like both of them in a loooot of ways – and I don’t have to hate myself either for that. I can grow under God and be his son ultimately, as I really am.
- Church. I’m becoming Roman Catholic. As a new acquaintance told me last night, in Protestant seminary (this guy went to Dallas Theological Seminary, the Harvard of Protestant seminaries) you’re expected to develop your own schema of the world, system of morality, and lens of interpreting Scripture. But in Roman Catholicism, you lay your personal opinions at the door, get humble, and become part of something else instead of trying to make everything else a part of you. RC isn’t perfect; it’s a pilgrim church as one of the Popes has recently said, always growing, a work in progress. But it’s God’s church, and I’m learning to drop my need to be right, and to start to look for what actually is right. And the journey has been beautiful. My priests have been sooo kind, the parishioners have been unexpectedly knowledgeable about Scripture (i went to a Bible study last night and was blown away with how much those Catholics knew of the Bible and Hebrew and Greek, more than me … and I was taught that Catholics don’t know their Bible and never even read it …), and there is a life up on the altar with the priests that is so beautiful and so powerful and so right and good… It’s awesome. I love going to mass.
- Me. I’m coming back. Day by day Jimmy is coming back. I had been sooo insane. So lost and confused for most of my life. My head is still tight and spinning at times from where I’ve been and come from, from the horrible choices I’ve made and the atrocities that my parents put me through. But thanks to God he’s revived me, and through Him and NOFAP I’ve started to wake up mentally, to become myself, to have a good soul and a mind that’s not locked in rigidity (had to protect myself before) and can now open up to pain and anger and sadness and even joy and being loved by God!
Thank you NOFAP, God, fapstronauts, and for every good thing that anyone has brought my way. THank you so much. This is only the beginning of a larger theme. I feel like I’ve just woken up from a long sleep, and I know that it’s gonna get better. I know it and believe it. As hard as it’s been to believe that good things are in store for me, I know that this is good, and that God is good, and that it is God’s will for me to have good and to be good, and for good to come to me. Even if it’s from bad choices I or others make. Thank God.
Brothers and sisters, please pray that my mind continues to be renewed. I like where I’m going. I like this direction, and I’m happy to be Christian. I will pray for you.
LINK – 90 Days Post
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