Showing posts with label nofap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nofap. Show all posts

Monday, January 9, 2023

A survey on YOUR sexual abstinence practice. Wanna take part?

I created a survey about sexual abstinence practices. It is designed to be as encompassing as I could manage (though I am sure I missed some potential aspects).

I created it strictly to satisfy my own curiosity. I will post the results here after about a month, some time in February, 2023. (The results will not be published until after the survey is closed, so as to not skew the data.)

It consists of 21 questions, so it should only take 5-10 minutes to participate.

The survey is intended for the practitioners of some kind of abstinence practice - nofap, tantra, semen retention, etc.

Thanks for taking part!

Friday, December 2, 2022

What works for me...

After not-ejaculating for two months (many years ago), after 213 days of nofap, I have some good news and some bad news for you. However, whether the news is good or bad, depends on your current position in life, your goals, and your personal ideology.

I can't claim to know that any of this is universally true, it all comes from my own experience, my reading-list and my biases. I won't bother to preface every single sentence with a disclaimer. When I say "you", it is just a figure of speech, a generalisation of my own experiences. **Your experience may differ.** If some part of this seems to work for you, great! Embrace it, leave a comment, move on. If you disagree with something, fine! Leave a comment if you like. Find your own path!

On to the list...

  1. You can experience bliss, right now, as soon as you let go of some misconceptions and do a few simple exercises.
  2. You do not have to change your beliefs to experience bliss.
  3. The simpler, the better!
  4. SMILE! As much as you can. Even if you don't feel like it. *Especially* when you don't feel like it. It will improve your mood.
  5. The most fundamental, most important practice, is breathing. There are many different breathing techniques.
  6. Do one minute of very deep breathing, slightly forceful, in through the nose and out through the mouth.
  7. DO IT RIGHT NOW!
  8. RIGHT NOW, I SAID!!!
  9. LOL.
  10. You will experience resistance. (Trust me. You will. It's the one thing I believe is absolutely true for everybody.) Your mind will tell you that this is all just imagination, it cannot possibly help you in the long run, you're not worth it, and so on. This is probably one of the most widespread experiences.
  11. Regular exercises and long walks improve the mood much more than I ever imagined.
  12. Engage the muscles! Specifically, the belly and inner thighs.
  13. Make [PC muscle exercises](https://www.wikihow.com/Do-PC-Muscle-Exercises).
  14. Meditation is a great tool. The more regular, the better.
  15. Yoga will teach you to be mindful of your movements - i.e., co-ordinate breathing with muscle-tension and thinking.
  16. In order to visualize "energy", you do not have to believe in it.
  17. Cold water seems to help regulate dopamine, relieve anxieties and improve mood. (I cannot do cold showers, sadly, because they give me cramps. I do cold half-showers, and they are helpful, too.)
  18. Nofap / SR are great supporting practices, as they will give you more discipline, more confidence, and great insights into yourself.
  19. The less social media, the better.
  20. Have a backup plan for when you "fail". Knowing how to get back on track is more important than never getting off track.
  21. View it all as one big, fun experiment.
  22. Journalling can help keep you straight and honest. If you strive for physical changes, take a photo every day.
  23. View input from others as inspiration, not binding instructions.
  24. That goes for this posting too, of course.
  25. Always remain skeptical of all methods, especially if you feel like they are silver bullets and can help all of humanity. Chances are they are not, and they can not. Silver bullets do not exist. Be content if you found something that helps you. It's more than most people ever get.
  26. If you find something that seems to work for you, try it for a week, then two, then commit to a longer experiment.
  27. Always try out new things. Always improve your own method.
  28. Find your own path.

Sidenote:

Self-hypnosis, NLP, and other such stuff have helped me a lot.... but I had to get ready first. It's hard to know when it's time to delve into such things. I'd recomment you avoid the rabbit-holes that can come with them - specifically the pickup/PUA/seduction communities, which are rife with misogyny, inceldom and just plain B.S.

 (First posted on reddit.)

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

(No?) nut november: Day 17. Theory and practice.

 Sometimes I wonder about our apparent attachment to ideas.

It is insane, and it makes a whole lot of trouble - from relationship fights, up to wars between nations.

There was a time when I was quite into zen, and tried to actively disengage from all concepts. I also meditated regularly.

This worked rather nicely.

Still, I find myself attached a lot to theories these days - or to debunking other people's theories, which amounts to the same thing.

What happened?

Well... life happened. You find some things interesting, some things matter to you, some things seem unbearably wrong and stupid and destructive. The global climate of partisanship got a hold of me. Social media impacted me, the pandemic, climate change, national politics... all the things that affect us all.

Last night, I was lying down to sleep. Lots of good ideas for my novel seemed to float around in my head. My breathing exercises went great. I felt wonderful.

I thought: I want to put more focus back on practice. Not theorize about the outcome so much. As far as I remember, when I steadfastly refused to think about where the practice might lead me, I felt liberation, relief, bliss.

Maybe our need for theory comes from a lack of trust in our practice.

Good old buddhist saying comes to mind: You can choose to be happy, or choose to be right - but not both at the same time.

Then again... theorizing is so much fun. Oh crap!

 

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Streak of Early 2021 - Day 89: Unio Mystica

 Yesterday, I experienced something that I think mystics would have called unio mystica. It was beautiful, brilliant, ecstatic... but that's not the essence of it. I don't think the essence of it can be expressed in words... the closest I can get is that it was deeply paradoxical. And it lasted all through the day.

I was very sexually aroused, without touching. But there was no urge to satisfy. I don't mean that I suppressed it or overcame it... there just was nothing to overcome. The state was extremely pleasurable.

It was a bit like I was perpetually in the state of orgasm, without ending.

It felt like mind-fog, but I was actually rather focused. I was very productive, though it felt like I didn't do a lot.

I was beyond myself, and yet I have rarely before felt so much in tune with myself.

There was no worry, no fear, not even the possibility of needs. It was non-action, dao, a little peek into moksha or awakening.

Not that I deluded myself into thinking I was actually enlightened. It was just a peek. And that is perfectly fine.

Eveything was just what it was.

It was brilliant.

And it created a craving, or rather a longing, for more of it in my life.

It's probably the most powerful motivation I ever felt.

 

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 31: A whole month

Funny feeling. July 19th was the last time I wanked off. In the meantime, I had two orgasms with my wife, and three times had sex without cumming.

A whole month. Of course, it's just an arbitrary number, but the way the human mind works, it feels special.  There is some pride, but more than that there is a deep kind of satisfaction.  When you abstain from something -- something you thought you needed, whatever it is, I guess -- it gives you a deeper understanding of your wants and needs. You connect with something important that way. It removes a barrier. Something like "opening up a chakra", to use one of those esoteric metaphors.  Conferring with your angel. Moving up the Tree of Life. I'm sure every religion, every culture has its own cherished expressions for it.

It becomes easier to differentiate your superficial wants from your actual needs. You have already experienced that you can live without it, so you can now focus on what really matters.

I'm back at work. The huge advantage is that I drink less. I never went for complete abstinence, but during vacations it tends to escalate a bit, and it's good to go back to normal.

Now the big challenge ahead: Apply the skill of mindful enjoyment to other areas. Maybe it is possible to eat less, eat healthier and more ecological, without engaging in willpower excesses, and while enjoying the food even more. Maybe the same goes for alcohol, for youtube, for a lot of things I'm not even aware of yet...

Maybe there is resistance to all those joys, based on self-loathing and deeply ingrained capitalist "ethics".

Maybe I should start to emply the "matrix" metaphor, "red pill" myself and become a total conspiracy nutjob, lol. In the general public's eye, it would be quite a fit...

I guess I got used to it by now.  It seems like I don't really want to masturbate anymore -- ever.  At the same time, I know from previous streaks that this, too, will pass. And that is perfectly fine.

Do not get attached to non-attachment!

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 27: Not a lot to say

It is perfectly fine to not have a lot to say. The journey is through calmer waters now. Next week it's back to the treadmill, I only hope it won't be too stressful. I had some weird dreams, but that's quite normal for me. I don't believe they mean a thing, even though I've been dream-journalling for decades and would have much loved to find a pattern or predictive powers or anything of that sort. So yeah, working on my story, breathing in breathing out, watching the remaining cat hang around in the sun. Saturday afternoon.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 25: Dealing with anxiety

A few things happened, and in the end I woke up this morning with a bad case of anxiety.

The interesting thing about those bad emotional places is that you can leave them... if you just do stuff. Tidy up the flat a bit. Write a few sentences of that novel. Go for a little walk. Do "just a bit", and that tends to expand into something bigger, and then that makes you feel better. That's why I like a writing method that lets me jump around and add a bit here, a bit there. It is much easier to get back into, if you can't write on a very regular schedule.

Next step: Breathe and accept the anxiety...

 


 

Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Joyful_Chastity/comments/huosv1/getting_back_into_chastity/

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 23: The sad part

After a wonderful, wonderful weekend in an expensive hotel, which obviously involved some glorious sex, we came home yesterday to find one of our cats in the hall, soiled and paralyzed. It turned out that a blood clot had formed in his leg. He didn't even touch a bowl of sweet corn we gave him. It seemed he had already given up. He had a heart condition, which we only just thought we had beat.

So the rest of the day didn't go exactly as planned. We gave him as much love as we possibly could. We drove to put our snuggly, anxious, purr-purr-meowing cat down, then brought him to the mortician, which turned out quite a journey, to get him cremated.

The act itself was fast and virtually painfree: First the narcosis, which got him to sleep in a second, then the poison. One last breath, and off he was to cat heaven, where he now eats prawn and corn all day, has as many hiding places as he could wish for, where nobody can ever disturb him, no strangers and no evil vacs to scare him.

We had a good dinner in his name, wrote down everything we remembered - his various pet names, habits, favourite foods, all the joyful moments we had with him. We'll make a foto album for the memories.

Tonight, my wife will bring our other cat to the doctor to have surgery for his skin cancer. Let's hope for the best! He has epilepsy, so there is a risk, and the cancer might have spread - but we'll just say it will work out fine, shall we. We can't lose both cats in the same week!!



Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Joyful_Chastity/comments/huosv1/getting_back_into_chastity/

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 20: The Heat

There are times on this journey when the energy gets overwhelmingly strong. It feels incredibly good, but at the same time, you're very much overpowered and can do nothing but surrender.

A good thing it's a saturday and I don't have to go to work.

I can totally imagine a situation where I would wank off just to get rid of the heat. Just so I could get some work done.

It's very blissful. Remember my older solemn tantric oath: Give in to it. Feel it through and through. Surrender to it. Own it. Make it mine, or rather make me its. Give in. And just like that, the angst and the anxiety vanish, and it is all good.

There is no need to fight it. There is no need to do anything but accept. This is what is, right now.

It is quite unspeakable. It's like my body is filled with pleasure and lust, desire and satisfaction rolled up into one. It's a tingling and a heat and a little dizziness. It starts from the spine, spreads through my belly and chest, into my arms and legs, even the head.

I revel in the knowledge that there is no supernatural. Imagining this to be an entity of its own, with a will separate from my own, doing stuff to me that I cannot control, and potentially will never stop, would be quite unsettling.



Friday, August 7, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 19: Preliminary Conclusions

Sometimes it would be nice to believe: That there is actually a deeper level. A higher consciousness. The universe as a conscious being. There is a power. If you perform a specific ritual, it actually has supernatural effects. The wonderful feelings in my spine are real energy and can be directed to perform healing, effect change in the real world, make me enlightened.

I've read a lot of esoteric and religious stuff. I'm forever fascinated by it. I absolutely get the appeal.

I could write books about it. In a way, I try to do just that. My stories revolve around people who believe all kinds of woo. I love those ideas. I love trying to put myself in the head of a true believer. I love to meditate on the effects they have in people's lives - the good and the bad and the just plain weird.

But those stories are fictive, all the magical effects are my inventions.

If several weeks of semen retention made my skin glow, made women come on to me out of nowhere, made my hair softer, my voice heavier, made me need less sleep (source 1, source 2), that would certainly be a hint that something is going on. However, none of that has happened so far.

(Better memory? You gotta be kiddin' me. I have terrible memory. Any tiny little hint that this has improved, would most certainly be well noted by me. If all it took to get better recollection, was abstaining from sex for a little while longer, boy would I go for it!)

What HAS happened, and reliably does happen indeed, is a subjective feeling of increased energy, a better ability to create bliss on the spot by breathing, a deep relaxation. My back is definitely better.

All the effects that are easy to explain by placebo, or by other livestyle changes*), actually appear. Everything that would be tangible evidence of semen retention per se, does not.

Yes, it hasn't been 90 days, but merely ca 20. I maintain there should be at least some visible change by now, if semen retention actually worked.

To me, the conclusion is pretty obvious: Chastity is good practice that will likely enhance your spiritual practice, especially if you combine it with yoga and tantric breathing techniques, and it can surely improve your sexual life. If you kink out on it, so much the better! But it does not change your body, it does not change your character in a fundamental way, it does not magically turn you into a chick magnet, it doesn't give you any superpowers.

I will stay off masturbation for the time being - at least to the end of August. I will keep up this journal till then, just to keep me on track. I will try and go for one ejaculation every 2-3 weeks, so my wife and I can enjoy those glorious moments of togetherness. I think this is a reasonable plan to move forward, given the evidence. I would love nothing more than go for the full 90 days just to have undeniable knowledge, but I simply cannot do that to my marriage, especially not right now given some circumstances in our life right now.



*) not to mention one week of holidays, with yet another ahead. Definitely has an effect.



Thursday, August 6, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 18: When desire hits...

...give in to it!

Good thing I'm staying home today, for the most part (we're visiting friends tonight, first time since c* - haven't seen them in over 6 months).

Here's the challenge: When the urge comes, give in to it. Absolutely, deeply, completely hand yourself over.

The catch? Don't jerk off. Don't even touch yourself. Breathe deep. Inhale horniness, exhale pure lust.

Jerking off is not giving in to the urge. Jerking off is the opposite. Jerking off is an attempt to end the urge, scratch it away like an itch.

But a self-respecting itch doesn't end there. It is stronger than you, and much more intelligent! It comes back with a vengeance. Fighting it does not work. What works (I hope) is completely accepting it, stepping deep into the fire, clothing myself with it, transforming unbearable yearning into satisfaction and delight merely by realizing that that is its real nature.

I think that this might be the actual hidden wisdom of tantra: that lust, desire, and rejection can be used as pathways to insight - as opposed to the consensus buddhist view *), which sees them as mere obstacles. That ultimate satisfaction is a seed buried within desire itself, not achieved through fulfilment, but found through acceptance, by looking close enough.

I had a very bad night. Didn't get to sleep, then woke from a nightmare, then woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep. Looking forward to that construction work, yay! But, maybe right because I'm so bleary-eyed, I'm also on the verge of orgasm without even doing anything. So this may turn out to be the day I end the streak just so I can get some sleep - or, it ends up the day on which I discover something completely new and sensational... of which you, my dear reader - if you indeed exist - would get to read tomorrow.

We'll see. Oh, we shall see!



*) term shamelessly stolen from David Chapman



Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 17: Too cool for school...

...too relaxed to post, too happy to care.

I'm slowly beginning to understand what it means to be emotionally independent. When you realize you have a stable foundation inside, and you need not rely on external factors. When all the annoyance just falls by the... WILL YOU BE QUIET? WILL YOU FUCKING STOP IT WITH YOUR BULLSHIT NOISE ALL THE TIME??? ..., you know, when you experience that calm inside. It's truly lovely. And it really improves the holiday experience.

We had wonderful sex last night. I made my wife cum a few times (more times than ever before actually). I rested in her, didn't cum. I love that way to have sex. Sadly, it can't last forever.

Today, I made a lot of flat maintenance - putting stuff in boxes and stowing them in cupboards. Perfect job for a rainy day, and my back very much appreciates all the exercise. The only downside is, I'm exhausted now.

I feel I'm at a bit of a crossroads. We'll spend the weekend at a good hotel, have a candlelight dinner and get pampered to no end. My wife told me that, me not cumming in her, feels like a tiny bit of a loss to her. As I said, I would love to go on without it for a few more weeks, but on the other hand, I want her to have the best sexual experience she can. She does appreciate all the enthusiasm though. Maybe I'll just see it as a kind of interruption, moreso than an end. Anyway I would like to keep up the journal, to make a note of how I feel afterwards. I might skip the weekend though. Being pampered tends to do that...

It gets down to a decision of priorities. There isn't any drama there. Either way is good, either way is a way forward. I'll just have to decide, that's all.



Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 16: An opportunity relax into the noise.

I'm quite tired. There is construction work going on outside, and it's fairly loud. I'm waiting for the delivery service guy to arrive (alcohol free beer, mostly). I don't plan on leaving the flat at all. Delivery food, a few videos, some reading...

Despite the tiredness, the annoying noises and the wait (which always makes me kind of nervous even if there isn't anything to fret about), I'm surprisingly focused, calm and content. I put it down to my daily meditation routine, intermittent deep breathing, yoga and the good feelings from the chastity work, mostly.

When you know how not to fight the noise, instead make a conscious effort to welcome it (counterintuitive as this is!), realize that you can't do anything about it anyway - well, I could go to a café or something, so if I choose otherwise, it's really my own fault isn't it - and try to see it is yet another practice, then it all becomes a lot easier.

Ultimately, the idea is that everything contains an element of joy, even what seems to annoy us and make us mad. I can vibe with the sounds, or pick a fruitless fight. There isn't even a question which is more intelligent. One can go a step further, meditate into the sounds, give myself compassion and later extend it to the construction workers.

I'm reminded of a zen anecdote, I don't know where I read it: The monks complained to the zen master that the noise from the construction site disturbed their meditation. To which the master replied: Then why do you disturb the sounds with your mind?

I'll try to get some writing done, do some housework and a bit of yoga, and other than that, just relax.



Monday, August 3, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 15: The thrill is gone

What do you do when the thrill wears of? Especially when you've committed to a daily journaling effort. Even if practically nobody will ever read this, I feel like I have an obligation to produce something mildly interesting each day.

You know what IS interesting? Since I dabble in writing, this is a problem I face quite often. I have a scene in my current narrative where a woman holds a wiccan/feminist/tantric course. It is important to establish her as a leader, and by the end of it, her patriarchal nemesis will break in and ruin the day. But what do I do to build this up? Sometimes, ideas come cheap. Sometimes they don't. There are a few techniques, but they only get you so far. You have to keep at it, even if it feels nothing goes right.

One way to deal with it is to go meta, break the fourth wall: for example, to talk about habits in general. A bit of a cop-out, but only a bit.

There is a dramaturgy to habits, a common way they unfold.

You start with firm dedication, great dreams and motivation. "I will prevail over the demon of smoking. I will practice my bass every day, and soon I will be a rock goddess."

For a week or so, you actually feel some progress.

Then it all peters off. Like in a love affair, the thrill is gone, and you want to move on. You drag on for a bit, and then...

Well, maybe you give up, actually move on to something else, or you drag yourself through that down. Life experience can help you with that. Friends can help. Accountability buddies. Habit trackers.  If it's a "negative" habit, like giving up alcohol or nofap, this might actually be a bit easier to get through - you don't have to drag your sorry ass up to do stuff, you just have to not-do anything. It can still be tough, with relief lurking around the corner, only a few minutes of rubbing it off.

Having a firm grasp of your imagination can help. When I wrote that last sentence, the urge came back. When I write my (rather sexually charged) narrative, it doesn't. So I think that it's a good idea to be very observative about the thoughts and images in my head. I don't feed my brain racy raunchy videos. I try and read a lot - it's on my daily habits list. Re-finding the advantage of reading over video-ing is good.

I think it is important to realize that it's not about instigating one change, and that's that. The motivation to change comes in waves, like everything else. The challenge is not to overcome the hollow - or dive through as it were - but to ride the flow and the ebb alike. There can be a realization that something unexpected might wait beyond the chasm, and holding out for a while will get you there, even if you don't see it yet. Or... or there is nothing, and then you have learned something valuable too.



Sunday, August 2, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 14: Philosophy

I got a bit of writing done yesterday. Improved my very own personal habit tracker. Revisited my ancient greek studies. Then went out with a friend and got properly wasted. Plus, we recited Goethe's Faust with much gusto.

All in all, a productive Saturday! Even more so if you keep in mind that this was the first day of my holidays!

This is decidedly a stay-in-bed Sunday.

The chastity is now quite easy to keep up. There is this deep joy in breathing the energy into my feet (which happens all by itself a lot of the time), or somewhere else (which requires some focus). It's a wonderful feeling without comparison. I wonder if one gets used to it, if one can get addicted to it, if it can turn into its own little habit.

I get the impression that habits are a lot like muscles - use them or lose them. That goes for good habits as well as bad ones. I wonder how this relates to self-definition - "Me, I'm just naturally chaste, deep down". Yeah, no, probably won't work.

I'm preparing a blog post, a reaction to a youtube video. I discovered that one can open the transcript, copy it into one's favourite text editor (vim - what else?), perform a few search/replaces, and you have a good-enough text to read and use for commenting. Quite fancy!

Saturday, August 1, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 13: Will I make it?

This promises to be interesting. Since it's saturday and we have some time together, and my wife is up for it, there will be sexual activity later on. Lots of headgiving on my part for sure, and maybe a bit of resting inside Goddess. It has happened in the past that I came from only being inside her, without any movement at all. It might happen again, unavoidably. One should not forget that my wife is the hottest woman in existence, right now even more than ever! (It's one part of why I'm doing this, after all!)
 
If it does happen, let's enjoy it and not look at it as a kind of loss. Remember, length of streak is a poor measure. Enjoyment matters more. Acceptance matters most.

I will do a little update later on...

UPDATE: Life got in the way. This is the good thing about a chastity lifestyle. When you don't get the sex, you can tell yourself that it was really a good thing, since you didn't end your streak, hehe.



Friday, July 31, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 12: Not really that hard, but probably boring

I'm thinking... maybe the reason why people end their "streaks" is not because they can't stand the arousal anymore, or because their spouses beg them for sexy time. Maybe it just gets boring after a while. You can't focus on on not having orgasms for the rest of your life. It's just not that interesting in and of itself.

In general, my interests seem to shift about every other week. For a long time, I tried to tackle that by forcing me to keep with one thing. That didn't work out at all. For example, I would be sitting with my latest literary text, and just... no words would come, I would get irritated, start looking around for other things to do, find excuses... By now, I try to always have at least one literary project, one coding project, and one book to read, so I can switch them up. This works quite well.

Just to find one more thing related to chastity: The language of "energy". I have ranted about this quite a lot in the past - mostly because I often encounter a kind of intellectual rigidity, and because I can't seem to manage to explain my position to people in a way that doesn't alienate them. And it's a shame because I feel we could all profit from sharing our notes.

I haven't found any proof of special sexual energies in the body. What I found, was a feeling that can be metaphorically described as an "energy" - just like we talk about "warm fuzzy feelings" or "getting cold feet". We don't think that our body temperature actually changes locally to any signifcant amount just because we have romantic emotions, or some mild panic. In the same vein, I see no reason to presume, based on my own experiences and whatever I know about human anatomy, that the "energy" is anything but a psychomotor effect. So I accept "kundalini", "energy", "qi" as more or less apt metaphors for something we do with our body/minds. Works for me, anyway.

What I seem to encounter, over and over again, are people who desparately need to convince me that there is some reality to it. And I want to convince them - wait for it - NOT that they are wrong, but that that belief is unnecessary for us to talk about our experiences. The experiences are exactly the same (I guess) regardless of our interpretation. Or not. In order to determine that, we have to first establish common ground. And that seems impossible to do.

I think this goes to a larger issue. I'm not going to drag religion and politics into this... but it seems like these are fundamentally similar issues. I think identity politcs, groupthink and tribalism play a part in this.

We're all massively identified with our own positions. That goes for those interlocutors, that goes for myself. It seems almost impossible to just present a point, explain how I got there, compare notes, and be done with it. It always escalates into anger and name-calling and you-just-don't-get-it, and whatever.

I tried a lot about that. Nothing ever works.

I would love to have a debate about "kundalini energy" - but purely on the meta level. I would like some people from the "it's real" crowd and some from the "it's just a metaphor" group (do you even exist? Hello...? HELLO!!!?) to talk about how we could talk about our common experiences, our paths and detours, without getting all riled up and dragged into debates about semantics.

I face a very similar issue when it comes to religion. There are those who believe in it - and there are those who think it's all bullcrap and just throw it away. I'm somewhere in between. I don't believe in it, but I think it's a fundamentally important part of the human condition, it's endlessly fascinating and we should study it in-depth - which I have been doing all my adult life. And it frustrates me to no and how there is no way to communicate across group boundaries without a fight.



Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Joyful_Chastity/comments/huosv1/getting_back_into_chastity/

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 11: Looking forward to the unknown

Second to last day before my holidays. I can't wait.

I'm quite certain that I won't break the streak on my own. Right now it doesn't seem appealing to me at all. That might change of course. Tomorrow night, going out and getting wasted is a given, an obligation, a holy deed. Strange as it might seem, more often than not this does not trigger the urge for sweet self-love. I just go home and fall asleep.

So, sex with my most lovely wife, which is bound to happen this weekend or during the next week. There's a bit of ambivalence on her part about the whole anorgasmic-sex thing: on the one hand, she gets to get off, moreso than otherwise. She cherishes the improved intimacy. On the other hand, she likes to feel me cum inside her, and I understand and respect that. I'm not at a place where I would outright ask her to dispense with it, and the bdsm "make me wait" trope is hard to do because she just ain't dominant. She will indulge me sometimes, but it really ain't her true self. Then again, holidays sometimes have changed our dynamic quite a bit, there was more room for experimentation, so who knows what will happen.

Many cards are still in the deck, it would seem.

It would be lovely to go on without any orgasm until at the end of August. (I admit part of my motivation is to prove that, no, strange women will not start drooling over me, I won't suddenly have supermuscles, and I won't start flying around town.)

As for habits in general, and gaining motivation, I created a little habit tracker for myself - just your basic online php/mysql thingie, not even an app - and it helped me a lot. The sheer act of writing it down, and seeing the stats, helped me eat better, read and write more, and keep with the nofap.

I guess I've stopped believing in the mantra of concrete, tangible goals. It would seem that I do quite well with "I would like to write some more". Goals like "writing three times a week" always run the risk of leading to frustration and resignation with me. I think it's a question of character type. Some can only do it with very strict rules, while others deal better with some leniency.



Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 10: Some days it's hard to write

I had a wonderful breathing/meditation/tantra session last night. I didn't even start touching myself at all, didn't go for edging or anything. It felt much calmer this way, very relaxing, and got me to drift off to sleep in the midst of a thunderstorm.

Still got out on the wrong side of the bed today -- and it's a new bed straight outta ikea too! Got some headache going on, am in no mood to write or do anything much. I'm in need of holidays! So looking forward to next week.

On the other hand, no incentive to end the streak. Strange thing too. Normally, when things get rough, chastity is one of the first things to fall by the wayside, because wanking is a quick, easy release. I think writing this thread helps me keep up the motivation - even though I realize that no more than a handful of people will ever read it.

It would be lovely to have some form of accountability community where people call you out if you miss a day. Hard to do though, since nobody can enforce it. But I think it might help with a lot of habits people try to establish.



Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Diary of a nofap streak - Day 9: Calm

It would seem that my internal workings are settling back down to normal. No compulsive browsing of bdsm subs, no strong desire to look at nudeys. This jibes quite well with the finding of [that one study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12659241/), which said that testosterone peaks in males after a week of abstinence, but then peters back to the levels before the abstinence. (I don't claim that this necessarily *is* the answer -- hormones are a complex topic and should not be reduced to one single factor, neat as it sounds, and purportedly the actual content of said study reflects that fact.)

There is still some work-related stress before the holidays, but it can be managed. Oh and I set up our new ikea bed all by myself - not normally something to brag about, but for a 49yo spastic some back pain, it's quite the feat.

I wonder if all my future posts will consider more or less of "nothing special". If so, a terribly uninteresting period lies ahead!

One thing though, is the deepness of breath. It's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but there is this thing known as "transmutation of sexual energy" -  it feels like you're breathing the sexual powers from your genitals all through your body, and with prolongued chastity it tends to become "deeper", more "connected". The whole "I need to get laid right now" just kind of falls away, and it gets gradually replaced by a feeling of being connected with the universe. I totally understand where all the spiritual descriptions stem from - it really does feel that way, and if you don't activate your skepticism, you will likely fall for it. Even moreso if you need something "higher" to motivate you and keep you on the straight and narrow. It's very tempting.

I still think a lot of the good stuff has to do with "ego loss", which is just another word for letting go, and then letting go, and then letting go some more, all without forcing yourself. It allows you to get in touch with your fellow humans some more, probably being less in need of a filter composed of your projections. At least, that's the idea.