December 2015 Update Edition
Please read first Part 1 of my book as there are points there not completely elaborated here.
This new link is ad-free, no log-in needed, ready to be downloaded courtesy of Google Drive:
Announcement: Welcome to the Catholic Church CDROM is now online. Visit its new website by clicking its webshot below.
TOP 10 Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity
1. Go to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Mother most pure, Mother most chaste. Any human help might frustrate you or might feel not enough, but she will not. Go and consecrate yourself to her at http://www.consecration.com After consecration, go to Confession, then offer the best form of sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, Jesus Christ himself, in the Holy Eucharist, and visit Jesus more often in the Blessed Sacrament.
Pray the Rosary:
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Sister Lucia, Fatima seer
“If you say the Rosary faithfully unto death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, ‘you will receive a never-fading crown of glory’ (1 St. Peter 5:4).”
Saint Louis de Montfort
“The Rosary is THE weapon.”
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)
quotes compiled from http://catholicspiritualdirection.org/prayer.html
The said spiritual activities start and sustain the fight for chastity.
We enter the gift of grace, confession to be the first step. Without Him we can do nothing!
On Confession, let's take note of the third element of a good confession--a firm purpose of amendment!
This is the whole point of this blog, which is to help repentant sexual addicts avoid sin against chastity yet still have that balance to do good and not just avoid evil. I understand that it's already difficult to avoid unchastity and yet you still have to do good. But remember as we suggests down below that doing good helps in avoiding evil too, and that doing good or charity covers a multitude of sin, a payment for those we have harmed directly or indirectly by our sexual addiction and other sins.
Ask for the special grace of chastity belt. Below is St. Thomas being girded by angels with a chastity belt with a promise that he will never experience any temptation and sin against chastity.
The Prayer of St. Thomas for Purity (written by Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas)
Dear Jesus, I know that every perfect gift, and especially that of chastity, depends on the power of Your providence.Without You a mere creature can do nothing. Therefore, I beg You to defend by Your grace the chastity and purity of my body and soul. And if I have ever sensed or imagined anything that could stain my chastity and purity, blot it out, Supreme Lord of my powers, that I may advance with a pure heart in Your love and service, offering myself on the most pure altar of Your divinity all the days of my life. Amen.
2. Staying healthy and mortifying my senses.
Fasting is being touted today as a way to clean or reset our body or digestive system which others do for 24 hours up to 3 days. Also, read more about cleansing diet and why our body needs a 12 hour night fast to give it enough rest. Breakfast is a break from the 12 hour fast after eating 7 p.m. and eating again at 7 a.m. The traditional spiritual intention why we fast and mortify our senses though is nonetheless complete in itself, straightening up the spirit with a healthy effect on the body that we've never thought, as if body and soul connection is really that deep.
On staying healthy, whole plant based food rules. There are lots of studies why hormonal imbalances and compulsion are abundant for animal based food eaters. It's not only papaya which is an "angelic food" or "chastity food," it's all the whole plant based food we can eat while limiting or doing away with all the animal based food altogether if you can do it properly. Just be careful about changing your diet since nutritionists themselves are yet to prove the efficacy of full or partial plant based food consumption because some contend that protein bodies need meat to eat.
I favor though Daniel 1:11-16 as a Bible verse founded on experimentation proving vegetable and water better than the royal table. I don't favor the strictness of not eating meat though since in Mark 7:18-22 Jesus declared all foods clean and gave more emphasis on sin as what defiles a person, thereby giving more importance to the psychosomatic illnesses causing disease. Jesus is my health and my salvation. There are scientific findings nowadays pointing to the need for proof whether it is the thoughts that causes digestive diseases and not more on the digestive diseases causing brain diseases. In other words, it is sexual addiction that causes our physical diseases too. And subscribing to a moderate realism, the balance between the spiritual and physical is both important.
While researchers still need to prove that sexual addiction or too many run away hormones or waves to handle is linked with eating animal based food and refined plant based food, it is sufficient for the moment to read on the works of vegetarians and live their lifestyle and benefit from them.
3. Nipping temptations in the bud by re-channeling one’s impure thought to whatever is good, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious in the telling (Phil. 4:8)
It is not by way of an “energetic no” --Lindworsky, Training of the Will
“One can simply stop sinning” --Welcome to the Catholic Church CD-Rom (WCC)
We are not strengthened in avoiding evil. We are either strengthened in doing good (becomes virtue) or in doing evil (becomes vice).
We do not mean to say negative precepts are invalid. Of course, we do not do what the Lord doesn't want us do. If we do disobey, say, the command do not kill, then we cannot even focus on doing the positive aspect of the command of the Lord, say, love your neighbor. It is short of saying that we have to observe all the commandments of the Lord, be it negative or positive.
Thomas A Kempis tells that habit is overcome by habit(Bk. 1.c.21). And so we do develop good habit and not just stop a vice without doing anything further.
Nature abhors vacuum, nothing stays in the middle, one either regress or progress. Most especially God vomits lukewarm persons. Thus activity is the best weapon against any temptation or one can strengthen one’s will in doing good. In sports parlance, offense is the best defense. It doesn’t mean to stop any defense. A Kobe Bryant unstoppable in his offense destroys opponent’s morale and buoys his team’s lagging spirit for the win.
An ingrained neural connection is only weakened by disuse, not totally forgotten. That is why neuropsychologists suggest making new neural connections or strengthening other existing connections that even use the disused connection in a different way.
In short, it means to weaken sexual addiction by good activity, the neural connections of sexual addiction being used by other good activity.
While night relapse should not be a concern because prayer, good thoughts, thanksgivings, etc. are activities too of their own kind to lull one to sleep.
4. Calendaring details
Calendaring is good because it should not point the fault in you to make you discouraged. Rather it should point very clearly where you can make progress. Only continuous self-monitoring and evaluation of ourselves can we make great progress. Beating one's previous record primarily needs recording!
We cannot say there's nothing happening, no progressing. It is questionable if we don't even know the facts consciously when, where, how, and why we relapse.
What's amazing with calendaring is that it tells us the truth honestly and not by guess work. More often, we have more chaste days than unchaste ones! Praise the Lord! How on earth will I know if we only have thoughts of negativity from an unfounded and unrecorded misbehavior! Rather, we are encouraged the more when we see that our Best Practices is bearing fruit, and our labors are not in vain!
Give this coping mechanism another try specially if you are forgetful of details.
(Previous note below:)
Calendaring gave me the awareness where and when I relapse and how frequently. This will also train you to recognize and limit your weekly relapse if it seems what you're aware of is too much relapses only. Remember to use this to gain more information to help you crack what can be more helpful for you because calendaring might end up more as a source of greater frustration for it only tells you how many times you always relapse.
So, it might be time to find out really the number, and more probably the causes or stimulus that made the relapse. Just don't absolutize that we are 100% always determined or controlled by stimulus. We are body and soul, the soul being free of matter, and thus have to subscribe to moderate realism (see Catholic Encyclopedia online). Our being accountable for our choices will have to be recognized, repented, and helped by God's grace.
Use your mobile phone's calendar noting. Put R=relapsed P=probable solutions C=most probable reasons what contributed to chaste days and fill in the relevant details.
You can discontinue this practice once you are already aware of how to juggle the different variables to enable a life well suited for chastity to flourish. Calendaring need not become the source of a spirituality which is centered on sin.
5. Do good, avoid evil.
The reminder above is against inertia caused by lack of desire for anything other than sexual orgasm. Better to push oneself to do good things than not do anything at all because of lack of desire for anything good, with the thought that lack of desire for anything good is included in the cycle of becoming addicted again to sexual orgasm. TAKE NOTE that this will not become effective unless one does entertain AS FAST AS POSSIBLE a good desire other than the addiction, and in a manner that one will AFFECT ONESELF TO FEEL that one has already shifted the addictive desire to the good desire chosen. For beginner's information, this becomes automatic in time through practice.
This can be very difficult for real compulsives.
Goleman quoted by Reisman (p.13) http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/brain.pdf, tells that children’s early addiction to porn may mean healing the impossible, or in the language of Sexaholics Anonymous, 15 years of addiction may mean 15 years of healing to balance the transaction.
And also the question is whether those who started as adult addicts have fairer chances of healing.
For those who find it difficult, I offer the idea of powerpointing (principles of chastity #9 below, elaborated on Part I of my book) for healing compulsion originating from early childhood addiction.
6. Trashing of all skeleton in the closet (pornographic materials), irretrievable in the strictest sense. Use shift+delete when deleting porn videos. It becomes irretrievable even by recovery software. When stuck in the restore bin, delete all but the most recent restore point in the disk clean up of control panel. Computer savvys know what I mean because they can easily retrieve deleted porn on Window 7's previous version tab.
Porn Movies Aren't Therapeutic
It is rather the opposite. Once I get rid of all of it irretrievably then healing sexual addiction is 50% finished already. Of course youporn.com for example isn't in my cabinet or computer, and it isn't my fault why they aren't yet deleted for good. A free public DNS which blocks porn or adult content is better and easier to set up. Choose Securly, OpenDNS, Norton ConnectSafe, or GreenTeamDNS which blocks adult contents and other harmful stuffs as an additional. Set your wifi router's dns or your lan if you have no router and you're good to go.
Some paid version monitors your online activity to check if you're still viewing porn online.
Depending on your need for a blocker, the objective is to be responsible for our own healing, believing that controlling ourselves is possible.
7. Marriage preparation
It is my free decision to choose to become financially prepared for marriage first before courting a lady of a noble character whom I will seek when already financially prepared. But deeper reflection will tell sexual addicts that it is not an option for them not to prepare financially. And since chastity practices will make them capable of waiting for an indefinite time of creating sufficient wealth for marriage, they ought not to let themselves be discouraged, since this preparation is a kind of loving too. You are preparing a better life for your future family.
This is against desire for marriage which ignites one’s desire for intimacy already even one can’t yet enter courting and then marriage.
Suggested websites: http://www.avemariasingles.com where you can read their articles or subscribe for paid service or free emailed articles about marriage preparation, dating concerns, relationships, and many more. For a really free catholic dating service visit http://www.catholicdatingforfree.com
8. Asking God for a girlfriend but in purity of friendship and not much of romances.
This could have been the SECOND BEST PRACTICE as this is a Pauline teaching based on the passage "it is better to marry than be aflamed with passion" and strikes at addiction itself "if you cannot control yourself." (1Cor. 7:9)
But due to the nature of it, which is most appropriate for those already prepared for marriage, we reassess the practice and just tell those who aren't seeking marriage partner yet or for good should just have friends, associations, etc.
On friendship and associations, excusing oneself always as too much busy and tired already to still join social activities, will not work.
On receiving and loving one's girlfriend, one puts her picture in one's computer and becomes the best motivator of chastity.
But practicing sexual romantic fantasies at night about one's girlfriend wouldn't increase one's love for her, it weakens it.
Now an intriguing fact that I want to share is that rather than think xxx-ratedly, I forced myself to think of my beloved short of coital. And more oftenly I don't masturbate because I love her and she loves me in my imagination. Yet porn thoughts slips in that triggers masturbation.
Thinking sexually of one's beloved is nearer righteousness than thinking xxx-ratedly and masturbating on it. The hope is to use one's uncontrollable urge to urge for one's girlfriend or beloved (marriageable women, single, who loves you and you love her too) so that in due time the lost sense of what is righteous in the sexual sense that one's sexual addiction has blocked in the course of one's sexual development since childhood can be corrected, rather by growth towards what is perfect, first by not masturbating anymore while thinking of one's girlfriend, with an ever growing respect for her, then in time without even thinking romantically of her, and so forth.
Yet the grave point is REAL MARRIAGE, not imagined sexual intimacy and marriage. Our priority is to prepare fully for marriage and then marry already. For what is pointed by St. Paul is that it is better to marry than to be aflamed with passion, not it is better to think sexually of ones girlfriend. So, as one develops into a more chaste person, one should storm heaven for a real marriage to really come but in a manner still submissive to the plan and timing of God.
Thus it isn't a solution to think of her romantically short-of-coital or coital just to avoid xxx-rated kind of thinking. The rule of thumb is to do everything to avoid any kind of impure thinking even of one's girlfriend. Such impure thinking even of one's girlfriend stimulates the sexual organs in an unmarried state which is sinful. Better to be free of anything sinful than to use something sinful to avoid something sinful. What happens is that the other kind of sin, though seemingly more righteous, invites the other kind of sin because both are not pure. So it is better to be pure even one seems inclined to sin, than to introduce something sinful (romantic thinking coital or short of coital) for the sake of avoiding a greater sin (xxx-rated thinking).
For all of our practices, the point is to continue to device ways to become chaste and maintain it. Relapses and recurrences (see Part I of my book for difference in definition) will make us despair, but to stop the fight will just make things worse. Remember to always have the intention to be chaste and do it, even when after a decade of struggle, have not had any kind of 3 to 6 months straight no masturbation life and no impure thinking life. The Lord will forgive those who ask forgiveness, just resolve again to continue fighting. Continue the fight, and don't throw in the towel. The life of Christian holiness entails a battle from birth onwards till death, and should likewise be with our becoming more and more chaste.
Are you a former sexual addict who finds it hard to mingle? Please visit http://www.catholicdatingforfree.com for a free catholic dating service, while http://www.avemariasingles.com is a good paid version if you prefer.
Principles of Chastity
1. Accept the faith that grace is sufficient, and that failure is just a signifier of an inadequately directed effort --source WCC
Thus, not to believe the contrary and lose hope saying, “I will be forever like this because of that child porn incidence. There’s no use after a decade of fight...I am still like this.”
2. Understand that incomplete sexual stimulation can only be satisfied by orgasm.
Thus, one needs to stop a train of thought or behavior that stimulates or is leading to impure thinking by immediate rechanneling of thought or behavior to good acts (WCC) or by the use of “10 Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity.” Take note that we are not speaking about the intentional incomplete sexual stimulation which more or less entertained cannot but be guilty and cannot be in a sense receptive of the grace of chastity, which can be asked in good faith of those who have just been sexually stimulated unintentionally.
3. Understanding that once an incomplete sexual stimulation started, it is only with difficulty and persistence with other activity that one can redirect the incomplete act into something else good. So the importance of nipping it in the bud.
4. 6th Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. 9th Commmandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
“Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28).
This being the case, external living of purity but also internal chastity is needed. That said, one accepts the ”Principles of Chastity” and practice the ”Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity” or read Part I of my book "The Literatures", where all these and others are explained more fully.
5. Prevention is better than cure.
Compulsion, if real, is curable but only with difficulty. Prevention by the importance of innocence starting in childhood and maintained is better than any cure.
Up to now I'm still battling it over. If only someone taught me chastity, to not believe the porno I've seen as a child...but the damage is done...
Lawmakers serious enough in combating increase of bad population need to think deeply about their use of condom, contraception, abortion. They should rather focus on defending the innocence of children as the source of human capacity for responsible parenthood.
The proper sex education then is first to picket porno, prostitution houses, and live chaste marriage and celibacy, before any intellectual teaching of questionable "sexual education" to children.
It is not my honor to defend my case as nearly almost impossibly difficult to cure, and so recourse to using such strong sexual urge inside marriage is needed as counseled by St. Paul (better to be married than to be aflamed with passion). But it is my honor to defend the innocence of children against any unchastity, not just because they are fragile, but because unchastity is almost irreparable when left decaying especially when it starts at the earliest years of childhood.
6. Compulsion (as type of “moral evil”) “stems not from any material deficiency, but is a wound inflicted by the disordered exercise of human freedom" --John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Fides et Ratio
"The fact of being endowed with sex, which makes human reproduction possible, does not make the sex act necessary per se. We are not programmed as to our sexual activity; in the human organism there exist no mechanisms forcing us to act in this way." --Wanda Poltawska, "Priestly Celibacy in the Light of Medicine and Psychology"
This makes us direct the fight to cure one’s free will, putting every determinism as secondary only. It’s not the caffein, it’s not the porno, it’s not the licentious movies, neither the prostitution houses, but me who permitted these things to finally overwhelm me and win against my fight for sexual integration, for Christ though hungry fought the temptation posed by the devil, putting Veritatis Splendor’s challenge to become even martyrs rather than sin. In short it's my sin I have the control to stop.
7. To ask God for chastity and fight for chastity until death.
I gave up a profession to focus on searching and mastering the pearl of great price: chastity. For that I paid dearly. But I have my goal in mind: the fullness of life.
But the benefits of chastity work is as the psalm describes, "more precious than gold or silver, O Lord, is the way of life you teach us." There is no surrender. Only death can stop me from trying to be chaste.
8. To live one’s personal vocation (WCC), the doing of the good, rather than just avoid evil or just avoid sexual addiction.
(buy Welcome to the Catholic Church CDROM, put it on a Kindle, and read about living one's personal vocation and many more)
9. To love what is good and do it.
With the thought of habituating goodness I devised what I called powerpointing, a counting of the good done and evil avoided, but Jesus told St. Therese of the Child Jesus not to count but just to do it all out of love. Indeed it was the doing of the good and not the counting of the good that made sense. Yet as a sexual addict from the earliest year of my childhood up to before I got to know that masturbation is a sin at age 17, I can't tell how such counting technique helped me. You have to think of what is good here and now that I can do and do it, which counts as one, rising in bed, washing my clothes, counts as two, rechannel my mind to other good thoughts when impure thought tempts me, counts as three. The more points make me more confident to become chaste and good.
Powerpointing was inspired by many teachings. Write to me for a discussion of it or read Part I of my book. Yet the major and final preposition that made me pursue it was Catechism of the Catholic Church art. no. 1733 "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes..." Remember though the danger to slide into dynamism with the likes of Nietzche, the will act becoming sundered from reason and thus to faith. Pope Benedict XVI tells us about charity in truth in his Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate". Such is the goal of powerpointing, erasing itself to point to Christ, who showed us what true love is. Charity without truth, the will leading reason and not the other way around, is not charity and degenerates into hatred.
I recommend powerpointing for true compulsives and addicts as a starter while one can do away with it when true compulsion subsides or one is confident enough and obey rather St. Therese (http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com Hans Urs von Balthasar "The Little Way") or just do the little ways
To love is the exact opposite of sexual addiction. This is where powerpointing falls short, because it is an artificial practice for an artificially habituated sickness (sexual addiction). See Pope Benedict XVI "Deus et Caritas" for example telling us that we become more than just obligated to do good, transcending morality and becomes an act of gratitude to God who first loved us (can be downloaded at http://www.vatican.va). Life is not a calculated movement by moral principles apparently, but moral principles becomes a free flowing act of gratitude to God who loved us first.
So powerpointing is a kind of technique like a trauma management, used only during such traumatic situations and not for the rest of one's life.
10. Praying to a specially chosen Saint, studying his/her life, imitating it, talking directly to him/her is better than saying it all to God irreverently, for a compulsive is one of the most blasphemous person on earth. The object of compulsion is his god. The speed of recovery is faster, when a Saint will be the one to relay it to God and Mother Mary reverently, properly, correctly. At least any saint will understand our blasphemies, cursing, blaming, criticizing and correct it before God or Mother Mary may hear or directly receive it from our lips. To sleep and wake up with a Saint is not enough. The saints are there offering their help more than we can ever asks for to understand the mercy of God. I recommend St. Therese of the Child Jesus, patron of the despairing youth, who promised to teach her little way to whoever asks of her, “St. Therese teach us your little way,” spends her heaven doing good upon earth, and is the greatest saint of modern times. It will be a disrespect if we will not mention St. Augustine of Hippo who battled against sexual addiction too to ask his help.
11. To live a holy life exemplified by the saints canonized by the Church as models for imitation is the complete opposite of compulsion, and is the complete goal of life not just chastity. One then asks God for complete guidance about all aspects of one’s life, not just about chastity which is only an aspect of temperance (there is still prudence, fortitude, and justice according to Catechism of the Catholic Church). Here starts life in its fullness that these guidances were not meant to cover up and could not even, noting that life in general is very broad. See http://www.ewtn.com for more resources on living holy life.
13. Other ideas I support: www.moralityinmedia.org www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/brain.pdf ---for the obliteration of porno (for the sake of the children specially) that started it all in my life.
I think I have imbibed already others’ ideas before I could have read them from the other. While others name I haven’t mentioned here are part of who I am now, you can have my full story of struggle no one has published yet or read Part I of my book.
One Last Recommendation
The powerpointing I've devised are mere techniques to bolster your start to the fight against sexual addiction or compulsion, especially of the despairing. It is not a cure. If it doesn't seem to work for you, then move on and find other ways and means to live the commandment of the Lord to purity. It was not designed to become a life maintenance drug. It was designed for the hopeless, to make him get up in bed and do what needs to be done, incorporating in the process the baby steps to chastity works I've tackled here and there. When one is up and moving, it has done its work.
However, due to our fallen nature, we still commit continuously this favorite sin of impurity, needs to continue powerpointing even without hope of complete healing, and thus I point you towards the right cure...Divine Mercy is the cure we all need. When all our striving still failed and nothing seemed to progress, it is this embrace of a Forgiving and Merciful Lord that ultimately settles everything to its proper place. Go to Him because I don't have answers for man's concupiscence. An ultimate question why we still fail despite our striving to live chastity deserves an ultimate answer, Jesus Christ Himself.
Please read first Part 1 of my book as there are points there not completely elaborated here.
This new link is ad-free, no log-in needed, ready to be downloaded courtesy of Google Drive:
Announcement: Welcome to the Catholic Church CDROM is now online. Visit its new website by clicking its webshot below.
TOP 10 Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity
1. Go to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Mother most pure, Mother most chaste. Any human help might frustrate you or might feel not enough, but she will not. Go and consecrate yourself to her at http://www.consecration.com After consecration, go to Confession, then offer the best form of sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, Jesus Christ himself, in the Holy Eucharist, and visit Jesus more often in the Blessed Sacrament.
Pray the Rosary:
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Sister Lucia, Fatima seer
“If you say the Rosary faithfully unto death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, ‘you will receive a never-fading crown of glory’ (1 St. Peter 5:4).”
Saint Louis de Montfort
“The Rosary is THE weapon.”
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)
quotes compiled from http://catholicspiritualdirection.org/prayer.html
The said spiritual activities start and sustain the fight for chastity.
We enter the gift of grace, confession to be the first step. Without Him we can do nothing!
On Confession, let's take note of the third element of a good confession--a firm purpose of amendment!
This is the whole point of this blog, which is to help repentant sexual addicts avoid sin against chastity yet still have that balance to do good and not just avoid evil. I understand that it's already difficult to avoid unchastity and yet you still have to do good. But remember as we suggests down below that doing good helps in avoiding evil too, and that doing good or charity covers a multitude of sin, a payment for those we have harmed directly or indirectly by our sexual addiction and other sins.
Ask for the special grace of chastity belt. Below is St. Thomas being girded by angels with a chastity belt with a promise that he will never experience any temptation and sin against chastity.
The Prayer of St. Thomas for Purity (written by Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas)
Dear Jesus, I know that every perfect gift, and especially that of chastity, depends on the power of Your providence.Without You a mere creature can do nothing. Therefore, I beg You to defend by Your grace the chastity and purity of my body and soul. And if I have ever sensed or imagined anything that could stain my chastity and purity, blot it out, Supreme Lord of my powers, that I may advance with a pure heart in Your love and service, offering myself on the most pure altar of Your divinity all the days of my life. Amen.
2. Staying healthy and mortifying my senses.
Fasting is being touted today as a way to clean or reset our body or digestive system which others do for 24 hours up to 3 days. Also, read more about cleansing diet and why our body needs a 12 hour night fast to give it enough rest. Breakfast is a break from the 12 hour fast after eating 7 p.m. and eating again at 7 a.m. The traditional spiritual intention why we fast and mortify our senses though is nonetheless complete in itself, straightening up the spirit with a healthy effect on the body that we've never thought, as if body and soul connection is really that deep.
On staying healthy, whole plant based food rules. There are lots of studies why hormonal imbalances and compulsion are abundant for animal based food eaters. It's not only papaya which is an "angelic food" or "chastity food," it's all the whole plant based food we can eat while limiting or doing away with all the animal based food altogether if you can do it properly. Just be careful about changing your diet since nutritionists themselves are yet to prove the efficacy of full or partial plant based food consumption because some contend that protein bodies need meat to eat.
I favor though Daniel 1:11-16 as a Bible verse founded on experimentation proving vegetable and water better than the royal table. I don't favor the strictness of not eating meat though since in Mark 7:18-22 Jesus declared all foods clean and gave more emphasis on sin as what defiles a person, thereby giving more importance to the psychosomatic illnesses causing disease. Jesus is my health and my salvation. There are scientific findings nowadays pointing to the need for proof whether it is the thoughts that causes digestive diseases and not more on the digestive diseases causing brain diseases. In other words, it is sexual addiction that causes our physical diseases too. And subscribing to a moderate realism, the balance between the spiritual and physical is both important.
While researchers still need to prove that sexual addiction or too many run away hormones or waves to handle is linked with eating animal based food and refined plant based food, it is sufficient for the moment to read on the works of vegetarians and live their lifestyle and benefit from them.
It is not by way of an “energetic no” --Lindworsky, Training of the Will
“One can simply stop sinning” --Welcome to the Catholic Church CD-Rom (WCC)
We are not strengthened in avoiding evil. We are either strengthened in doing good (becomes virtue) or in doing evil (becomes vice).
We do not mean to say negative precepts are invalid. Of course, we do not do what the Lord doesn't want us do. If we do disobey, say, the command do not kill, then we cannot even focus on doing the positive aspect of the command of the Lord, say, love your neighbor. It is short of saying that we have to observe all the commandments of the Lord, be it negative or positive.
Thomas A Kempis tells that habit is overcome by habit(Bk. 1.c.21). And so we do develop good habit and not just stop a vice without doing anything further.
Nature abhors vacuum, nothing stays in the middle, one either regress or progress. Most especially God vomits lukewarm persons. Thus activity is the best weapon against any temptation or one can strengthen one’s will in doing good. In sports parlance, offense is the best defense. It doesn’t mean to stop any defense. A Kobe Bryant unstoppable in his offense destroys opponent’s morale and buoys his team’s lagging spirit for the win.
An ingrained neural connection is only weakened by disuse, not totally forgotten. That is why neuropsychologists suggest making new neural connections or strengthening other existing connections that even use the disused connection in a different way.
In short, it means to weaken sexual addiction by good activity, the neural connections of sexual addiction being used by other good activity.
While night relapse should not be a concern because prayer, good thoughts, thanksgivings, etc. are activities too of their own kind to lull one to sleep.
4. Calendaring details
Calendaring is good because it should not point the fault in you to make you discouraged. Rather it should point very clearly where you can make progress. Only continuous self-monitoring and evaluation of ourselves can we make great progress. Beating one's previous record primarily needs recording!
We cannot say there's nothing happening, no progressing. It is questionable if we don't even know the facts consciously when, where, how, and why we relapse.
What's amazing with calendaring is that it tells us the truth honestly and not by guess work. More often, we have more chaste days than unchaste ones! Praise the Lord! How on earth will I know if we only have thoughts of negativity from an unfounded and unrecorded misbehavior! Rather, we are encouraged the more when we see that our Best Practices is bearing fruit, and our labors are not in vain!
Give this coping mechanism another try specially if you are forgetful of details.
(Previous note below:)
Calendaring gave me the awareness where and when I relapse and how frequently. This will also train you to recognize and limit your weekly relapse if it seems what you're aware of is too much relapses only. Remember to use this to gain more information to help you crack what can be more helpful for you because calendaring might end up more as a source of greater frustration for it only tells you how many times you always relapse.
So, it might be time to find out really the number, and more probably the causes or stimulus that made the relapse. Just don't absolutize that we are 100% always determined or controlled by stimulus. We are body and soul, the soul being free of matter, and thus have to subscribe to moderate realism (see Catholic Encyclopedia online). Our being accountable for our choices will have to be recognized, repented, and helped by God's grace.
Use your mobile phone's calendar noting. Put R=relapsed P=probable solutions C=most probable reasons what contributed to chaste days and fill in the relevant details.
You can discontinue this practice once you are already aware of how to juggle the different variables to enable a life well suited for chastity to flourish. Calendaring need not become the source of a spirituality which is centered on sin.
The reminder above is against inertia caused by lack of desire for anything other than sexual orgasm. Better to push oneself to do good things than not do anything at all because of lack of desire for anything good, with the thought that lack of desire for anything good is included in the cycle of becoming addicted again to sexual orgasm. TAKE NOTE that this will not become effective unless one does entertain AS FAST AS POSSIBLE a good desire other than the addiction, and in a manner that one will AFFECT ONESELF TO FEEL that one has already shifted the addictive desire to the good desire chosen. For beginner's information, this becomes automatic in time through practice.
This can be very difficult for real compulsives.
Goleman quoted by Reisman (p.13) http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/brain.pdf, tells that children’s early addiction to porn may mean healing the impossible, or in the language of Sexaholics Anonymous, 15 years of addiction may mean 15 years of healing to balance the transaction.
And also the question is whether those who started as adult addicts have fairer chances of healing.
For those who find it difficult, I offer the idea of powerpointing (principles of chastity #9 below, elaborated on Part I of my book) for healing compulsion originating from early childhood addiction.
6. Trashing of all skeleton in the closet (pornographic materials), irretrievable in the strictest sense. Use shift+delete when deleting porn videos. It becomes irretrievable even by recovery software. When stuck in the restore bin, delete all but the most recent restore point in the disk clean up of control panel. Computer savvys know what I mean because they can easily retrieve deleted porn on Window 7's previous version tab.
Porn Movies Aren't Therapeutic
It is rather the opposite. Once I get rid of all of it irretrievably then healing sexual addiction is 50% finished already. Of course youporn.com for example isn't in my cabinet or computer, and it isn't my fault why they aren't yet deleted for good. A free public DNS which blocks porn or adult content is better and easier to set up. Choose Securly, OpenDNS, Norton ConnectSafe, or GreenTeamDNS which blocks adult contents and other harmful stuffs as an additional. Set your wifi router's dns or your lan if you have no router and you're good to go.
Some paid version monitors your online activity to check if you're still viewing porn online.
Depending on your need for a blocker, the objective is to be responsible for our own healing, believing that controlling ourselves is possible.
It is my free decision to choose to become financially prepared for marriage first before courting a lady of a noble character whom I will seek when already financially prepared. But deeper reflection will tell sexual addicts that it is not an option for them not to prepare financially. And since chastity practices will make them capable of waiting for an indefinite time of creating sufficient wealth for marriage, they ought not to let themselves be discouraged, since this preparation is a kind of loving too. You are preparing a better life for your future family.
This is against desire for marriage which ignites one’s desire for intimacy already even one can’t yet enter courting and then marriage.
Suggested websites: http://www.avemariasingles.com where you can read their articles or subscribe for paid service or free emailed articles about marriage preparation, dating concerns, relationships, and many more. For a really free catholic dating service visit http://www.catholicdatingforfree.com
8. Asking God for a girlfriend but in purity of friendship and not much of romances.
This could have been the SECOND BEST PRACTICE as this is a Pauline teaching based on the passage "it is better to marry than be aflamed with passion" and strikes at addiction itself "if you cannot control yourself." (1Cor. 7:9)
But due to the nature of it, which is most appropriate for those already prepared for marriage, we reassess the practice and just tell those who aren't seeking marriage partner yet or for good should just have friends, associations, etc.
On friendship and associations, excusing oneself always as too much busy and tired already to still join social activities, will not work.
On receiving and loving one's girlfriend, one puts her picture in one's computer and becomes the best motivator of chastity.
But practicing sexual romantic fantasies at night about one's girlfriend wouldn't increase one's love for her, it weakens it.
Now an intriguing fact that I want to share is that rather than think xxx-ratedly, I forced myself to think of my beloved short of coital. And more oftenly I don't masturbate because I love her and she loves me in my imagination. Yet porn thoughts slips in that triggers masturbation.
Thinking sexually of one's beloved is nearer righteousness than thinking xxx-ratedly and masturbating on it. The hope is to use one's uncontrollable urge to urge for one's girlfriend or beloved (marriageable women, single, who loves you and you love her too) so that in due time the lost sense of what is righteous in the sexual sense that one's sexual addiction has blocked in the course of one's sexual development since childhood can be corrected, rather by growth towards what is perfect, first by not masturbating anymore while thinking of one's girlfriend, with an ever growing respect for her, then in time without even thinking romantically of her, and so forth.
Yet the grave point is REAL MARRIAGE, not imagined sexual intimacy and marriage. Our priority is to prepare fully for marriage and then marry already. For what is pointed by St. Paul is that it is better to marry than to be aflamed with passion, not it is better to think sexually of ones girlfriend. So, as one develops into a more chaste person, one should storm heaven for a real marriage to really come but in a manner still submissive to the plan and timing of God.
Thus it isn't a solution to think of her romantically short-of-coital or coital just to avoid xxx-rated kind of thinking. The rule of thumb is to do everything to avoid any kind of impure thinking even of one's girlfriend. Such impure thinking even of one's girlfriend stimulates the sexual organs in an unmarried state which is sinful. Better to be free of anything sinful than to use something sinful to avoid something sinful. What happens is that the other kind of sin, though seemingly more righteous, invites the other kind of sin because both are not pure. So it is better to be pure even one seems inclined to sin, than to introduce something sinful (romantic thinking coital or short of coital) for the sake of avoiding a greater sin (xxx-rated thinking).
For all of our practices, the point is to continue to device ways to become chaste and maintain it. Relapses and recurrences (see Part I of my book for difference in definition) will make us despair, but to stop the fight will just make things worse. Remember to always have the intention to be chaste and do it, even when after a decade of struggle, have not had any kind of 3 to 6 months straight no masturbation life and no impure thinking life. The Lord will forgive those who ask forgiveness, just resolve again to continue fighting. Continue the fight, and don't throw in the towel. The life of Christian holiness entails a battle from birth onwards till death, and should likewise be with our becoming more and more chaste.
Are you a former sexual addict who finds it hard to mingle? Please visit http://www.catholicdatingforfree.com for a free catholic dating service, while http://www.avemariasingles.com is a good paid version if you prefer.
Principles of Chastity
1. Accept the faith that grace is sufficient, and that failure is just a signifier of an inadequately directed effort --source WCC
Thus, not to believe the contrary and lose hope saying, “I will be forever like this because of that child porn incidence. There’s no use after a decade of fight...I am still like this.”
2. Understand that incomplete sexual stimulation can only be satisfied by orgasm.
Thus, one needs to stop a train of thought or behavior that stimulates or is leading to impure thinking by immediate rechanneling of thought or behavior to good acts (WCC) or by the use of “10 Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity.” Take note that we are not speaking about the intentional incomplete sexual stimulation which more or less entertained cannot but be guilty and cannot be in a sense receptive of the grace of chastity, which can be asked in good faith of those who have just been sexually stimulated unintentionally.
3. Understanding that once an incomplete sexual stimulation started, it is only with difficulty and persistence with other activity that one can redirect the incomplete act into something else good. So the importance of nipping it in the bud.
4. 6th Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. 9th Commmandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
“Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28).
This being the case, external living of purity but also internal chastity is needed. That said, one accepts the ”Principles of Chastity” and practice the ”Best Practices in Maintaining Chastity” or read Part I of my book "The Literatures", where all these and others are explained more fully.
5. Prevention is better than cure.
Compulsion, if real, is curable but only with difficulty. Prevention by the importance of innocence starting in childhood and maintained is better than any cure.
Up to now I'm still battling it over. If only someone taught me chastity, to not believe the porno I've seen as a child...but the damage is done...
Lawmakers serious enough in combating increase of bad population need to think deeply about their use of condom, contraception, abortion. They should rather focus on defending the innocence of children as the source of human capacity for responsible parenthood.
The proper sex education then is first to picket porno, prostitution houses, and live chaste marriage and celibacy, before any intellectual teaching of questionable "sexual education" to children.
It is not my honor to defend my case as nearly almost impossibly difficult to cure, and so recourse to using such strong sexual urge inside marriage is needed as counseled by St. Paul (better to be married than to be aflamed with passion). But it is my honor to defend the innocence of children against any unchastity, not just because they are fragile, but because unchastity is almost irreparable when left decaying especially when it starts at the earliest years of childhood.
6. Compulsion (as type of “moral evil”) “stems not from any material deficiency, but is a wound inflicted by the disordered exercise of human freedom" --John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Fides et Ratio
"The fact of being endowed with sex, which makes human reproduction possible, does not make the sex act necessary per se. We are not programmed as to our sexual activity; in the human organism there exist no mechanisms forcing us to act in this way." --Wanda Poltawska, "Priestly Celibacy in the Light of Medicine and Psychology"
This makes us direct the fight to cure one’s free will, putting every determinism as secondary only. It’s not the caffein, it’s not the porno, it’s not the licentious movies, neither the prostitution houses, but me who permitted these things to finally overwhelm me and win against my fight for sexual integration, for Christ though hungry fought the temptation posed by the devil, putting Veritatis Splendor’s challenge to become even martyrs rather than sin. In short it's my sin I have the control to stop.
7. To ask God for chastity and fight for chastity until death.
I gave up a profession to focus on searching and mastering the pearl of great price: chastity. For that I paid dearly. But I have my goal in mind: the fullness of life.
But the benefits of chastity work is as the psalm describes, "more precious than gold or silver, O Lord, is the way of life you teach us." There is no surrender. Only death can stop me from trying to be chaste.
8. To live one’s personal vocation (WCC), the doing of the good, rather than just avoid evil or just avoid sexual addiction.
(buy Welcome to the Catholic Church CDROM, put it on a Kindle, and read about living one's personal vocation and many more)
9. To love what is good and do it.
With the thought of habituating goodness I devised what I called powerpointing, a counting of the good done and evil avoided, but Jesus told St. Therese of the Child Jesus not to count but just to do it all out of love. Indeed it was the doing of the good and not the counting of the good that made sense. Yet as a sexual addict from the earliest year of my childhood up to before I got to know that masturbation is a sin at age 17, I can't tell how such counting technique helped me. You have to think of what is good here and now that I can do and do it, which counts as one, rising in bed, washing my clothes, counts as two, rechannel my mind to other good thoughts when impure thought tempts me, counts as three. The more points make me more confident to become chaste and good.
Powerpointing was inspired by many teachings. Write to me for a discussion of it or read Part I of my book. Yet the major and final preposition that made me pursue it was Catechism of the Catholic Church art. no. 1733 "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes..." Remember though the danger to slide into dynamism with the likes of Nietzche, the will act becoming sundered from reason and thus to faith. Pope Benedict XVI tells us about charity in truth in his Encyclical "Caritas in Veritate". Such is the goal of powerpointing, erasing itself to point to Christ, who showed us what true love is. Charity without truth, the will leading reason and not the other way around, is not charity and degenerates into hatred.
I recommend powerpointing for true compulsives and addicts as a starter while one can do away with it when true compulsion subsides or one is confident enough and obey rather St. Therese (http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com Hans Urs von Balthasar "The Little Way") or just do the little ways
To love is the exact opposite of sexual addiction. This is where powerpointing falls short, because it is an artificial practice for an artificially habituated sickness (sexual addiction). See Pope Benedict XVI "Deus et Caritas" for example telling us that we become more than just obligated to do good, transcending morality and becomes an act of gratitude to God who first loved us (can be downloaded at http://www.vatican.va). Life is not a calculated movement by moral principles apparently, but moral principles becomes a free flowing act of gratitude to God who loved us first.
So powerpointing is a kind of technique like a trauma management, used only during such traumatic situations and not for the rest of one's life.
10. Praying to a specially chosen Saint, studying his/her life, imitating it, talking directly to him/her is better than saying it all to God irreverently, for a compulsive is one of the most blasphemous person on earth. The object of compulsion is his god. The speed of recovery is faster, when a Saint will be the one to relay it to God and Mother Mary reverently, properly, correctly. At least any saint will understand our blasphemies, cursing, blaming, criticizing and correct it before God or Mother Mary may hear or directly receive it from our lips. To sleep and wake up with a Saint is not enough. The saints are there offering their help more than we can ever asks for to understand the mercy of God. I recommend St. Therese of the Child Jesus, patron of the despairing youth, who promised to teach her little way to whoever asks of her, “St. Therese teach us your little way,” spends her heaven doing good upon earth, and is the greatest saint of modern times. It will be a disrespect if we will not mention St. Augustine of Hippo who battled against sexual addiction too to ask his help.
11. To live a holy life exemplified by the saints canonized by the Church as models for imitation is the complete opposite of compulsion, and is the complete goal of life not just chastity. One then asks God for complete guidance about all aspects of one’s life, not just about chastity which is only an aspect of temperance (there is still prudence, fortitude, and justice according to Catechism of the Catholic Church). Here starts life in its fullness that these guidances were not meant to cover up and could not even, noting that life in general is very broad. See http://www.ewtn.com for more resources on living holy life.
13. Other ideas I support: www.moralityinmedia.org www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/brain.pdf ---for the obliteration of porno (for the sake of the children specially) that started it all in my life.
I think I have imbibed already others’ ideas before I could have read them from the other. While others name I haven’t mentioned here are part of who I am now, you can have my full story of struggle no one has published yet or read Part I of my book.
One Last Recommendation
The powerpointing I've devised are mere techniques to bolster your start to the fight against sexual addiction or compulsion, especially of the despairing. It is not a cure. If it doesn't seem to work for you, then move on and find other ways and means to live the commandment of the Lord to purity. It was not designed to become a life maintenance drug. It was designed for the hopeless, to make him get up in bed and do what needs to be done, incorporating in the process the baby steps to chastity works I've tackled here and there. When one is up and moving, it has done its work.
However, due to our fallen nature, we still commit continuously this favorite sin of impurity, needs to continue powerpointing even without hope of complete healing, and thus I point you towards the right cure...Divine Mercy is the cure we all need. When all our striving still failed and nothing seemed to progress, it is this embrace of a Forgiving and Merciful Lord that ultimately settles everything to its proper place. Go to Him because I don't have answers for man's concupiscence. An ultimate question why we still fail despite our striving to live chastity deserves an ultimate answer, Jesus Christ Himself.
I will pray for your healing... Lord, heal us all of our stubborn addiction and enable us to live the holy life we always longed for, that you always wanted for us...
Mother Mary, pray for us!
St. Augustine, help us!
St. Therese, teach us to love!
St. Jude, give us hope!
