Context

Although it may seem like a simple breathing exercise, this exercise is all about developing your capacity for conscious awareness.

A key part of what makes NeverFap Deluxe effective is that it teaches you to remain conscious with yourself, which is to say that it teaches you to effectively use your mind in order to produce meaningful results.

Where most people fall apart is that they practice these exercises without truly remaining conscious throughout the process, which is really no better than not practicing them at all.

If you’re not engaging with your mind, then you’re simply not developing the skills to approach your problems in a meaningful way.

Which I totally understand.

It can be difficult to engage with your mind when you’ve relied on distracting yourself or escaping your problems as a primary means of coping with your feelings.

But it's important that you directly address the elephant in the room, otherwise you'll simply continue to mindlessly relapse and watch porn.

So instead of being mindless we’re instead going to aim to be mindful, and mindfulness truly is a core concept when it comes to what we’re trying to develop with these exercises.

Certainly, a lot of what mindfulness comes down to is learning how to use our minds in a conscious way, and our breath is a great place to start with this.

In part because it’s a subconscious behaviour we don’t often think about, yet have direct control over.

And so bringing these behaviours to our attention can help us train our brains to become more aware and mindful in general, especially of our other behaviours such as when we find ourselves peeking at porn or fantasising in general.

The more you engage with your brain, the more you’ll be able to directly control what you think and feel.

Whether that means refraining from reacting to a stressful situation, learning to dissolve your feelings and emotions at will, or even simply deciding to take 15 minutes to yourself in order to recalibrate.

It all begins with our actions, and it can be incredibly hard to take action when we cannot consciously execute them when required most.

Instructions

For this exercise what you want to do is learn to breathe consciously, as well as really become aware of the control you have over your breath.

You want to start by breathing slowly, paying close attention to the intonation of your breath.

When you breathe in, and when you breathe out.

Remember that it really is about learning to be conscious with your breath, and a key part of this which a lot of people don’t realise is that we can only be present with ourselves once we’ve first learnt to let go mentally of everything in our minds.

Which is to say that this whole process of remaining conscious is going to become a lot easier once you’ve developed the ability to remain calm and relaxed.

Of course, perhaps you struggle to remain calm and relaxed. Perhaps you feel unable to remain conscious with yourself.

Well, that’s okay. These are skills we are developing, which we don’t yet have.

Only by consistently practicing this engagement with our minds in all situations, whether that means practicing meditation under a heavily depressed state or when you’re feeling stable, can we hope to be able to engage with ourselves fluently.

Certainly, these exercises aren’t about achieving perfection. Recovery is not perfect, just as life is not perfect.

Rather, they’re about learning to use your mind regardless of what you’re feeling and regardless of how your mind is reacting.

So focus on your breath. Starting with slow breaths. And then build upon this foundation and learn to consciously change the intonation of your breath once you feel more comfortable with this exercise.

All while continuing to remain calm and aware of yourself.

Never forget that you are fully in-control of yourself. It’s just a skill you need to practice.

And this is just one of the many tools you have at your disposal to help you get there.