Realize that PMO is the highest correlative sign of depression besides maybe literally attempting suicide. That is, more than almost anything else, the more you PMO the more depressed you are. So, as you do anything to stop PMO, you end up doing something to prevent depression. 
Seriously, you need to understand this because its important: STOP PMO AND YOU STOP MOST OF DEPRESSION.
PMO might not cause depression, or it might not be depression, but it's one of the biggest check engine lights you might have. 
So, set stopping PMO as a high priority and don't let anything get in the way of that.
Moreover, you can't follow actualized.org if you don't take responsibility for your life. Period.
But letting PMO stop you shows a major sign of irresponsibility. You're letting your dick take over your life. It's pathetic. I mean, how do you expect to change your life and change the world if you can't even take responsibility for your own dick?
So, make a commitment. Envision the life that’s possible and then envision what happens when you don’t take action. Then, when urges pop up, just find new shit to do with yourself. 
Also check out Improvement Pill's work on the topic on YouTube. He has a whole thing called the Tamed course that's fantastic.
Also Check out the book the 4 tendencies. 

Just for sake of legal disclosure I feel I should tell you guys, I'm Forum Leo, not Youtube Leo. Youtube Leo is some other guy. I cannot be held accountable for what Youtube Leo says. To be perfectly honest, I think Youtube Leo might have a few screws loose.
And Youtube Leo isn't even the Real Leo. Youtube Leo was just a nobody slot machine salesman in Las Vegas before Real Leo hired him to do all his talking him while Real Leo collects all the profits on a private island in Fiji.
Don't tell him I told you, or he will beat me.

Hey guys, I finally decided to write a "report" of the solo retreat I had back in September. I'm going to start by telling you something about my situation, so that you get a better idea of who is behind this long text. 
 
Background
I'm a 21 yo college student who is into personal development and likes to read, swim, cook, meditate, play the piano,...
I come from a place of suffering and insecurity, which derives from a sense of inferiority and low self-esteem mainly caused by the fact that I had a late physical development  and also by how I was raised. In my teenage years I mostly played video games and football (soccer) while still doing pretty good in school. As you can imagine I was pretty shy, had low confidence and wasn't that much social. But I always had that idea of growth planted in me. I've always thought possible to improve myself and my circumstances, probably because I wasn't happy about the situation I was in. A friend of mine played a role in this by introducing me to the importance of self-awareness. This has been the key for me to start realizing that I have the power to do something with my life, to decide to be happy. I finally stumbled across Leo's video, which didn't get me in the beginning, because he was saying things I didn't want to ear. Some months later I started to watch them regularly and never stopped since then. It slowly changed my life. I've been meditating for a year now, 20 minutes every day with some exceptions. I started with the Do-Nothing technique and after 6 months changed to Mindfulness Meditation with labeling.
 
Why I did the retreat
I only had 3 weeks vacation from college, so, inspired by Leo, I thought it would have been a good idea to invest 7 days in doing this. I wanted to do this as an experiment, to isolate myself from distractions of internet, society, my family and friends, and thus to be able to get more in touch with my deepest desires and truths. This was also a perfect occasion to work on the life purpose course, since I put it aside months before in order to concentrate on the exams. Furthermore I just wanted to get serious about this journey.
 
Logistics
Although I was staying in an apartment I felt pretty isolated, thanks to the view I had on the forest and mountains. I had the occasion to walk in the forest, it was really refreshing.

Regard food I kept it rather simple: porridge with honey and berries for breakfast, vegetables with rice or potatoes for lunch and Leo's soup for dinner. I ate chicken once and had some eggs, no dairy though. I was hungry all the time and it really helped to have all kind of fruits, dark chocolate and mixed nuts around for snacks.
Rules: no internet other than Actualized.org material, no contact with people and no long hikes
 
What I did during the retreat
At the beginning of the retreat I made the assessment of my life, as Leo advises in the video "How to get started with Self-Actualization", it was a good session of journaling and cleared my mind, it really helps to put thoughts into written words.
I read "The Big Leap", I meditated for minimum 1 hour every day and worked on the course for as long as necessary. I also took notes on some regular Leo's videos.
Don't forget your body health. I made sure to move my body (taking walks and stretching) and not to sit for too long.
 
Insights and considerations
Going on retreat gets you out of your usual environment, which is useful to receive new perspectives on your life. It also tests your cravings and maybe addictions. I noticed a certain sadness, emptiness or almost fear arising when I thought about the fact that I had nothing to do. Usually I cheer up in the present moment thanks to the things that will happen in the future. I have made progress in finding my life purpose, but I haven't been able to put it together. I think I need more time to elaborate what I discovered about myself and now, after 3 months, I'm going back to contemplate the matter. The retreat has been really helpful to set up the environment that allowed me to dig deeper into my soul, to clarify what I want to get out of life, to plan my future. I can say that it was the "official" starting point of my Self-Actualization journey, with the commitment to making it a priority in my life.  
TLDR: I highly recommend to go on retreat. It will help to get good insights about whatever you want to investigate. If you get clear on the intentions of your retreat and if you put in the work, it will help you to grow a lot, it really is a catalyst! 
 

Exactly. Labelling is great to identify sensations, emotions & thoughts however you still keep them at a distance. This method clears out the contraction that arises when you push a subset of the basic emotions away.

Hey guys. Hope you're all good. After my awakening and permanent self-realization in May, 2017 my spiritual interest died down a lot. My participation on this forum went down, my spiritual practices came to an end and my whole journey imploded. This happened because I found the answers and tranquillity I looked for when I started. The answer that awakening and permanent self-realization gives you is the vanishing of the question you posed in the beginning of your journey. Your whole conceptual world comes to an end (mostly) and you live, think and talk mostly spontaneously and not pre-mediated. That's quite nice.
In the beginning of this new phase I had to adjust my entire life to this situation, so I needed quite a bit of time for that. A lot of new experiences and perspectives opened up to me and I took my time to investigate those. Right now it's the end of 2017 and I am still stable in non-dual awareness and mostly not contracted in my body. I also start to deepen my self-realization and push it towards "God Awareness" to go on with my journey. So I figure it's time to let you in on the techniques I researched and developed shortly before I woke up and that helped me to wake up permanently.
+++ Enter Azrael's Awakening Anchor #1 | How To Solve Emotional Suffering +++
I'm a big proponent of meditation. It's a great practice and the basis of everything we do. If you cannot sit with yourself and enjoy it, how can you ever understand your self? However, as we meditate and go on with our journey it gets clear that regular meditation is too slow and mild of a practice to give us the transformation that we want. That's why we have to develop accelerators on top of this basis.
The process I'll describe in a second is such a accelerator. It was developed by myself in January - February of 2017 and is based on a few other practices I know. It's main purpose is to solve emotional suffering and contraction of energy in your body. One of the big reasons you are not enlightened and always go back to sleep after a temporary awakening is that your body and mind are full of contractions that keep your ego in place. It is the energetic anchor in the nervous system that makes your ego, persona and body feel quite real and connected. It also makes your suffering feel quite real.
The method was tested on myself, @Huz and a friend of mine. I used it maybe 5-10 times in a span of 3 weeks to get rid of a lot of emotional suffering and contraction in my body. I did it with @Huz and he did it on himself as well and it died down most of his social anxiety almost instantly. My other friend cured most of his anger and had weeks of temporary awakening experiences after we did the technique once.
In my opinion the technique works best when you do it on someone else. The shift that happens seems to be deeper and its good to have someone to lead the process. However, it is possible to do it on yourself and still have a lot of changes happening. I am thinking right now to give away 3 free skype sessions for you guys to do this process - led by me. If you are interested, let me know in the comments. Also, I'm thinking to make a product out of this and help people with this process over a couple of weeks + consultation (also via a series of skype sessions). So if you'd be interested in that, let me know as well.
+++ The Technique: An Interview With Your Inner Children +++
The process is rooted in the observation that all of the egoic and unintegrated roles that your ego plays arise from an contraction of your basic emotions
fear / sadness anger / rage happiness / inspiration love Every role that you play takes the raw energy of a subset of these emotions, contracts them in your body / mind and lets a thought story arise out of this contraction to express the energy. The problem is that these roles -> thought stories -> contracted emotions -> raw contraction of energy are anchored in your body / mind (aka nervous system) and get triggered all throughout your day. Because you have a lot these contracted roles and one role can trigger another role, you live in the illusion of a conceptual world of suffering.
if you were to experience a subset of these 4 basic emotions in their uncontracted normal form, you wouldn't suffer. You would only have an intense, emotional experience. That's why it sometimes feels good to be in anger / rage or to melt in fear / sadness. Although other times, it seems like it destroys you (-> contraction).
Based on this conceptualized observation, we need to find a way to unravel these contractions to let them out of your system. One very direct way to do this is to give a subconscious, uncontrolled emotion a conscious voice to express its situation and to understand its position.
+++ The Technique's Technicalities +++
The actual technique works in the following way (if you do it on yourself).
Sit down comfortably on a chair / cushion. Repeat the following steps for every basic emotion {fear / sadness, anger / rage,  happiness / inspiration, love} Close your eyes and visualize a moment in your life in which you experienced the current emotion very strongly. Let your whole body sink into the emotion. Let it arise where it typically arises in your body. Think the thoughts it triggers when it comes up. In other words: Let the damn thing come on. Interview the emotion. That means ask the emotion a question and then answer the question from the standpoint of the emotion. Your questions should aim to "get to know" the emotion, its purpose, goal, its relationships with people, other emotions, yourself and the work that it does for you. Find a way with the current emotion to work better together with it in the future. That means work out a solution so that it can flow freely and you can live with it uncontracted and free. Open your eyes, stretch, think about what the emotion said and how you can live with that and go on with the next one. When you start working with this technique you will have to "play" the emotion's role. That means that you ask a question and you have to answer it from the perspective of the emotion. After doing this for 2-3 minutes, the emotion will come on so strongly that it'll take over and it will feel very real. I had numerous psychedelic-like experiences doing this technique. You might also experience big shifts in consciousness / awareness + a big opening of your body.
+++ An Interviewer's Template For Each Emotion +++
To make the process even simpler, I'll share with you a template that I developed over time that works quite well. Use this in this order for every emotion you interview and add follow-up / deepening questions for your own usecase:
Question: Who are you? Possible Answer: I am fear. Question: How do you feel? Possible Answer: I feel quite ... Question: Where are you located in my body when you arise? Possible Answer: I typically arise in your ... Question: How and when do you arise? Possible Answer: I come up when ... Question: When was the first time you can remember that you came up? Possible Answer: When you were ... years old, I came up while you were ... Question: What is your job and main goal? Possible Answer: My job is to protect you from ... Question: Do you sometimes work together with other emotions? If yes, with which and how? Possible Answer: Yeah, I sometimes work together with ... Question: Do you have enemies? If so, which ones and why? Possible Answer: Yeah, I hate ...          [...]
Question: What could we do to live more integrated together in the future? Possible Answer: You'd have to ... I hope you get the idea. Your main goal here is to fully understand and characterize every basic emotion and through that integrate it. It's very important when you do the interview, that you speak as "I the interviewer" and "I the emotion" so that you fully identify with your current position. It'll be strange at first, an then it'll be awesome and deep. Trust me.
+++ Further Notes +++
So that's the basic technique. When you do it with someone else over a series of times there are more elements to it. But this is the main bullet that you need to do it with yourself. if you do it formally as I described it, close your eyes throughout the interview of each emotion an then open your eyes at the end of each interview and contemplate what just happened and what to with it. Then get out of your current state (as good as it might feel) and hop on to the next emotion.
Explore how they work together, where they come from, how they contract and how they are triggered. Get the most accurate characterisation of each emotion on the intellectual, emotional and energetic level that you can get. Especially the first few times you do it, get deep and take your time. You'll notice a big release of tension in each sitting and after it which will be permanent.
When you notice throughout the day that you feel contracted, you can also make a mini-interview and just ask yourself "Fear, are you that? Rage is it you? ..." and ask what is happening and why it is happening. That'll in most cases end your contraction pretty fast and bring you an even deeper understanding of your emotions.
--
Try it! Let me know how it works for you and ask any questions that you have. Are you interested in a one-on-one skype session with me leading this? Maybe I'll throw 3 free sessions out there, if you guys are interested and it works for you. Are you interested in me making a product out of this, where we'd have multiple skype sessions with consultations + this technique over a period of time to integrate your emotions completely? Let me know. I will think about that.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to make more of these Azrael's Awakening Anchors to share what helped me to wake up. Peace out and be good to yourself.
Cheers,
Az

The reality is that even if you see that thing doesn't exists , there is only the sense of vision , the ''thing'' that you are seeing is just an idea
 
 

@egoless You're yet too immature to handle the Truth.
That ego of yours got one tiny glimpse of its destruction and went reeling. Very predictable.

I am going to make the radical claim that I've attained stable realization of the Absolute.
I don't feel like making a post, but you can ask me questions about my experience if you want.
I won't be offended if you think I'm full of crap. That is all well and good. 
I was talking to @Leo Gura about it, and he told me to make a post.
I've also been confirming with my teachers (I'm not giving away their identity), and friends who have attainment.
Edit: This isn't a  mere realization of no-self. That is nice, and I experienced that previously, but this is much deeper. It's called Sahaja Samadhi (I know that's a bold claim, but I've really researched it. Feel free to be skeptical. I've conversed with teachers and realized friends. This seems to be the case).

@Peter Zemskov I don't use time at all. And I usually go for approximately one hour. At  roughly 20 minute mark (which I call gateway) I enter the blissful state of NOW. I am completely dissolved in the presence with close to 0 thoughts appearing in my mind. I could sit in that way for hours probably. But usually I "wake up" myself at some point.

The thing that you are counting your minutes so desperately prompt me that you are probably doing it wrong. Meditation if done correctly becomes one of the most pleasurable "tasks" to do. So much so that you will look forward to it instead of forcing yourself into it. Master do nothing and surrendering to the present moment technique.

HOW ENLIGHTENED ARE YOU?
IF....
If you can live without caffeine,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him or her,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender preference, or politics,
--Then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog!

Master: Tell me a joke about Enlightenment.

Disciple: Master, Enlightenment is a very serious thing.

Master Laughs Out Loud.
Disciple: What are you laughing about Master?
Master: Nothing.

So the vendor d o e s make him one with everything, and hands him that hot dog.

The monk searches his robes and finds a twenty dollar bill, hands it to the vendor.

He waits....and waits....and waits... . Finally, the monk asks: "What about my change?"

The vendor replies: "Change can only come from within."

Hehe, of course. Infinite intelligence is at work in the movement of the entire universe. It all moves as one. Your ego cannot do that. Your ego is very linear and limited. If you want to be maximally creative, you need to get your ego out of the way so that you are directly tapping the infinite intelligence which is truly running the entire show and is responsible for all spontaneous insight -- on which artistic creative genius depends. The genius isn't yours, it's God's.
The problem is that you've been mistaking God's genius for your own, you sneaky Devil
The Devil struggles to write good music. For God, it is effortless.

No, you are wrong about that. You actually have zero control in that example. The problem is that you're not actually being mindful of what is happening when the arm is getting activated to move.
If you very carefully observed the thought process happening which leads to the raising of the arm, you'd see that it wasn't in your control.
The problem here is that you're looking at the example from your existing paradigm of: "I have control". But that's just an unverified belief. You haven't actually bothered to investigate whether you have control or not. You just assume it, and so of course it seems like you do. Try looking at the situation from the opposite paradigm: "I have no control".
Try raising your arm again, but this time VERY SLOWLY, and notice that you are in fact not in control of it.
In fact, you haven't got the slightest idea of how your arm is raised. You have no idea how you are even summoning the desire to raise the arm, nor how you are telling the arm what to do.

Classic yogi diets are highly recommended for clarity of mind. Which means:
No animal protein No dairy No sugar No onion, no garlic, no potatoes, no tomatoes, no hot peppers No wheat No boxed or processed foods No caffeine, no alcohol, no stimulants As much raw, uncooked food as possible As much organic as possible It's NOT an easy diet to maintain long-term in our society. You will be hungry a lot and it will cost you about double or triple what the SAD diet costs.
If you're gonna eat animal protein, fish is best, then pasture-raised eggs, and lastly pasture-raised meat.
The upside is that your clarity of mind will skyrocket! A lot energy is wasted on digesting the wrong foods.