Help me with my addiction.

[Yahya]

Hi,

I am a sixteen years old male teenager. I have been masturbating for around two years up to now. Right now I have a question that for self actualizing do I have to give up my masturbating addiction or am I allowed to keep it.

 

Thank you.

[Forestluv]

One doesn’t need to stop masturbating for self actualizing work. You describe it as an “addiction”. If you feel like it is interfering with aspects of your life, you could try cutting back some and see how it goes. If you don’t feel like it’s interfering with with your life, then I wouldn’t worry about it.

[oMarcos]

I think It's better for you to understand the reasons you do it, do you have insecurities, can you approach woman? etc. masturbation comes a lot in terms of compensation, doesn't mean that It's bad or wrong...

[Yahya]

@oMarcos What do I do after understanding the reason?

[Psychonaut]

At this age I would not stress too much about masturbation. Labelling it as an addiction might not be that helpful. 

Just be aware of what type of porn you are watching. Observer if it turns to porn that is not of your normal sexual orientation or too abusive. When it has reached this state it is time to reevaluate and turn the frequency and extremeness of the porn back a bit.

[Pharion]

For most guys 'addiction' isn't really a correct way of thinking about masturbation. Especially if you are currently sixteen, but also in general guys just have a natural desire to cum which is just in our biology. Its only as addictive as feeling hungry, thirsty, or tired is. Feeling horny or wanting to cum is the same way, and in the same way it has benefits - keeps you ready to have sex - cleans out your system which is healthy - regulates your mood / relaxes you - regulates your level of horniness. For some guys it really can become an addiction, if you are doing it way more than neccesary and its causing problems with other parts of your life (like if you are staying home from shcool to masturbate) so you dont have to feel bad about doing it or wanting to do it. for me the only negative part is that it takes up 30-45 mins a day on average, which adds up, so if you do wanna try to stop to reclaim that time or energy, by all means do so, but don't think of it as an addiction that needs to be purged. 

[Nahm]

 

On 5/19/2019 at 7:55 PM, Yahya said:

Hi,

I am a sixteen years old male teenager. I have been masturbating for around two years up to now. Right now I have a question that for self actualizing do I have to give up my masturbating addiction or am I allowed to keep it.

 

Thank you.

Instead, give up thinking about yourself. That is the underlying ‘addiction’ at play. It appears to be a global epidemic symptomatic of materialism, so don’t blame yourself, just seek to understand this about the psychological environment, or, this era / culture, if you will. 

Because you will always be the  awareness of these thoughts, the awareness thoughts arise in....

“I am a”

“I have been”

“I have”

“do I have to”

“am I allowed”

...these thoughts about yourself can never be true.  You’re always the awareness. You’re always the One in which the thoughts are arising. The awareness of the thoughts. Imagine balloons rising up, unaware the arising is the nature of the helium within them, so they claim their own “separate balloon identities”. 

These ‘thoughts about self’ become an idea of you. Done habitually, inattentively, you soon don’t even notice you’re experiencing life as if you were two entities: The you which you have believed yourself to be, (balloon) and, the awareness of thoughts and beliefs (helium).

When you make choices for your life from this ‘two-selves’, or ‘separate self’ situation, the choices are limited to fit with these ideas of who you are. Without being attentive to this subtle inattention, you no longer notice you’re doing it, but you do experience the suffering you’re creating by doing it. 

 

So instead of repeating thinking about yourself, just shift these thoughts to about your life. 

What do you want to do, to experience? 

Is the handiwork taking up time in which you could be doing more of what you want to, experiencing more of what you want to? 

Possibly, but probably not. It’s likely imo that how you are feeling about yourself is what can be let go of, not the over flipping of your omelette.

In any case, it’s hard when you’re 16. The more realized this awareness, the easier life gets.