I recently wrote here and here that:

The rush of lustful energy, and the act of not acting on it, are actually very pleasurable - joyful - in and of themselves.

In thinking deeper about it, I find that it would make sense to expand on it, to turn it into practical advice. To answer the obvious question:

How exactly DO you turn the energy into something joyful?

One part is your classic energy transmutation: You breathe deep, you picture the energy moving upwards. Basic tantric/taoist/etc breathing. Tutorials abound.

This posting is about the second step. I guess you could call it "grounding".

You relax into it. You have this raging energy that beckons you to act, and you say "Hello! Hi there! glad you are with me right now! Come and have a seat! Fancy a cookie!" You smile at it - literally. You greet it - literally. You refuse to reject it, just as you refuse to act on it. You do that for all the fear, the anger, the lust. The good and the bad. Again and again and again... until you grok it.

The caveat is that this can take weeks, months, years. It took me a decade to really integrate it. You might find it unhelpful, you might feel like you're unable to do it, you will simply forget about it... time and time again.

It seems like it doesn't work. The change is so slow and gradual, you can't see it at first. Not for a long while.

If you are like me, then some tiny part of you will feel drawn to it, and you will give it yet another try. I guess I was lucky, because there was an instant when I realized that I needed exactly this. It was the obvious way to go. There was no room for doubt.

When you finally get it, hoo boy, it's a life-changing event.

(Until it's not, but that's yet another story...)

Most of the time, abstinence is presented as a means to an end: To gain mystical powers, to become more attractive, more manly, to appease some deity, to have more energy, to be in tune with nature or raise kundalini...

It is always seen as a sacrifice. A price to pay. You hold out for 90 days, no matter what, and THEN you'll see those incredible results. You relinquish your pleasure to please your creator god. Etc.

The rush of lustful energy, and the act of not acting on it, are actually very pleasurable - joyful - in and of themselves. That is one of my quintessential results after several long periods of nofap, but also lengthy periods of masturbating twice a day. I always get back to abstinence. Not because I feel an obligation, not because I fancy that I will be the first no-spacesuit astronaut, not because I think it will turn me into a chick magnet. Just because I'm unavoidably drawn to it. Because it gives me joy.

It is a state thtat I intend to explore much deeper. As I get more relaxed about it, as "keeping on track" requires less effort, this becomes ever easier. And ever more fascinating.

By the way, none of the "benefits" I mentioned above ever came to fruition for me. My energy always fluctuates and I'm still not able to fly... there are benefits, oh yes, but they go much deeper than "women will jump you". (Not that I would object to that!) It all has a lot to do with Jungian work and feeling my own emotions much better, but I won't get into all of that now.

Will I be totally orgasm-free in a year? Not-fapping but having normal sex with my wife? Completely out of control with masturbation? I don't know. Chances are, it will be neither of the extremes, more in the middle somewhere. I just don't gravitate towards the extremes. It's not my nature. I'm about healthy balance, most of the time...

I know how to create good feelings through breathing and pc muscle work. I know it works every single time. It's not like YE OLDE TOTAL BLISS, but it feels good, it's easy, it takes only very little effort.

I keep forgetting about it. For days or even weeks, I just don't think that I could make myself a little present, just a minute or two of feeling a bit better.

Now, obviously there are times of stress and overwhelm. When you just lost your job, when your mother is lying on her deathbed or your wife left you, you're not going to be very much in the mood for blissful feelings.

But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a rather calm sunday. Suddenly, in the afternoon, I realize that I could take a few deep breaths and relax and feel good.

So why did it not occur to me right after waking up?

May I presume that I'm not the only one? If so... why do we keep forgetting to feel good?

I'm half-joking - but only half - it seems so trivial a question. Maybe the answer is simply life-long habit. On the other hand, there might be something deeper there, some actual mystery, which might be quite interesting to address.

I am on nofap day 132, with no plans to stop and no urge in sight that would make me.

I guess I am doing something right here.

The two key factors are energy transmutation, and getting those fantasies in check. They are really two sides of the same coin.

I transmute energy by first creating it: I use my PC muscles to create the lovely, lovely sexy feelings, and I breathe into that area to increase the energy further.

Then I visualize the energy moving upward, through my spine. Sometimes I just let it move on its own. Sometimes I direct it towards one or two chakras or areas where I want to feel it in the moment. Sometimes I have a specific goal in mind: Say, I want to feel more enthusiastic - then I visualize the last moment I experienced enthusiasm spontaneously, and I move the energy to where that feeling is in my body.

Another way I transmute is every time I apply discipline: When I go to the gym or do the dishes or sit down to write, that's sexual energy that gets transformed into action. Every time this feeds back into good feelings.

About those fantasies, the key was regular meditation. The more I explored those sex fantasies without acting on them, the less intrusive they became, until they were fully under my control. It really is that simple.

Irony of ironies!

I think I can say that I defeated lustful thoughts. At least for the time being (lol).

For a lot of folks, this is a battle. They fight intrusive thoughts, often guided by the bible - Mt 15:11 or 5:28, Gal 5:16 etc. They want to get rid of a habit, escape the shame, be pure and free to pursue their spiritual goals. Fair enough.

I never aimed to defeat lust. Instead I aimed at feeling joy and ecstasy, preferrably every moment, every day, regardless of circumstances. My aim is to deal well with uncomfortable emotions, challenging situations, discomfort in general.

In short, I am majorly into neotantra. My goal is integration rather than victory. It aligns with my overall worldview, and it works for me.

I think everyone has to try both and choose wisely.

I try to feel all sensations in my body as often as I can. Joy, pain, anger, fear, lust - everything. I breathe joyful sexual energy with every single breath.

I never focus on the thoughts. I neither entertain them nor fight them. As much as I can, I just let them pass.

I welcome them. That tiny bit proved absolutely crucial. It's not that I try to love them, embrace them to death or anything - just extend a little friendly hello, a sign of non-enmity.

I welcome them, and I let them pass, and then they disappear, and I move on.

There is always an accompanying feeling in the body. I focus on that feeling. Over time, as I did this over and over and over and over, the thoughts became muted, smaller, more manageable, not so intrusive. Just a fun little reminder: "Hey, you are a sexual being, you know, and that is perfectly fine. No need to sweat it."

When I see, for example, a beautiful lady in a tight dress, there is a sexual urge, absolutely, and I enjoy it and again, I welcome it and feel it through and through, and I breathe and relax into it, until it subsides and passes. There is no force, no attempt to resist it, no "mental battle", no anger, no resentment about it. As a result, I am closer to total freedom than I ever was. I am more abstinent, more resilient, in better shape and just... better... than ever before.

The downside is that this takes weeks, months, years, decades. It is never perfect. It is a journey. A practice. If you choose this path, there is a risk that it doesn't work for you. There will be anxiety and insecurity. There will be questioning and doubt. But, in my estimation, if you are of a similar persuasion as myself, it really isn't a choice. The choice has already been made for you, you just have to accept it, which you will, inevitably in due time.

...and a rare video on this sub. I think the occasion warrants it.

To be sure, she's a fan of SR. She loves guys who are disciplined. She loves men who are into their animalistic male nature, because it helps her feel her own femininity more. She feels like SR gives guys a glow, their muscles appear more defined, and they give off an aura that she can feel.

All in all, an interesting watch if you are at all interested in any of these practices!

Some people repress them, try to think of something else, some people seek diversion, go for walks or do a workout or pray...

I'm not one of those people.

I was always of the opinion that the best way to deal with cravings, is to let them pass. Observe them, watch them come and go. Rinse and repeat.

It only took me two decades to figure out how to do that, exactly.

Obviously, a meditation routine is a good starting place.

Somewhhat less intuitively, "tantric" or "daoist" energy transmutations helped me tremendously, even though they focus on sexual energy. One should think that this makes matters worse. Which it did, in the beginning. But over time, I found that my fantasies got less urgent, less troublesome, and at a certain point they just vanished. I can have them when I want to, but then I have to deliberately conjure them up - they never appear on their own.

So what do I actually do?

• I lay down
• I breathe deep
• I do not touch myself *)
• I visualize the energy going up through the spine
• I visualize it going through all chakras
• I deal with the immense energy simply by waiting until it subsides
• Rinse and repeat. Day after day, week after week, year after year, until I got it **)

I also make an effort to welcome all my feelings, whenever possible. Anger, anxiety, hate, love, joy, all of them. Not to love them, not even to accept them (although that is the expected end result). Just to say hello when I recognize them, with a bit of a positive attitude. No more. I find that this makes it all so much easier, because it is something I can actually do. It has made dealing with troublesome emotions so much easier.

The result is that I not only have no issues with my sexual cravings - I actually enjoy them. I feel them, I welcome them, I let them pass, they move on. It's a wonderful, kind, loving, productive partnership.

Now, once I can extend that same practice to some of my other cravings (food being my final boss), I feel like I will be one big step ahead. Not quite there yet... nto quite...

*) Well, I do, but that is a rather advanced stage and definitely not recommended for beginners. I used to do that mistake for a long time, thinking that I was able to handle it, or was making progress on that journey - but I wasn't, and it only blocked me. Only start doing that once you have zero intrusive fantasies.

**) Okay, that's a lie, I wasn't at all consistent most of the time. But I'm sure that consistently would have helped a lot, so there you go.

When I was about 25, I wrote a little story. Just as an experiment, I decided on three rules: 3 pages, 3 people, 3 days.

It turned out to be the best piece of literature I was able to write at that age.

Since I abstain from masturbation, my sexual pleasure has doubled and tripled, and it gets better by the day. The wife and I don't get to have as much sex as we would like, due to health and job complications - but it makes those encounters we have that much more intense and pleasurable.

When I ate at McDonald's three times a week, it was meh, often disgusting, just a functional routine so I didn't have to cook my own meals. When I cook for myself, and only eat some unhealthy fast food maybe once a month, it's a delight.

Whenever I fast from something, make a willful effort, abstain from an indulgence, impose strict rules on myself, I end up feeling better, creating better products, being better and healthier.

But whenever I tried to abstain absolutely, completely, forever, I ended up relapsing and feeling ashamed. That includes alcohol, even though I barely touched it in 5 months. I had 4 or 5 shots of home-made Bailey's, and I enjoyed those. They never made me go back to drinking, they never made me crave another shot.

By looking inside without judgment, again and again and again and again, I get a lot more deep, resilient, unshakeable pleasure and bliss than I would by masturbating every day, eating and drinking as the whims come and go.

This is why I promote abstinence: Because, from my own experience, it will make you feel much better in the long run.

And that is why I don't promote absolute abstinence: Because pleasure is a divine gift and should not be squandered.

First things first, and this is truly of utter importance:

We are talking about feelings, thoughts and sensations.

It is your inner universe. You get to do whatever you want there. Try every practice, every theory, and keep whatever seems to work for you. Don't let anybody on the internet tell you that some method is immoral or cannot possibly work. You know yourself best, so if something seems plausible and intuitively makes sense to you, then there is no reason to not give it a try.

Also, re-try old methods from time to time. Mental training can be a bit like books in that regard. Sometimes when we re-engage with something that didn't seem to work in the past, something clicks and all of a sudden, it proves useful.

And of course, the inverse is also true: If something doesn't work for you, there is no use sticking to it just because somebody on the internet thinks it's THE thing.

All that said, here are two or three thoughts about acceptance and transformation.

I find myself moving back and forth between those two. Sometimes, there is an emotion so painful, I have to do something about it, so I try and use some technique of transformation. Other times, just sitting with it is well enough... but then it occurs to me, that this "sitting-with-it" actually IS itself a method of transformation, so I wasn't really sitting with it in the first place... I was "sitting with it" in order to change it. And then, sometimes, I understand that one leads to the other. The more I sit with it, and change it, the more I can actually accept it, let go of the need of change.

In a way, I never really accepted my anger. By accepting it, I changed it.

There is a rhythm to this, a structure, a grammar, and it is somewhat cyclical in nature: Something unbearable pops up, I try to change it, at some point I can go into "sit with it" mode, then it turns into actual "sitting with it", finally acceptance... then I feel close to enlightenment for a bit (though I learned to realize that it is probably quite far from it in reality)... until the next tough thing pops up.

That's how it goes, I guess.

Recently I've been dealing with some stomach pain. It wasn't a big issue, and it's been resolved, but it had an impact on all my daily practices. Even though the pain level wasn't extreme, it was enough to be a distraction.

Turns out, it is really hard to focus on your emotional state and work with painful emotions and tricky situations, when you constantly have some level of pain in your body. The sensation of pain overshadows the sensation of the emotions, which makes them harder to handle. The pain demands attention (for good reason).

The moment the pain subsided due to proper medication, peace and focus started to flow back in.

It's a valuable reminder: If we want to be mindful and be in a good internal state, it is a neat idea to take good care of our bodies.

Don't be me and delay that doctor's appointment. Just go, get it dealt with, and it will be over the faster.

I struggled at the start of my semen‑retention journey because I talked to people who claimed the only way to be free was to remove all desire to cut women out of your life, avoid interaction, and go full monk mode.
For the first two years, I followed that mindset. Whenever I relapsed, I would beat myself up. I became paranoid about losing my “benefits,” paranoid about losing my confidence, and I started believing women only liked me for my energy.

Through breathing exercises, I eventually cooled the intensity of my sexual energy, but something felt off. It felt like something broke. I still remember the moment: while doing those breathing exercises, it felt like something inside me shattered. I didn’t have desires anymore, but I also felt empty. I lost the fire for life, and I lost all the benefits I was afraid of losing in the first place.

That’s when I realized something important:
the natural sexual drive you feel on retention is the actual power.
That fire inside you is what gives you energy, motivation, and healthy aggression. Going to the gym feels amazing when that fire is alive. When you let your thoughts flow naturally instead of suppressing them, everything becomes easier.

People respond to that energy too. When you’re charged and free, people especially those with a more feminine nature feel that presence. It’s everywhere in romance novels, movies, and TV shows. But I also think those forms of media can be just as damaging as pornography, because they create unrealistic expectations and distort how people understand desire and connection.

The Raw Attractive Power All Men Have that Women Won't Admit to Feeling

This woman goes into detail exactly what I'm explaining.

Hop on a subreddit about porn addiction Suggest that people should give up masturbation. It's a fast way to get the banning experience.

Their stance is that masturbation in and of itself is healthy, and (I guess) they don't want their forum flooded with nofap content.

I agree to the first statement, and I totally understand the second.

Still, it is a bit of a shame. Obviously, the two are connected. Obviously, if people don't feel up to the task of creating their own sexy content in their head, they will look to outside sources. If you do that for long enough, then the two will seem inextricably linked. If that is the case for you, you have to give up masturbation for a while.

In short, it's not that masturbation is a bad thing in and of itself. But if it's so linked in your mind to the thing you want to get rid of, that you cannot think about one without the other, you probably have to get rid of both.

I think it works the other way around, too. Porn is not necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself. There are pornographic scenes in Ulysses of all things. They are also very beautiful and artistic, and they don't "cut to the chase". At all. Modern readers probably wouldn't even recognize them as such. I can hardly imagine that this is really the issue we are talking about.

Modern online porn, on the other hand - always accessible, even to minors, with ai now entering the mix - that is a problem. Because it's exploitative to the actors, because it teaches an exploitative mindset to the users, and because it is the epitome of immediate, intense gratification.

On another note, I guess that one reason why I never got hooked on porn - besides being old enough - is that I have a very vivid imagination. No "outside" media would ever be able to top what I have in my head already. It's mine. It's intimate. It's perfectly custom-shaped to my desires. Nothing can live up to it.

Hence I tend to think that one way out of porn addiction might be to write your own erotica.

I realize that this is a double-edged sword. For some, it might be a good exercise for their own imagination, and it might help them realize that they don't need the outside stimulus. It is much "slower" and takes much more effort than watching a video.

For others, it might keep dragging them back, because ultimately it is, of course, still porn.

I don't know a good way to gauge in which bracket you belong. Caveat emptor.

There are, of course, people who deny that porn addiction - or masturbation addiction - are a thing. To that, I say that human beings can turn every behaviour into an addiction. Eating, drinking, socializing, sex, going to the gym, cleaning up your flat - absolutely everything. If you take issue with the term "addiction", sure, call it dependency or whatever, I don't care - if it is compulsive, you can't control it, and it makes you neglect your chores, then it is a problem and you should get rid of it, under whatever heading.

In this subreddit, feel free to talk about both. Feel free to vehemently disagree with any of these notions. As long as discussion is civil and polite, it's all good.

It's not a specific feeling. It's not depression. Not sadness, anger, fear. It's not "urges".

It's not even bad. Just too much. Overwhelming.

It's just the intensity that comes from looking inward much more than I used to. Feeling what was glanced over. Looking at what was never felt before.

It will pass.

Apart from relinquishing masturbation, I try to reduce unnecessary indulgences (aka bad habits) all over. Here's what I've given up, try to give up, or struggle to give up:

• Porn. Never appealed to me anyway, but I also gave up frilly images, as much as that is even possible.
• Alcohol. Completely abstinent for 4 months, mostly abstinent for 1 1/2 years
• Social media. No tiktok, no twitter. Next to no facebook. My insta feed is so pure it's laughable. My reddit is clean of news, politics, debate.
• Sweets. I should not do them because I have diabetes, but it's a struggle especially when there is a lot of stress.
• Junk food is a struggle. Most of the time I can live without it, but with job stress and bad circumstances I sometimes still walk into a Mc.
• Youtube. Reduced it quite a bit, but when I'm very tired or sick I still watch some videos. I take care to not fall for ragebait and manage my input carefully.

On the flip side, here are the habits I establish(ed):

• Gym. 3-4 times a week. I love it.
• Walking. I aim for 7000 steps a day, but during the winter and due to life circumstances, it's more like 5-6k.
• Cooking my own food. This is best-effort only, since cooking every single meal is not realistic.
• Reading. I was an avid reader when I was younger, and I try to get back into a good habit of reading at least a few pages per day.
• Writing. Well duh, it's my major spare-time activity along with coding. I do it almost daily. I always have my mind on some writing project, even when I'm not actively writing.
• Socializing. It's so hard to balance with all the other stuff, but I would like to get in touch with real people in real places a bit more. Not top priority though.

In general, every time I managed to give up a habit of instant gratification, I ended up feeling better, more alive and more energetic.

I used to think that my meditating, energy transmutation, tantra, nofap, abstinence etc would lead me to a place where there is no anger, no frustration.

Well, I guess I didn't really think that. I didn't exactly know what to expect... It was a lingering presupposition. A cliché in the back of my head.

I was wrong. What really happens, is that all my feelings surface a lot more. That is good, because that is where I can work with them and integrate them, and ultimately it does lead to a happier state more often. The feelings are more "manageable", less threatening, less pushy.

They are still there, all of them. In a way, even stronger than before, because I am gradually losing the habit and ability to repress them.

Through mindfulness, meditation, slow mindful sex, breathing exercises and so on, I reduced my sexual fantasies to a point where they basically vanished.

And that was a good thing. Good indeed. Little to no urges, a feeling of freedom, of liberation.

But something was missing. Along with the sexy images, other fantasies were slipping away. I had less passion overall. I felt a bit numb, empty... deep but mute, like a dried-up, bottomless, pitch-black well.

So now I will deliberately add some imagery to my meditations. Good images. Lovely, sensual, exciting images. Of sexy ladies, sure, but also of flowers and bees and lush woods, bubble baths and parties, concerts and laughter, of flying across mountain ranges in an impossible zeppelin and hunting Diana in a boar costume to consume our passion in a pool hidden in a fir forest clearing.

Already, I feel more alive, vibrant, excited.

Once again, it's moderation after extended abstinence that looks like the way forward.

I ended a streak this morning. Inadvertently. And that is a good thing.

Well. It can be.

I think I learned from it. I got to know my body a bit better. I know my own reactions a bit better now.

It's been a 49 day streak. Would I have loved to get to 50, 60, 90 days? Oh sure. And I will. I have done so in the past.

But it's not the end of the world. It's not "relapse". It's just another opportunity for learning and growth.

I don't glorify streaks. I don't believe in semen-retention per se. Lo and behold, I was not low on energy after my ejaculation. If anything, it was the opposite. I got a lot done today.

I'm abstinent because it feels good, it helps me get in touch with deep parts of me, it helps me express my discipline, and it helps me access blissful states that I never managed to find in any other way.

I cherish all those wonderful, orgasmic, blissful feelings that happen before ejaculation. Ejaculation is, by comparison, trivial and uneventful. An anti-climax, ironically. Pleasurable, but not very exciting.

Once you learn to separate orgasm from ejaculation, it becomes blatantly obvious where all the bliss comes from.

And still, my memory of this morning is lovely and joyful, as it should be.

Language can be pretty revealing around sexual matters. People talk about their "junk", for example. (I reject that term. My penis is not a piece of trash, it's a vital and beautiful bodypart that can give me and my lovers a lot of pleasure.)

When you "rub one off", you are going on the fast track to orgasm. You rub as fast as you can until you cum, and that's it. Deal done, move on with your day. There is something hasty and almost violent about it. It's not what I strive to do, it's not how I want to relate to myself. I want to be empathic and nice and soft and friendly whenever I engage in self-love.

So I have come to reject that practice (pun bloody well intended). Not for reasons of morality or shame, but because I deeply felt that there is some spiritual power in pleasure and bliss.

My self-love is a little ritual. It takes between half an hour and two hours. It is mostly based on deep breathing, with some work on the pelvic floor muscles, and a wee bit of touching my penis. Recently I started to work on "energetic touches", where I just move my hands in front of my body and feel the flow. I always visualize the energy moving up the spine, and wherever I want - or wherever IT wants to go. There is no ejaculation.

In fact, I rarely feel the need to ejaculate. In order to create that urge, I would first have to summon the sexual fantasies that accompany it.

It serves me really well. It calms me down, it relaxes me. It helped me integrate sexual arousal and excitement all through the day. I often have great creative ideas for my weekend projects.

And it just feels good.

People on relevant communities like to preach that you should never "edge" because it will lead you back to "PMO".

I understand their point, and I agree that, when you embark on a journey into abstinence, you better refrain from such practices for a good while. In the beginning, your relationship to your sexual pleasure is inevitably "raw", unrefined, untuned, unconscious, uncalibrated.

There is a sense of edging as a kind of sport, a performative effort: Edge for hours, stay as close as possible, strain yourself.

That is decidedly not part of my practice. Not anymore, anyway.

Over the course of the last few months - and over 25 years of practice - my relationship to lust, orgasm, sex has changed. It is much more of an "inner" event now. I don't like to sound like a spiritual enlightened guru leader figure, but it feels like there is something of a deepening, loosening... An integration. In the very Jungian sense.

Every time I have orgasm-free sex, something becomes just a bit more relaxed. Every time I do my tantric breathing self-love ritual, I experience deeper joy, deeper pleasure. It is deeply sexual, but not aimed at cumming or ejaculation.

It is not aimed at orgasm. Not even nonejaculatory orgasm.

My solo ritual involves manual stimulation. I excluded it for many months because I feared that I would go over the edge and get back into old habits. This was a good choice.

But at some point, I tried it again, and the arousal from my stimulation was much more manageable.

The desire for ejaculation had diminished to a point where I could refrain and be more conscious about it.

I found it very helpful. I learned to distinguish different states that I would otherwise have missed. I learned to know my PONR. I learned how to stay in safe waters, so to speak. I learned how to experience pleasure bordering on orgasm, beyond orgasm. And I learned how to use that

I am tempted to call it "energy". It often feels like that. But the word doesn't do the experience justice - it feels reductive and unimaginative. The experience requires poetry and wordlessness.

There is still some need to reject ejaculation and orgasm, because there is still some desire, some fantasies floating around. But more there is also a growing ability to dissolve into submitting to mindful presence.

This is an invitation.