Hey friends! A few months ago, I wrote an article about masturbation from a Christian perspective, and ever since then, I have gotten so many emails from you guys saying the same question: "I'm addicted to masturbation. I don't know how to stop. Please help! What do I do? And so I have been hesitating to write on an article on this just because I usually talk about things that I've personally struggled with. This isn't something I've personally experienced.
But recently, as I thought about it, I realized, you know, I have struggled with the kind of like an addiction to food and binge eating. And I used the term "addiction" loosely here. I'm not talking about a diagnosed addiction, but I'm talking about those cycles that you can't seem to break free from.
You're like trying to stop this habit, and you just can't seem to, and there's a lot of shame involved. And I think that addictive cycles, whether to food or masturbation or pornography or something else, I think it's all very similar and we fight those addictions in a lot of the same ways.
So today, I want to share six ways that you can break the addictive cycle of masturbation. So before we go any further, if you're new here, welcome! My name is Dhananjay Patel. We usually do articles about relationship advice, but we often do one about like sex or masturbation or just the questions you have. So share this article if you want to see more material like this and a lot more about relationship advice.
Now the overarching idea for today's article is the idea of neuroplasticity in your brain. And if you've never heard of it before, don't zone out. It's a super simple concept. It's the idea that when you do something enough times, your brain creates like a pathway. So whenever we face a trigger like loneliness, if we always binge eat, then our mind creates that pathway. So it's like, "I'm lonely; I binge eat." That's just the easiest way to go; it's well-worn, well-travelled; this is how my brain wants to send me.
So our brain needs to start creating new and different pathways to break addictive cycles. And so what I want to talk about today are six ways that you can begin to change the paths in your brain, so that when you hit those triggers, instead of automatically being routed down the road of masturbation in your mind and having to fight that, instead your brain says: "Here are other pathways that you can take." therefore pathways builders variety of 1 is that the "Fill the Void."
When I was struggling with binge eating, there was a physiological need: I was hungry. I needed food. Just like our bodies are created with this physiological desire for sex. That's a regular thing, and it's a good thing. But whenever there's this addictive cycle present, when you want to stop something but can't, it's because of something more profound.
There's more going on than just a physical need. So for me with the binges, yes, I was hungry, but I was also lonely. That was my biggest trigger, the biggest avoid in my heart, and I was mostly trying to fill my loneliness with food. I'd be wonderful all day long - busy with classes and stuff -but when I got back to my dorm room in college at night, and all my friends are out with their boyfriends, and I'm there alone - the single girl who just went through a breakup - and all I wanted to do was binge eat this huge family-size bag of pretzels.
It was like every pretzel I ate, I was hoping it would somehow fill or number the loneliness I felt, but it would never be able to do that because you can't fill an emotional need with real food. And I think masturbation can be that same way, where we try to use it to numb or fill void sin our lives that it can never fill. So before I ever stopped binge eating, I had to start putting in place ways to fill that void in other ways.
For me, that was friendships with people who loved me for me, seeing mentors to talk about some of my past struggles with and spending time with God. And as I started filling the void with those things, slowly - I'm talking months and years went by - but slowly those things were able to fill the void of loneliness that bing in never could. Pathway builder number two is: "Get Some Help." It's so easy to think, "I have an addiction; I can fix it on my own." But it's so important to have other people in our lives.
The simple act of sharing your struggle with somebody else breaks some of the power of that struggle over you. When something's a secret, it's magnified, it seems so much larger than life, but when we share that with somebody else and say, "Can you encourage me? Can you walk me through this journey?" That in itself breaks a number of the facility over you".
Pathway builder number three is a surprising one; it's "Exercise." Exercise singer leases endorphins in our brains. It helps us feel better about ourselves and life in general. It clears our minds. And when we're tempted to give in to an addictive cycle like binging or masturbating, usually it's when our thoughts are cloudy and foggy, and we're not feeling good about ourselves—so exercising regularly, even if it's a few minutes a day or a few times a week, that can do wonders.
And on top of that, building a new habit of exercise is also creating new pathways in your brain, which is good practice for it. Pathway builder number four is: "Take One Small Steps." I tend to have all or nothing thinking". Either I'm all into the binge, or I never binge again. But that is not helpful thinking when it comes to breaking an addictive cycle, because breaking an addictive cycle isn't all in or all out.
There is an in-between phase, and you're in that in-between place for a long time. So the first small step form was to leave two bites at the end of every meal. When I saw food, I felt like I had to eat it; I could not stop. And so I would binge an entire bag of pretzels - a family-sized suitcase - but I would leave two pretzels at the bottom of the bag.
It was hard for me to do at first, but I started practicing that as my small step. And once I got comfortable with that, I could add another small step. So if you don't know the first small step for you, talk with someone you trust, whether that's a mentor, a counsellor, a friend, and say, "What do you assume is the first small step that I'll take? Pathway builder varies five is Celebrated each Success.
I bear in mind a-going like five days in a very row whereas not binge intake, and that was amazing! And at the tip of that time, I binge deity, and all I would regard was, "I cannot believe I merely dishevelled again! I can't think i accustomed to being in such a good streak, and presently I hardly did it again! Tiffany, you're never going to pass through this! Why was I thus focused on the binge is instead of being focused on those five days that I merely tend to, whereas not binge eating?
That was amazing! You acknowledge that we tend to talk lots concerning responsibility partners being someone we tend to call once we build an error. But i think they to boot ought to be our success partners - people we tend to call once we tend to do dedicated so that they're going to say.
That is awesome! and we celebrate with the U.S., and say, "You got this girl!" Cause you want to heart hat. and thus, the last pathway builder varies six is: "Be Kind to Yourself." Breaking a cycle does not appear to be this. It's not a straight pathway up. It's like this. There area unit ups and their area unit downs. sq. Measure} rising, but their area unit is going to be ups and downs on the approach. That is normal.
It is a part of the strategy. And it's therefore easy to urge down on ourselves once we're in a {very} very downward part of that journey, but that negative self-talk, that guilt - it perpetuates the addiction cycle. It triggers it. Once you start feeling guilty or uninterested in or mad at yourself, it causes you to want to do it to that another time.
you're like, "Okay, well, to make myself feel higher, I'm gonna go binge or masturbate or fill among the blank." So instead, we'd wish to be kind to ourselves. Once you're doing that self-talk in your head, say it aloud; thus, you will be ready to hear it. Therefore on behalf of Pine Tree State, it'd have been like, "I cannot believe you merely fell again!
What a failure you are, Tiff, and you're never going to get better!" Say that aloud, so raise yourself, "Would I ever say that to a friend? (and thus|and thus|and so) the solution would be no, or a minimum of it's need to be no! Therefore then ask yourself, "Well, what I tell a devotee in my situation? To begin saying that to yourself, as a result of once you are kind to yourself, once you say, It's okay!
I'm making progress. yea I had Associated in Nursing off day, but it's okay." - that is going to give you the confidence you want it to interrupt the cycle. Thus if you're in a {very} very place where you're somewhat like, "Man I am in a {very} very downward a neighbourhood of my cycle. I would like I keep falling, I keep messing up," then I'd such as you to appear at this video right up here.
It's called: "When you can not seem to interrupt Free." significantly if faith is essential to you, this article is all concerning, but God is functioning and therefore, the means darling you are, even once you retain messing up. You can not seem to urge it on. I have been there, and this area unit the three things that I'd such as you to know.
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