Seeking healing from addiction to P*rn

[SolRgreen]

I deeply appreciate the awareness and love in what you write.

"I" have also been masturbating for quite some time, and though it did not occur for roughly 4 months here as well as I entered a phase of much confusion which might be called the dark night of the soul I felt less motivated.

That previous motivation was coming mainly from transient things and beliefs, I now know, such as feeling that I am incomplete and need to do this or that or I am guilty of not helping others and preventing destiny, or something.

I then had 2 major changes which have lead me to try a new approach though, the first was a month ago - Letting all my emotions just be, I cried for a few hours as I felt an extreme amount of suffering as I bathed in these negative emotions I had been shutting off (I feel that this was probably old identities I was still feeling tied to starting to collapse), but, this started to open up more space which allowed me to stop following a cycle I had been having for the past year and a half of motivated and unmotivated periods.

This brought, however, a lot more suffering as I did not know how to love myself and feel complete, I soon realized conceptually that guilt and many things did not really make sense, but, I just wanted to be loved, and also I felt as if I was wasting my potential by trying to "find motivation without x and y thing", feeling as if "this is impeding the service I must provide to others and is altering my brain, this might make it harder to be aware even!" (*that service to others = certain things I work on) 

At some point I had again the thought of being loved by one of my fictional characters, but, this time I saw it in a new way, as this imaginary character said "[...] I love you, I am you", and I began to feel myself as that character, feeling as if I was hugging and loving myself.

Sometime later that day I realized that I was just projecting the love I truly had for myself (as unchanging awareness) onto characters.

From here, by simply naturally working on self-inquiry and not judging what comes up the past few days I have had so many epiphanies, it also seems like now by letting my mind have it's addiction when it really wants it that it is no longer treating it like this taboo thing that's "oh I know this is bad, but I am addicted, oh mannn", but, genuinely, the chemical processes are beginning to see it more as annoying suffering when compared with silence, talking to others or eating in peace.

 Though, what leads to me feeling most happy I should note is rather that whatever happens with this, and no matter how lucid I am, and all this that changes, I am.

This has been quite an interesting writing journey, it has helped me also reflect on some things, and notice a few new things. I felt/feel like sharing the full story together with almost all that came up when I saw this thread, my signature applies 100 times multiplied for this reply  .

Edit: final note: I am deeply thankful to the videos of "Aaron Abke", which have helped me soooo much.

Thanks for reading friend, much love and peace to you.