I wrote this piece as a reminder to myself on what the proper mindset to have on this path would be, although these principles apply to any discipline in life.
Fall in Love with the Process
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my short time here on this earth is to be process oriented, not goal oriented.
Obviously we need to be setting new goals, working to accomplish the ones we already have, all the while constantly tweaking and refining our methodologies.
The problem is, once most people set their goals, they remain myopically focused on just the goal. Let’s say you want to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. In your mind, this is the ideal physique, and if you could just look this way, all your problems – with the ladies at least – would be solved. You watch Fight Club four times a week, you research Brad’s training program, you cut out pics of him shirtless and bloody in that dungeon of a basement. No homo, of course.
You switch your diet up and start eating “healthy”. You hate the food, but you keep the fantasy in your mind of you looking shredded, bruh. You start hitting the gym. It’s gruesome, tiresome, and frankly kinda embarrassing how weak you are, but you think about all the ladies you’ll get once you’re ripped. Hell, maybe you even start taking Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu to get a “fighter’s physique”, whatever that is.
And then you quit after two months. What gives? You wanted so badly to look ripped, to be a badass, to get all the ladies. You still want that, in fact. So why did you quit?
You quit because you were goal-oriented, not process-oriented. You did shit you hated in hopes of achieving some far-off goal, instead of learning to love the healthy habits that will get you there.
What you should have been doing instead was falling in love with the process.
Finding a workout program that is both challenging and rewarding, and loving the slow change you start to see in your physique.
Finding bomb recipes of healthy foods and learning how to prep and cook them exactly how you want them to taste.
Learning to love how it feels to go to bed just a little hungry, because that physical hunger will transfer over into your personality, and you’ll become hungry for life itself.
You learn to find pleasure and joy in bettering yourself for yourself, not so you can bang every girl in your social circle.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals – you fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear, Atomic Habits
Same applies with Semen Retention. Learn to love the daily discipline, the daily growth, the daily challenge. Don’t do this for some grand prize that is months or years away. All you have is the present moment, the here and now. Revel in the fact that each day you’re improving yourself, each day you’re better than the day before.
You might not notice many changes or benefits at first, although some of us do. Again, don’t be focused on and looking for benefits. Trust the process! You can’t transform your physique over night, or even in a month or two. It takes many months, if not years, to build a truly impressive physique. Day by day you may not notice much, but month by month? You can begin to see your body change.
Same with semen retention. Some people might feel amazing after a week of retention, some not so much. Everyone will notice vast improvements after a few months though. Think long term, not short term. Think end game.
And if you slip up, reframe it as a learning experience. Whatever caused you to slip up, well, you’ll be better prepared next time.
Set a goal and then fall in love with the process – don’t chase results.
Change Your Identification
After learning to love the process, we must learn to overhaul our identity.
Let’s keep someone wanting to lose some weight as our example. They set a goal – to lose 50 pounds. They may have the best workout plan available, the best trainer money can buy, and they’re following their diet to a T.
After a few months, lo and behold, they’ve lost the weight! And after a few more months, they’ve gained it all back, and then some.
Why? They didn’t fundamentally change who they were. In other words, they were still a person who used foods for comfort, who loved relaxing at home binging Netflix and eating Rocky Road ice cream, who hated the effort of working out, who never learned how to prepare healthy food in an appetizing way. To be a bit blunt, they were still just a fat person in a fit person’s body.
“Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last… You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training… The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.” – James Clear, Atomic Habits
Keep that quip in your mind at all times – “If you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training.” For us, training doesn’t mean so much physical training, but training our mind, our emotions, desires, fears, habits.
James goes on to say,
- The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
- The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
- The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.
Therefore, our goal is not to hit 30, 60, or 90 days. Our goal is to become a man in harmony with and in control of himself, including his sexual desires. Once we become that man, 90 days (and beyond) will come easy.
We need to fundamentally change how we view ourselves, and how we view sex and women in general.
We must transform from pleasure-seeking monkeys that mindlessly smash our dopamine buttons into men who love striving for what’s best for ourselves.
We need to learn how to view sex as a means of self-transformation, not as the end-all be-all, granddaddy of all pleasures.
We need to view temporary, voluntary celibacy as a necessary practice for self-growth.
And we need to start viewing women as actual people, as friends, as fascinating partners for personal growth, not just as warm bodies to come inside of or notches on our belts.
Avoid Quick Fixes
Studies on delayed gratification show that kids who chose to put off a small but immediate reward in favor of a bigger reward that they had to wait for went much further in life than kids who took the quick fix. It was shown that the ability and preference to delay gratification is correlated with academic success, physical and mental health, as well as social competence.
The obvious ramification for us is to not watch porn and beat our meat into a sad, chafed state. We put off these tiny, fleeting, empty pleasures in our quest to become the ultimate version of ourselves. But putting off the small, meaningless pleasures in favor of the big wins applies far beyond semen retention. Start practicing delaying gratification in all aspects of your life.
This all goes back to Stoicism and learning to embrace discomfort like we discussed in Part 4 – This Is Your Brain on Semen Retention. To make it anywhere in life you must break free from the shackles of comfort and immediate sense gratification. You must learn to ignore the near-infinite amount of tiny distractions so that you’re able to focus on the big goals in your life.
These tiny distractions, which give you nothing but miniscule and ephemeral hits of dopamine but no true satisfaction, drain you of the will to accomplish your actual goals, which are the source of true satisfaction. Brush these distractions to the side. Stand up tall and delay that immediate, flimsy-ass satisfaction in favor of chipping away at your actual goals. The feeling of satisfaction gained from accomplishing something real and challenging is 1,000 times greater than the empty stimulation from browsing Reddit or dicking around on the same video game you’ve played one hundred times before.
More importantly, the sense of gratification and accomplishment of achieving a hard-earned goal creates a positive feedback loop, leading to you wanting to accomplish other big goals. Success begets even more success.
Starve the weeds of distraction at the roots, embrace discomfort and forgo the empty stimulation that fritters away your psychic and mental energies – that is the deeper meaning of Brahmacharya.
Within yoga, the practice of tapas, which literally translates as “heat” or “to burn”, is the practice of austerities. These austerities are the fire that burns away the dross of the mind. This can take on many, many forms, from extended fasting, to braving the heat and the cold, to even the practices we’re currently doing – yoga postures, pranayama, and meditation. One simple form that I practice every day is simple delaying of gratification.
You get a text from a cute girl – most guys open it immediately and read it, even respond immediately. Or, you can notice that urge in your mind, leave your phone where it is, and check it and respond in 15 minutes. Not only have you built up some willpower, you’ve also created a bit of tension as the girl sits around wondering, “Why hasn’t he responded yet?” Congrats, you remained in control, you just leveled up.
You open the fridge and immediately reach for a soda – do you follow through with this unhealthy desire? Or do you turn it down and reach for something healthier? Boom, leveled up again.
How many times a day do you pick up your phone to check if you have any notifications, even though it’s been sitting right next to you and you know you don’t? Ignore that impulse, master your mind!
The above is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Life presents you with an excellent battleground to learn to train and master your mind – use it wisely.
Be mindful of those nigh subconscious urges to waste time, overcome them, and spend that time wisely. Those little distracting urges are like weeds in your mind – starve them out. These little wins add up, and then when you have the urge to masturbate, guess what? You’ve got so much positive momentum going that it’s a cinch to turn that urge down too.
When have you ever gone to bed feeling happy and content from browsing the internet and masturbating all day? Compare that to the feeling of going to bed knowing you spent the majority of the day productively, and maybe you threw in some Netflix or gaming there at the end. Very different feeling.
Each time you say no to these tiny impulses to distract yourself from existence not being stimulating enough, each time you choose something that builds your skill base or knowledge instead of the mental masturbation of the internet, it’s like you’re doing a mental “rep”. It’s a workout for your mind and your willpower. Enough of these tiny wins every day and you’ll become unstoppable.
“Through tapasya, you are trying to set in motion a process of metabolism, by which all the habits that create weakness and obstruct the awakening of willpower, can be eliminated. You must know what your necessities are. Your life has to be made simpler. You have to make a choice, that’s all. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either you want samadhi (success in meditation) or you want sensual life. To some extent you may be able to continue, but there comes a moment when you will have to make a departure from sensual life…
That is why tantra is practised. Its purpose is not to indulge in drinking, meat eating or sexual life, but to transcend your addictions. This is an important aspect of spiritual life. Mind is a very good advocate; it always argues for the senses. But in fact, even if you let your senses run riot, that doesn’t bring you happiness. So it doesn’t matter what the mind says. Go on with your tapas.” – Swami Satyananda Saraswati
“Worship of the gods, the twice-born, the teachers and the wise; purity, straightforwardness, celibacy and non-injury – these are called the austerities of the body.
Speech which causes no excitement and is truthful, pleasant and beneficial, the practice of the study of the Vedas – these are called the austerities of speech.
Serenity of mind, good-heartedness, purity of nature, self-control – these are called mental austerity.
This threefold austerity practised by steadfast people with the utmost faith, desiring no reward, they call sattwic (pure, wholesome) austerity.” – Bhagavad Gita, 17:14-17
Expect No Reward
I was speaking with another Redditor who became interested in yoga through the practice of semen retention. We got on the topic of the myriad different forms of yoga, and I mentioned karma yoga, the path of unselfish action. Basically, your every action is done with complete awareness, as an offering to God/the Ultimate/the Universe/your Highest Self, and is done without any expectation of award.
You do the dishes with complete awareness, and you do them because they need to be done, not to please your wife in hopes that it’ll lead to your one night of sex this week. You do your job at work with complete mindfulness, and not with the hope of getting a raise, but because it’s your damn job.
While I’m not trying to push this practice on anyone, I think the aspect of not expecting rewards is very beneficial for us on the path. Many of us hear about semen retention and all the nearly magical powers that can come along with it, and all the benefits it can bring, and so we start expecting these things, right off the bat in some cases.
In my eyes, this is the absolute worst way to go about things. You’ll constantly be second-guessing every little aspect of your life, looking at everything that happens to you under a giant magnifying glass, wondering if this is because of this benefit you heard about, or if that was because of that other benefit.
If a girl looks your way, is it because of your magnetic aura?? Or was she just looking around the room and noticed you were already looking at her?
You wake up and you’re feeling kinda blah today. Are you flatlining?? Or did you forget that not every day is gonna be the BEST. DAY. EVER?
If you’re constantly on the lookout for, and striving after, any of these seemingly magical benefits we get from SR, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. It’s kind of like befriending a wild animal, or your neighbor’s cat. Just do your thing, don’t chase after the cat. When the cat is ready and comfortable around you, she’ll walk up, sniff at you, maybe rub up on your leg. If you try to pet her, she’ll just run off, so just keep on doing you and ignoring her.
The same thing applies to any “powers” gained from the path of retention. Maybe that girl was looking at you cuz your aura is growing all huge and magnetic – great, no biggie. As some obscure band from the 60’s was fond of saying, “Let it be”.
This is for YOU
Don’t do any of this for anyone other than yourself. Don’t walk this path to attract and seduce females. Don’t practice retention in the hopes of gaining the respect of other guys, or, worse yet, to intimidate them.
Practice SR for one reason and one reason only – self mastery. If you can conquer your sexual desire, you’ve slayed perhaps the biggest dragon of your psyche. A better analogy is you’ve tamed that dragon, and now have the most powerful ally in all the kingdom.
Semen retention is for you, and you alone.
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” – Plato
