NOT DEAD YET!

[Privet]

Just before I started writing this post I was battling with my ego and pride about making this journal because for some strange reason I thought that I gotta be some lone-wolf dude that does amazing shit all alone and is so damn self-sufficient that doesn't want to bother anyone with his problems. What a narcissist bullshit!

I think that one of the main objectives of this topic is to make things formal for me. Mind tends to not give a shit about commitment over time so it's a good idea to regularly formally remind yourself what you are doing and why. The fact that some people may read this journal makes it a little less likely to quit rather than a private one. 

For last three months I was very nihilistic about anything exept for enlightenment/spirituality/meditation. I don't know what exactly caused that, my insights in the nature of desire and meaning or that's just consequences of addictions and depression, so it makes me struggle a little with this journal, but I do realize that it will certainly be beneficial and helpful.

Right now my biggest challenge in life is my addiction to any kind of sexual stimulation, mostly porn and masturbation. It stays in a way of my self development because it created severe depression, huge energy problems, lack of concentration.

I did over 500 hours of strong determination sitting over the last year and lately the only thing I can focus on is my depression, it transformed to mostly sense of brain fog, feels just like physical pain. It is so intense that it's just pointless to concentrate on something else because it just won't work, even just observing thoughts is mostly problematic. I cried hundreds of times for the last two-three years and suffering becomes less of a problem, but it really is on my way towards more advanced non-duality stuff, because I realize that concentration and clear mind are needed for this work. 

Here is the list of reasons to quit (stuff to visualize):

• Getting rid of depressed zombie mind. I want to have clear thinking and perception again and not feel like I didn't sleep for several days. It will make my meditation better and make me more prone to insights. I will be more aware of being, which will create more joy.
• Energy, enthusiasm, charisma. I know I can be way more charming, playful, entertaining if I quit. People will like me more and I will express myself better in interaction with them. 
• Reducing sleep problems. When I go on nofap I start to sleep better. Better sleep will make me feel better, think clearer and be more aware and energized.
• Motivation and ability to work. I have a huge passion and lots of stuff to do! I do really wanna be fascinated with it again.
• Reducing social anxiety. Nofap makes me care less about what people think of me. How great that will be to not feel bombarded with people's attention.
• Not being slave of lust. It's just fucking disgusting! I'm an animal! My life is fused with lust! Fuck that! Stupid waste of time and energy!

This is the list of things to remember and read regularly:

• Quitting this addiction is number one priority in my life at the moment. If I fail at that everything else falls apart. It fucks up my life for sure. There was too many attempts.
• It will be fucking terrible because I am very addicted. I MUST accept that suffering and stay away from addictive pleasures whatever it takes.
• It will take continued grueling effort. I need to stay away from anything related to sex at least for one year, because impact of porn/masturbation on my body and psyche is too serious to vanish in just couple months.
• I need to let go of hope that I will masturbate or watch porn for pleasure ever again. It just doesn't work this way. My addiction clearly shown me why lust is bad and useless. And when you are on nofap your mind makes all kind of justifications why is it beautiful or natural or something else. Bullshit! I relapsed dozens of timed and always, ALWAYS regretted and went down on the addiction spiral.
• Though withdrawals may be hard I should remember that it's temporary, suffering is just an illusion, it may be not as bad as I percieve it. Many people have done it so can do I, I even read some schizophrenics made it.

These lists will be updated/modified.

I need to get back on track with my daily 90 minute strong determination sitting after early wake up as I did for months. 

I commit to 30 day challenge: no lust, early awakening, SDS before breakfast, get to bed early, daily check in here.

There is already some sense of investment after I wrote this post. I was struggling to just make myself to take it seriously when I started. Good!

 

[Privet]

I overslept because I slept just for couple hours before alarm. Then I kept snoozing it and eventually completely knocked off, was too unsonscious and sleepy. 

So today I will get to bed early and stay there no matter what, I've seen in one video Shinzen Young said that if you can't sleep - rest, just keep your body in stillness and do some technique like do-nothing.

Also I commit to 1) leave my phone on the table, turn on all lights and get to bed for ten minutes, then when the second alarn rings to wake up completely 2) make a paper note on my phone to remind me about lights and that "DON'T BRING THE PHONE IN BED" becuse I may just forget that due to sleepiness or exhaustion.

90 mins SDS done, not before breakfast thought, cause I had to help parents when I woke up. Didn't have much depression today and it seems that it is because I ate just once yesterday, I usually overeat and hunger makes me feel better.

I need to stop thinking about nofap, because it only creates temptation. Detach and not be afraid to fail but at the same time to take it seriously. Best strategy shoud be: to forget about it and fill your mind with other stuff like meditation, LP, but to take urges seriously and not trying to ignore them, to cope with them by being mindful and trying to achieve relief with different means (squats, push-ups, breathing etc).

[Privet]

I wrapped my phone before sleep with a paper and wrote on it about lights and that I don't need to take the phone in bed, but I still overslept and don't even remember how I unwrapped it. Because I couldn't fall asleep again at night.

This time I will try to set the alarm later and see if I will be conscious enough to not knock off again.

SDS is done when I woke up. 

I felt a lot of nervous pressure today, like a mania/impatience, turned on metal songs and danced like an idiot until I got tired. I inspired this idea from Osho's dynamic meditation, consciously going insane to relief tension. I don't know what is this, probably a side effect of SDS, or some accumulated repressed emotions, or both, or damage of chronic masturbation done to brain. But this tension feels shitty, lack of awareness + lack of concentration + sense of urge + tension in the head.

[Privet]

I overslept again. Couldn't fall asleep till morning. In the middle of the night I just took my phone and started reading/posting on the forum, it calmed my restlesness a little.

Before that I was just laying and swinging side to side like a schizophrenic, that's part of the dark side of meditation. Also I have urges to shake my body parts or throw things, couple minutes ago as I was writing this I just started shaking my legs. Right now I feel like I can start to laugh at any moment like a crazy for no reason. Although today I have less physical tension in my head. 

At the beginning of the night when I just went to bed I had around one hour of spontaneous deep contemplation on the nature of thought. It seemed so interesting and made me very aware of the content of my mind, like really what the hell is thought? Not formally explained but from the experience. It's like some radio that is located nowhere. When. I. am. aware. of. my. thoughts. they. sound. like. this. sentence. You can try to understand them only by observation, it's impossible to define thought by thought. Each thought is some weird experience, really weird, we are so used to them and get lost in them that don't even appreciate what a minfuck they are. Right now, as you read this sentence, what the fuck is that voice that is reading it? What a strange fucking radio? What... a... strange... fucking... radio? 

Curiousity is a great tool to develop desire to do "unpleasant" stuff, better than discipline, consider these examples:

Meditation: what if I will sit motionless for 3 hours? What if I overcome rising resistance? How would I feel? What if I will try to be aware of every thought in my mind for one hour? Maybe something will change in my perception? What will it be like?

Celibate: what if I will not cum for 1 year? How would that make me feel? What if I underestimate benefits?

Diet: what if I will eat very healthy for 1 month? How would that make me feel? What if it will make me feel as good as I havent felt for years?

Reading: what if X book will have a huge impact on my life? What if it has some knowledge that will resolve some part of my confusion? What if it will inspire me for something great?

Edited December 24, 2017 by Privet

[Privet]

I've got an idea. Since I'm an internet addict I will wake up, do breathing exercises to cheer me up and post here how shitty I feel. Hopefully that goal will make me wake up. 

Also I'd like to meditate during sunrise, it's so beautiful in the winter.

[Privet]

It worked. Although not as good as I planned. I slept just couple hours. Turned on lights and tried to stay awake in bed, damned weakness and unconsciousness because of depression doesn't even let me memorize that I wanted to do breathing exercises so it took over an hour to awaken.

[Privet]

I've just had an amazing 1.5h meditation. I was doing the trick I learned in one of Shinzen's videos. It's a process of tracking hidden/shadow tension and resistance in your body and psyche that is scattering your attention and makes it difficult to concentrate. When I resolved all tension an intense yawning happened and I relaxed. Then I just naturally became aware of my thoughts and mind was getting more and more quiet, as some time passed I had very little thoughts and good awareness so I tried to concentrate and get curious about what is left, it felt like I am about to wake up but due to some strange reason I just couldn't go through something like invisible barrier, it lasted like 20-30 last minutes. Then the alarm sounded. 

I'm a little sad but anyways even that high level awareness and peace of mind are very rewarding and motivating, I guess I will sit more today.

 

Edited December 25, 2017 by Privet

[Privet]

Sat another 2 hours. Got very close in the middle, heart was pumping, but didn't happen. It felt like I'm about to cry because I saw something very beautiful. Like when you get closer to fire you feel the warmth, same here but with beauty. Last 30-40 minutes was very alert and silent.

I feel like I don't give too much shit about enlightenment because it will only be the beginning and practice is already almost fueling itself.

I gotta wake up tomorrow and post again that I woke up, cuz I say YES to posting about every fart.

[Privet]

SDS and Nofap ok.

Overslept again because couldn't fall asleep. Have been laying for several  hours at night and enjoyed the state of conciousness that achieved by meditation. Even laughed once because dropped into near-nondual awareness, life seemed like a fucking joke.

I am well-aware that late awakening made me a little foggy. I was so fascinated with increased awareness that didn't think/visualize much about waking up early, it wasn't of a big priority.

Right now I'm visualizing how fresh every morning felt when I was waking up early and practiced right away. I have to remember that this terrible depressed state after sleep will pass in like 15-20 minutes if I just get up and wait.

I'M GONNA TAME THAT SUCKER

[Privet]

I got up 3 hours earlier than usual.

SDS 1.5h x 2 done and I will sit one more.

Nofap withdrawals grew almost fully:

• Sense of heaviness
• Weaker awareness, reality fog
• Strong sense that I need something
• Depression (self-shaming, hopeless future, sentimentality, meaninglessness of actions)

Meditation makes it more bearable, but it gets really hard to sit at the beginning of the session untill resistance goes away.

Goal for tomorrow to not get back to the bed when I turn off an alarm clock in the morning.

[Privet]

SDS ok.

Nofap ok.

Sleeping pattern - not ok. Still battling with this one.

[Privet]

I meditated two hours right after previous post and had tiny glimpses of awakening, I barely scratched the surface several times and was laughing so hard that couldn't go deeper because of that.

Today I thought to try to sit 9 hours but I only managed 4 x 1.5h, on the fifth one resistance and unconsciousness grew so much that I was thinking of Nofap relapse so I stopped.

Sleeping pattern - woke up 4 hours earlier than usually.

[Privet]

Nofap ok. SDS 5hrs.

I'm giving up with sleep for a while because I'd better concentrate on meditation. I'll have time to practice a lot till 8 Jan. It's damn delicious, precious silence.

[Privet]

SDS 4 hrs. Nofap ok.

Shadow shit is pouring out of me. I weeped today after morning meditation.

[Privet]

SDS 1.5h x 2 at the end of the third one I got nuclear diarrhea and had to.. ..RUN!

Today is the first day when I had to distract myself from sexual thoughts when I saw some legs on YouTube. Overall Nofap goes well, but I have a feeling that it's not as easy to keep my sexual energy in hibernate mode anymore, I'm like hungry tiger with closed eyes in front of a rabit.

It turns out that I greatly underestimated how much shadow I have and how important that is. Eckart Tolle' pain body concept + finding out reasons of that pain + meditating on it seems to work very well. Whenever your mind is throwing to you some situations where you feel negative emotional reaction, like if your mother is shaming you or some narcissistic friend is trying to make fun of you, cling to that feeling and keep focusing on it. 

I discovered that sense of tension in my head that makes me spaced out is somehow related to the pain body because when I concentrate on any of them they seem to flow one into another and vice versa. Probably that tension is partially caused by emotional traumas.

[Privet]

I sat 3h + 1h. I planned to sit 6h but during the second session I realized how angry I am and stopped. 1st 3 hour long session + nofap hormone boost gave me some ego backslash and awakened some deep emotional pain. Haven't been that much angry for a while.

I hung up a thin rope in the middle of the room, made a playlist of the most heavy songs of Slipknot and was punching it for 30 minutes.

If you concentrate on something and ignore your emotional pain it's going into shadow and it will hit you afterwards with the force that is proportional to effort that you apply to concentration. So if you have a lot of shadow pain better make it your object of concentration.

I have just reread my first post and set an intention to read it every time I post here (those two lists).

[Privet]

Damn it seems that every 3h long session gives me serious backslash. I overate before sleep yesterday and was very unconscious and emotional. Couple weeks ago that led to nofap relapse and also I remember one more time this summer when I was so depressed the evening after 3h meditation.

Nofap withdrawals grew more. Everything takes a lot of effort. It's getting harder to be aware of my thoughts. All morning I felt like I'm a lazy horny chimp that can't do shit. I turned on music and slowly started breathe harder with the rhythm then eventually I could do breathing exercises. It's really a life saver, it made me feel better enought to finally start meditation. I did 1.5h x 2.

Mind was throwing sexual thoughts and one moment I thought "DUDE! YOU'RE ADDICTED TO IMAGINARY SEX! HOW STUPID IS THAT?!" This statement makes it easier to abstain from sexual fantasies.

Also I noticed positive changes:

- If I apply effort my thoughts and concentration are clearer (but at the same time the "reality fog" of withdrawals takes some effort to overcome). For example I can make sense of what I read faster and don't need to reread shit multiple times.

- Increase in masculinity. I feel like a man, it feels like sense of solidity in my intentions, authority, confidence.

- I feel that I'm sexy for no reason, lol.

- Reality feels more real and juicy (but yeah, withdrawals still don't let to feel that fully).

[Privet]

Nofap ok. SDS ok.

I wake up in good mood for 2 days, nice.

[Privet]

SDS 1.5h x 2. Nofap ok.

 

[Privet]

I've got some insane brain fog when I was trying to fall asleep yesterday and insomnia, I couldn't even concentrate at anything at all, not even present moment. Seems like some hormone rollback, but I'm not sure.

It also affected today, I have been postponing meditation until evening and just spent whole day in entertainment.

Also I have nervous laughter again.

I listened to a part of Shinzen's "Science of Enlightenment" and found there an interesting object of concentration - the sense of relaxation. When you concentrate on it there a feedback loop appears, the more you concentrate on it the more you relax, the more you relax the more you get involved in that. I tried to practice this way today, and the beginning it kinda worked but evenrually I became aware of the brain fog and it's so intense that it makes it easier to concentrate on it rather than relaxation sensation.

I guess if you are so fucked that you can't concentrate whatsoever you should choose a larger object like present moment, whole body, depression etc.