Today I want you to think about this concept of “struggle”.

Because it’s a concept porn addicts seem all-too-familiar with, prominently as an all-consuming aspect of their daily lives.

We struggle with our feelings and emotions. We struggle with the people in our lives. Which at a fundamental level causes us to struggle with making even the most basic of decisions, such as deciding whether we’re even going to wake up in the morning.

Well, it’s these reasons why it’s important that we approach this topic in a meaningful way, so we can truly understand the dynamics behind why we struggle.

So we can adopt ways of thinking which empower us, rather than leave us dazed and hopeless.

And that’s really what’s so amazing about NeverFap Deluxe. It’s all about teaching us to think in enlightening ways that can make life easy, not increasingly arduous and more difficult.

What people often fail to understand is that struggle does not have to be a part of the recovery process.

In fact, I would argue that it’s almost impossible to overcome porn addiction if you’re struggling with it in any significant way, which is why it’s important that we address this idea of harmony as a fundamental requirement of recovery, rather than a simple nice-to-have.

So what is struggle?

---

If I had to elegantly summarise struggle as an idea, I would say that struggle is a reflection.

---

What does this mean?

Essentially it means that struggle is a reflection of you as a person.

When we typically think about struggle, we often focus our attention on the thing which we are struggling with.

You know, it could be a really hard math problem we’re trying to solve or perhaps it could even be an uneasy thought we’re experiencing.

And when we struggle, in most cases we usually express it via rationalisation.

“Am I stupid? Why am I so dumb? How the hell do I do this thing!?”

Yet when we get caught up in these dialogs of judgement and self-criticism, very rarely do we truly expose ourselves to the true nature of the situation.

In fact, self-criticism is the perfect way to mask any involvement you had contributing towards this struggle at all. And when you have something to blame, it immediate absolves you of this idea of responsibility, which is how people continue to abuse themselves in a logically sustainable way.

And the sad thing is that this is how a lot of people end up living their lives, full of blame and self-criticism, which leads to further struggle, because in their minds, feeling awful and struggling with those feelings seems a lot easier than actually trying to understand the dynamics of the situation.

Yet on some level, I think it’s even more simple than this.

I think the reason why people fall into these traps of continual suffering is because they simply don’t know better.

In essence, this kind of behaviour is nothing more than instinctual habit we’ve learnt over the years. Which is to say that struggle is not only a way of thinking, but a pattern we’ve reinforced and developed over entire lifetimes.

So what’s the alternative then, to this self-criticism and self-justified rationalisation?

Well, it can first help to understand that struggle is a conscious decision. Which is to say that it’s a behaviour, born out of a choice you consciously made in that moment of that difficult situation to react.

---

Which coming back to this idea of 'reflection' is to say that struggle is a choice.

---

It’s a bit like being stuck in quick sand. You can either choose to struggle with it, which means to fight it and sink further, or you can choose instead to relax and calm down, remaining in place until you can get help.

In more practical terms, what this means is coming to understand why you’re struggling and addressing it, rather than simply dismissing your struggle as a lost cause.

On a more fundamental level, this means changing how we react to our own internal expectations.

Instead of immediately seeking hopeless rationalisations and self-criticisms at the sight of difficult, it means learning to let go and simply be present with your feelings and emotions, without working yourself into a frustrated panic.

Remember, these are all learnt habits at the end of the day. There’s nothing inherently special about how you react, there is only the reaction which you have consistently practiced many times before.

Certainly, part of the reason why many of us have developed these destructive habits to begin with comes down to society and this idea of being goal-driven.

We set ourselves these goals and expections, and in doing so we fail to appreciate the underlying process.

When we set ourselves the goal of “This will be the last time I ever masturbate and watch porn” and we struggle with that goal, our immediate reaction isn’t to adjust our expectations.

---

Instead, we merely try and reinforce these expectations, which leads to further frustration, failure and hopelessness.

---

What I’m asking you to do instead, is to focus your attention on the process itself, which means focusing on your feelings and learning to remain calm, rather than on some conceptual idea of who you want to be, that doesn’t inherent exist.

Why?

Because process is king, and the way you break long-term habits is by focusing on remaining calm and not reacting to our emotions.

Essentially by doing this, what we are doing is learning to dissolve these expectations altogether.

The great irony of struggle is that when you focus on outcomes, in particular the struggle you’re experiencing, you actually achieve less than if you were to focus on the process.

And you know the funniest thing of all? Struggle itself is nothing more than a perception.

You perceive that you’re struggling based on the expectations you have about who you are or where you should be in life.

When really, there’s nothing wrong with you or you capacity to deal with the situation. You’re simply dysfunctioning without truly realising it.

---

This is also why it's important to focus on ourselves and how we personally respond when we're struggling, rather than on the task at hand.

---

Which will help us develop a more honest point of view, which can help us cut through the stories and narratives we may have that “we are not good enough” or “why can I not do this”.

When we say we’re struggling to learn advanced mathematical concepts, what we’re really saying is that we personally have difficulty with advanced mathematical concepts.

In no way does this struggle reflect the difficulty, or perhaps even the absurdity of mathematics as a subject.

As I stated earlier, struggle is a reflection you and your response.

It has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to calculate mathematics, instead it has to do with the expectations you have of your ability to calculate mathematics and how you respond to those expectations.

What can help is to make a list of all the things that you personally feel as if you struggle with.

And to try to understand how you contribute towards that struggle, since these are merely internal perceptions you have based on unrealistic expectations.

Perhaps you get frustrated because you feel as if the task at hand shouldn’t be as difficult as you envisioned. Perhaps you’re struggling due to the time the task is taking, and your refusal to accept that.

Regardless, I hope you have a more complete picture of what it means to struggle.

So that you can address problems in a reasonable way.

Just remember that it essentially comes down to letting go and learning to let go of these expectations, so we no longer have to feel as if we’re inadequate or incapable.

Until you do that, literally nothing will change and you will continue to struggle.