u/Fancy-Ferret-8652

I was at day 69. Flatline. Nothing. Did feel some sort of attraction early on, but was all fleeting stuff. I read reports of guys experiencing immense attraction at day 18. I'm double that and felt absolutely nothing. In that silence, God goes to work. He dismantles my desire for female attention at the root. I don't know it yet, but that demolition is mercy. A tower built on that need will crumble. The higher the height, the greater the fall. He tears it down first.

I prepare for a Holiday Club. Teens sleeping over at church, serving kids, crafts, activities, chaos for a whole week. I fast and pray the whole day before. My prayer: God, go ahead of me. Bless everything I do. Lead me to who You want, spare me from who You don't. Show me what I need to see, according to Jeremiah 33:3 and Psalm 139:23.

Something shifts, and the changes are more noticeable day after day. People I thought were ignoring me start opening up. Without any more effort. Without any more strategy.
I'm in the cafeteria. I get my food, place it down, leave to grab a drink. I come back and two girls have put plates on both sides of me. They ask me to switch so they can sit together. I move. I'm talking to one of them, her friend sitting between us. She girl asks another friend to swap seats. They shuffle. Now they're all in front of me. Glances. I just eat my food. I see a girl that I know passing by behind me, she's a dancer, and I sing out loud a small tune she was dancing to. One girl in front of me looks at me dead in the eyes and says, "Wow, you're really enjoying life." Admiration flashes in her big, light brown eyes, then she hides behind her phone. I realize: I am enjoying this. I enjoy them, their company, without needing them. I just let the moment flow right through me. That's it. One thing I often tell myself: I was before this person, I am now, I will be later. Whatever happens today, I'll be in my bed at 10 PM. It makes everything light. (Of course don't misunderstand nor misuse this.)

Later. The banana girl. She walks up with her little friend and we talk. At some point she steals my banana, and runs. I chase her briefly, tell myself it isn't worth it. I see her stopping and turning around. I quickly sit on a couch and start talking to some random girl next to me just to ignore her. A while later, she comes back and places the banana on my head, playing with it. I'm lowkey fed up now, "Let go of my banana!" She laughs hysterically, bolting off. Now the hall is emptier and we end up playing Jenga (banana girl and me). She's in roller skates. She drops back into an interesting, "open" position, talking about her skates and stuff. My flesh fires up. I slump forward, deep in fake thought, concealing my moment of weakness. Her eyes drop to my legs. "What's wrong?" she asks. "I just remembered something," I scramble. She nods slightly, a smirk forming across her lips. Then later, out of nowhere, she says, "I don't wear makeup." Eyes down. Then up, straight at me. Then away fast, like she got burned.
I don't know if that's a thing women casually just say to guys. Not sure. Was she so secure about her appearance that she could just say it? Wouldn't you be comfortable not wearing makeup around your husband for example? Because you already secured him and he's not going anywhere?

Now I wrote all of this as a way of processing all of this craziness out of my mind. I've developed this thing where after a great social event, I get tired of thinking and rethinking about it. It starts to wear me down. So I keep account to be able to forget. None of this was me. It was God. He surfaced the subconscious rot. He renewed my mind. I just obeyed. The attention I received wasn't a prize for a long streak. It was a side effect of having my internal world reordered by the One who made me. I didn't chase. I didn't strategize. I just let Him build me in the silence.
The flatline is where He builds you. Don't despise it. No external results? Good. He's digging deep so the foundation holds. The ROI is insane, not because you become a magnet, but because you become free.

I'm at 75 days now. It feels normal. And that, brothers, is the real miracle.
But here's the closing piece that ties it all together: that night before the Holiday Club, I had a dream. Vivid. I'm in a line with church friends and I feel it: low confidence, low self-esteem, a heavy sense everyone is ignoring me. I wake up. God surfaced hidden programming. The junk running in my subconscious. You can't outwork your self-image. You can't run from it. So I took those thoughts captive and made them obedient to Christ. I cancelled them. I declared 2 Timothy 1:7 over my mind. That was the real shift – everything else was just the fruit.

Stay strong brothers.
The Steward Heart,
Godspeed.

I was at day 69. Flatline. Nothing. Did feel some sort of attraction early on, but was all fleeting stuff. I read reports of guys experiencing immense attraction at day 18. I'm double that and felt absolutely nothing. In that silence, God goes to work. He dismantles my desire for female attention at the root. I don't know it yet, but that demolition is mercy. A tower built on that need will crumble. The higher the height, the greater the fall. He tears it down first.

I prepare for a Holiday Club. Teens sleeping over at church, serving kids, crafts, activities, chaos for a whole week. I fast and pray the whole day before. My prayer: God, go ahead of me. Bless everything I do. Lead me to who You want, spare me from who You don't. Show me what I need to see, according to Jeremiah 33:3 and Psalm 139:23.

Something shifts, and the changes are more noticeable day after day. People I thought were ignoring me start opening up. Without any more effort. Without any more strategy.
I'm in the cafeteria. I get my food, place it down, leave to grab a drink. I come back and two girls have put plates on both sides of me. They ask me to switch so they can sit together. I move. I'm talking to one of them, her friend sitting between us. She girl asks another friend to swap seats. They shuffle. Now they're all in front of me. Glances. I just eat my food. I see a girl that I know passing by behind me, she's a dancer, and I sing out loud a small tune she was dancing to. One girl in front of me looks at me dead in the eyes and says, "Wow, you're really enjoying life." Admiration flashes in her big, light brown eyes, then she hides behind her phone. I realize: I am enjoying this. I enjoy them, their company, without needing them. I just let the moment flow right through me. That's it. One thing I often tell myself: I was before this person, I am now, I will be later. Whatever happens today, I'll be in my bed at 10 PM. It makes everything light. (Of course don't misunderstand nor misuse this.)

Later. The banana girl. She walks up with her little friend and we talk. At some point she steals my banana, and runs. I chase her briefly, tell myself it isn't worth it. I see her stopping and turning around. I quickly sit on a couch and start talking to some random girl next to me just to ignore her. A while later, she comes back and places the banana on my head, playing with it. I'm lowkey fed up now, "Let go of my banana!" She laughs hysterically, bolting off. Now the hall is emptier and we end up playing Jenga (banana girl and me). She's in roller skates. She drops back into an interesting, "open" position, talking about her skates and stuff. My flesh fires up. I slump forward, deep in fake thought, concealing my moment of weakness. Her eyes drop to my legs. "What's wrong?" she asks. "I just remembered something," I scramble. She nods slightly, a smirk forming across her lips. Then later, out of nowhere, she says, "I don't wear makeup." Eyes down. Then up, straight at me. Then away fast, like she got burned.
I don't know if that's a thing women casually just say to guys. Not sure. Was she so secure about her appearance that she could just say it? Wouldn't you be comfortable not wearing makeup around your husband for example? Because you already secured him and he's not going anywhere?

Now I wrote all of this as a way of processing all of this craziness out of my mind. I've developed this thing where after a great social event, I get tired of thinking and rethinking about it. It starts to wear me down. So I keep account to be able to forget. None of this was me. It was God. He surfaced the subconscious rot. He renewed my mind. I just obeyed. The attention I received wasn't a prize for a long streak. It was a side effect of having my internal world reordered by the One who made me. I didn't chase. I didn't strategize. I just let Him build me in the silence.
The flatline is where He builds you. Don't despise it. No external results? Good. He's digging deep so the foundation holds. The ROI is insane, not because you become a magnet, but because you become free.

I'm at 75 days now. It feels normal. And that, brothers, is the real miracle.
But here's the closing piece that ties it all together: that night before the Holiday Club, I had a dream. Vivid. I'm in a line with church friends and I feel it: low confidence, low self-esteem, a heavy sense everyone is ignoring me. I wake up. God surfaced hidden programming. The junk running in my subconscious. You can't outwork your self-image. You can't run from it. So I took those thoughts captive and made them obedient to Christ. I cancelled them. I declared 2 Timothy 1:7 over my mind. That was the real shift – everything else was just the fruit.

Stay strong brothers.
The Steward Heart,
Godspeed.

I was at day 69. Flatline. Nothing. Did feel some sort of attraction early on, but was all fleeting stuff. I read reports of guys experiencing immense attraction at day 18. I'm double that and felt absolutely nothing. In that silence, God goes to work. He dismantles my desire for female attention at the root. I don't know it yet, but that demolition is mercy. A tower built on that need will crumble. The higher the height, the greater the fall. He tears it down first.

I prepare for a Holiday Club. Teens sleeping over at church, serving kids, crafts, activities, chaos for a whole week. I fast and pray the whole day before. My prayer: God, go ahead of me. Bless everything I do. Lead me to who You want, spare me from who You don't. Show me what I need to see, according to Jeremiah 33:3 and Psalm 139:23.

Something shifts, and the changes are more noticeable day after day. People I thought were ignoring me start opening up. Without any more effort. Without any more strategy.
I'm in the cafeteria. I get my food, place it down, leave to grab a drink. I come back and two girls have put plates on both sides of me. They ask me to switch so they can sit together. I move. I'm talking to one of them, her friend sitting between us. She girl asks another friend to swap seats. They shuffle. Now they're all in front of me. Glances. I just eat my food. I see a girl that I know passing by behind me, she's a dancer, and I sing out loud a small tune she was dancing to. One girl in front of me looks at me dead in the eyes and says, "Wow, you're really enjoying life." Admiration flashes in her big, light brown eyes, then she hides behind her phone. I realize: I am enjoying this. I enjoy them, their company, without needing them. I just let the moment flow right through me. That's it. One thing I often tell myself: I was before this person, I am now, I will be later. Whatever happens today, I'll be in my bed at 10 PM. It makes everything light. (Of course don't misunderstand nor misuse this.)

Later. The banana girl. She walks up with her little friend and we talk. At some point she steals my banana, and runs. I chase her briefly, tell myself it isn't worth it. I see her stopping and turning around. I quickly sit on a couch and start talking to some random girl next to me just to ignore her. A while later, she comes back and places the banana on my head, playing with it. I'm lowkey fed up now, "Let go of my banana!" She laughs hysterically, bolting off. Now the hall is emptier and we end up playing Jenga (banana girl and me). She's in roller skates. She drops back into an interesting, "open" position, talking about her skates and stuff. My flesh fires up. I slump forward, deep in fake thought, concealing my moment of weakness. Her eyes drop to my legs. "What's wrong?" she asks. "I just remembered something," I scramble. She nods slightly, a smirk forming across her lips. Then later, out of nowhere, she says, "I don't wear makeup." Eyes down. Then up, straight at me. Then away fast, like she got burned.
I don't know if that's a thing women casually just say to guys. Not sure. Was she so secure about her appearance that she could just say it? Wouldn't you be comfortable not wearing makeup around your husband for example? Because you already secured him and he's not going anywhere?

Now I wrote all of this as a way of processing all of this craziness out of my mind. I've developed this thing where after a great social event, I get tired of thinking and rethinking about it. It starts to wear me down. So I keep account to be able to forget. None of this was me. It was God. He surfaced the subconscious rot. He renewed my mind. I just obeyed. The attention I received wasn't a prize for a long streak. It was a side effect of having my internal world reordered by the One who made me. I didn't chase. I didn't strategize. I just let Him build me in the silence.
The flatline is where He builds you. Don't despise it. No external results? Good. He's digging deep so the foundation holds. The ROI is insane, not because you become a magnet, but because you become free.

I'm at 75 days now. It feels normal. And that, brothers, is the real miracle.
But here's the closing piece that ties it all together: that night before the Holiday Club, I had a dream. Vivid. I'm in a line with church friends and I feel it: low confidence, low self-esteem, a heavy sense everyone is ignoring me. I wake up. God surfaced hidden programming. The junk running in my subconscious. You can't outwork your self-image. You can't run from it. So I took those thoughts captive and made them obedient to Christ. I cancelled them. I declared 2 Timothy 1:7 over my mind. That was the real shift – everything else was just the fruit.

Stay strong brothers.
The Steward Heart,
Godspeed.

I start attending this Youth Meeting. 30 teenagers maybe, every Friday night, holy fellowship. I analyze from the shadows the hidden hierarchies, the unspoken social circles. This one guy stands out: tall, buff, decent-looking. Every guy is flexing his ego by arm-wrestling on this one bench. He swats them all like flies. I don't dare challenge him. He gives off this masculine dominant type of energy. So at the start I kinda lay low around him. Just a handshake each time I see him, nothing more. He would shake my hand, half-interestedly and it would end there.

After a few weeks, I begin to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone. Challenge myself to meet someone new each week, here and there, yet always subconsciously avoiding him. But at around day 30 maybe, I have this great night where I just stack the social wins. I feel great. I look at him in the middle of the room; all of a sudden he doesn't seem so frightening. I walk up to him and shake his hand. He's talking with this other guy, they pause. I initiate a conversation. It's dry at start. I offer my hand again and we shake again: “you have a pretty weak handshake, but I can tell you can give a harder shake” I say smiling. We keep on shaking “go on, shake harder” I insist. “If I do so I’ll break your hand”, he says (not entirely false). We go back and forth a bit as he seems to be opening up, turns to the other guy and drops: “this is the first nice thing he said to me.” My smile probably froze, completely disarmed. He continues: “Each time we talk he usually gives me this ‘I don’t want to talk to you man’ type of vibe”.

That stuck with me all night, and then it hit me: people don't care about you. They don't care about your insecurities, about your teeth, about your anything. When you worry about how you come off to other people, excessively, you give off a weird vibe. I felt uncomfortable talking to that guy, I didn’t know that by doing so I projected that emotion, through my body language, through my electromagnetic field, onto him. Because people don't chase attention, they chase how you make them feel. Inversely: people don't avoid your attention, they avoid how you make them feel. You project your emotional state unto them, and it will affect them depending on the strength of their emotions. So the thing, it seems, is to have a healthy amount of social inhibition (where you worry about others, don't want to go there with 0 self-respect) and not entertain any low level emotions (shame & guilt) while engaging with anyone. Focus on the other person, ask genuine open-questions, take a mental note of their eye colour. Take your attention off of yourself (self-fixation/pride) and shift it to the wonderful human being created in the image of God before you (humility).
Stay strong brothers.
The Steward Heart,
Godspeed.

I start attending this Youth Meeting. 30 teenagers maybe, every Friday night, holy fellowship. I analyze from the shadows the hidden hierarchies, the unspoken social circles. This one guy stands out: tall, buff, decent-looking. Every guy is flexing his ego by arm-wrestling on this one bench. He swats them all like flies. I don't dare challenge him. He gives off this masculine dominant type of energy. So at the start I kinda lay low around him. Just a handshake each time I see him, nothing more. He would shake my hand, half-interestedly and it would end there.

After a few weeks, I begin to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone. Challenge myself to meet someone new each week, here and there, yet always subconsciously avoiding him. But at around day 30 maybe, I have this great night where I just stack the social wins. I feel great. I look at him in the middle of the room; all of a sudden he doesn't seem so frightening. I walk up to him and shake his hand. He's talking with this other guy, they pause. I initiate a conversation. It's dry at start. I offer my hand again and we shake again: “you have a pretty weak handshake, but I can tell you can give a harder shake” I say smiling. We keep on shaking “go on, shake harder” I insist. “If I do so I’ll break your hand”, he says (not entirely false). We go back and forth a bit as he seems to be opening up, turns to the other guy and drops: “this is the first nice thing he said to me.” My smile probably froze, completely disarmed. He continues: “Each time we talk he usually gives me this ‘I don’t want to talk to you man’ type of vibe”.

That stuck with me all night, and then it hit me: people don't care about you. They don't care about your insecurities, about your teeth, about your anything. When you worry about how you come off to other people, excessively, you give off a weird vibe. I felt uncomfortable talking to that guy, I didn’t know that by doing so I projected that emotion, through my body language, through my electromagnetic field, onto him. Because people don't chase attention, they chase how you make them feel. Inversely: people don't avoid your attention, they avoid how you make them feel. You project your emotional state unto them, and it will affect them depending on the strength of their emotions. So the thing, it seems, is to have a healthy amount of social inhibition (where you worry about others, don't want to go there with 0 self-respect) and not entertain any low level emotions (shame & guilt) while engaging with anyone. Focus on the other person, ask genuine open-questions, take a mental note of their eye colour. Take your attention off of yourself (self-fixation/pride) and shift it to the wonderful human being created in the image of God before you (humility).
Stay strong brothers.
The Steward Heart,
Godspeed.

What a month this has been. My past record was 3 weeks. Now, for the first time in 5 years, everyday is a new record. Basically PMO since 11, unfortunately, but glory be given to God that He has freed me in Jesus' name.
I do nothing by myself.

Here are 3 things in my life where I have seen a massive difference:

Confidence Increase
On my last streak (21 days), the day right after I had relapsed, actually, my Mum made a comment on how I seemed more confident. My body language, the way I carried myself. My Dad said that it was because of some group I started attending, that I was replicating the mannerism of the people there. I smirked internally; none of them knew the real reason. Gave me a huge confidence boost. 
Now, I'm dealing with 'over-confidence'. My Mum made a comment about how it was impolite to speak to her, an adult, with my hands in my pocket. Didn't even realize I was doing it; registered it. Keeping in mind to be confident without being impolite and submissive. Just googled the word, it's 'assertive'.
At around week 3 maybe I had this huge confidence boost out of nowhere where I felt 'invincible'. I got up and got some crazy amount of work done like nothing could take me down. Lasted for the rest of the day.

Reminiscence
Childhood memories popping up. Past stuff, whether its songs or events, keep pop up at random times. I remember when I was a kid there was this beautiful memory of me playing at a family friend's house with their kids, jumping on a trampoline, on a sunny day and just rethinking about it would make my entire day. When I realised that I was remembering it less and less, I was so sad. I had forgotten it for years. It just popped up recently. Another one is when I was looking at a picture of Hidea Tanaka fan art (shoutout to my Warcross fans out there!), and not long after, a cringe, upbeat, 2018-ish, chinese song from Tiktok popped up. I hadn't thought of it in years! ( and with reason, brrr). So it's nice. There are many more but these are some of them. It's like you're rediscovering yourself. As if the neural pathways that PMO destroyed are now healing.

Looks & Magnetism
Ok so now's the part I used to clickbait yall. 
On day 25, my Mum (yes, again) told me 'tu es devenu beau', which means 'you became handsome'. Realizing that that would imply that I wasn't good-looking all this time, she quickly replaced it with 'you look very handsome'. She brought it up again a few days ago in front of my Dad, asking him if he felt the same way. Honestly, can't remember what he said. But a compliment like that from my Mum should mean a lot more to me than if a random girl came up to me and said the same thing to me.
I'm not gonna lie, even on my last streak I felt as if my face looked better, leaner, shaper, my skin looked lighter and smoother (could be due to cutting out sugar and regular physical activity too, what do you think?). At some point way back I was releasing up to 4 times a day. I'm breaking out all around, my face is cooked, my hair looks like that of a mad scientist, and I stopped looking at myself in the mirror when doing mundane stuff such as brushing my teeth. 
So this is a nice change. (Please note that I had a consistent skincare routine even back then.)
I had pretty tense relations with my parents and younger siblings due to my PMO-induced rage. We never used to talk and when we would, it wouldn't be pretty. But now everything just flows. Conversations are spontaneous and they seem genuinely interested in connecting with me. Of course, I can't attribute it all to SR and ignore the toxic character (it's only an amplifier, a multiplier and literally the ancient human baseline!) This change was progressive -and spans throughout multiple months as I was retaining on and off, so this is the accumulating effect of the previous streaks- but SR definitely gave me a much needed boost.
Came back from the shops the other day. Got to the entrance of the place I stay at. Some lady holding a pizza struggling with her access code standing there. I offer to try with mine. It worked. Held out the door for her. I speed up to pass her but she syncs with my pace. 'Are you here on holiday?' she asked. At some point I thought like why are you following me lady but I enjoy the conversation and it flows very naturally. At the end, in front of the elevators of my building I offer her a hand shake and get on with my day. Past me would lust over her or something, she wasn't bad-looking. But I'm not him anymore. So attraction isn't crazy (yet) but there is something that makes people just initiate convos with you.
Makes me think of the time at week 3 where I attended weekly church youth night. People seemed way more responsive. That was nice. Some guy I only briefly interact with every time said 'goodbye, chief' as we went our separate ways. Guess they just respect you more when you respect yourself and body more.

Now this is the part I wrestled with internally, 'should I write about it or not?'. But imma.
This is more likely to be accepted by my christian brothers but for me, lust and any type of sexual addiction is spiritual warfare against your life, your destiny, your potential. So I responded with spiritual warfare. One thing I do is pray 3h-4h each day, at least 1h of reading the Bible each day and a 24h fast on sundays to pray. It's pretty easy as I'm homeschooled so my routine is more flexible. This is where I fear wanting to sound like I'm super spiritual and much better than yall, but I just cannot attribute my streak to self. I believe Jesus Christ has saved me from captivity to this sin, and if he didn't, I'd relapse sooner or later every single time. Even if I got a 1000+ streak and relapsed, I still wouldn't be free. I'd just be suppressing my fleshly nature. I say this with humility. So take this as you will, you can be offended by this 16M, that has never passed 33 days clean, but I just cannot attribute this to myself.

Yeah so the goal is chastity (christian retention basically) until my future wife.

Thanks for your time dear warriors, you have truly helped me and given me the resolve to push on.
Grace, love, peace and mercy,
Godspeed!

The Steward Heart