Whether you have chosen the priesthood or are doing it for personal reasons, staying celibate can be difficult. With these instructions and getting the right support from the people around you (and perhaps guidance from above if you are a believer), you can lead a celibate life.
Taking vows for a chastity-based existence is a real challenge, and certainly not an easy choice to make if your loved ones don't support you. The benefits are not lacking if you decide to follow this path. By finding interesting activities to indulge in, you can prevent temptation from straying you out of your way.
Steps
Step 1. Make sure you take this choice really seriously
It can be a really great decision if you are doing it for the right reasons.
Step 2. Find a friend or mentor who has been through this period in their life and ask them questions about the motivation behind their choice
Step 3. Don't put too much weight on other people's feelings about your decision if they don't agree with you
The choice is yours, that's all. Instead, talk to friends and people who won't judge you or your lifestyle.
Step 4. Get involved in different hobbies; Better not to hang out too much with people you might feel sexual attraction for, provided you can avoid it
You could opt for more spiritual or personal activities instead.
Step 5. Try to find people who you think will understand you and your choices
Doing it yourself can be even more difficult. Tell them you need moral support.
Step 6. Do not fall into temptation, especially at the beginning of this path
You don't lead into situations that could lead to sexual activity, such as being in close contact with someone who physically attracts you. Don't spend time alone or secluded with this person, unless you absolutely know you can control yourself in that context. You can still have an intimate and close relationship with her, the important thing is that you control yourself (this also helps her to know the conditions deriving from this lifestyle).
Step 7. It is a fact that, after a certain amount of time, if you don't remind yourself of what you are missing out on sexually, you will stop feeling strong desire
Either way, it can be tough if you happen to regularly watch social entertainment products, such as movies, TV shows, and lots of commercials, which continually show hormone and / or sex based relationships. Learn to ignore them; these are the standards of the company, not yours.
Step 8. In general, keep everything related to sexual or hormonal upset induced relationships out of your sight
Make a list of everything you wanted to do. You don't have a person who stops you from doing what you want, so take that trip or write that novel.
Step 9. Knowing how to control yourself will help you grow and challenge yourself by considering why you decided to be celibate in the first place
Self-determination is powerful when used humbly.
Step 10. If religion is part of your decision to be celibate, read the Bible or another religious book for guidance and strengthening
Contact your priest or religious community in times of weakness and need.
Step 11. Celibacy can be practiced in a relationship if both are in agreement
Step 12. If you are with one person, you can support each other and learn how to do something together to have a means that will keep your mind busy
For example, you might learn to play an instrument.
Step 13. The joy of learning and focusing more on other activities will help keep your mind busy
It will also tire you out and make you sleep well.
Step 14. Celibacy is said to be a great way to improve mental potential and focus
Step 15. Chastity, sometimes temporary, allows a romantic relationship to grow and develop tenderness, maturity, and generosity
True love really manifests itself over time, and staying away from sex makes the relationship more stable, not less solid. A man is positively shocked by a "No!" sweet and kind coming from a woman if he was insistent. Increase his respect and trust in him. It pushes him to want to become a better man, even if he was a Don Giovanni in the past. The delicious erotic tension is the beginning of legendary love stories, the basis of good marriages.
Step 16. Understand why you want to take this vow before doing so
There are many reasons why people make this decision. The most common is to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and engage in intense study, because celibacy frees up a huge amount of time on one's schedule. It also saves money, especially if you have a student budget.
Step 17. Meditate on this decision and don't rush about it
What you are about to make is a commitment that will last a lifetime.
Step 18. Make sure you tell everyone around you that you are taking celibacy vows
It is very important to tell the people closest to you about your decision and to convince them to support you every step of the way.
Step 19. Don't fall into temptation and focus on other important things
To keep up with the commitment, go back to school, pursue a new hobby or buy a pet. Keep as busy as possible.
Step 20. Always reevaluate your grades, do it every four to six months to make sure you want to continue
If you have decided that you no longer want to follow this lifestyle, then go your own way and do what you want.
Advice
- If the goal fails, if you are afraid of making a mistake and if you find it difficult, do not be discouraged. Learn to forgive yourself. You are aspiring to follow this path, you are a student. You are allowed to make mistakes as often as necessary, as long as you don't give up on what you think is right for you. If you believe in God, he will forgive you if you are not strong enough, but you must keep believing.
- Just because you're not dating someone doesn't mean you don't have to take care of your look.
- Exercise takes time and focus. It will make you feel great.
- Just because you don't want to participate in sexual activity doesn't mean you can't have intimate, close relationships with people you might feel sexual attraction for; However, be careful to control yourself and make sure they know you don't want to have sex.
- Keep as busy as possible.
- After experiencing this lifestyle enough, you can actually spend more time with people who attract you sexually. You don't necessarily have to avoid them if you appreciate their company; moreover, if you do not stop hanging out with them, your nervousness or anxiety can be greatly reduced.
- Generally, the longer your celibacy lasts, the older you are, and the fuller your life, the easier it will be to channel your sexual energy (and frustration) into wholesome entertainment. Your libido also tends to decline with age (which helps).
- Keep taking care of yourself by keeping good personal hygiene and wearing well-matched clothes, you will feel great.
- Always remember that life is founded on relationships and that healthy relationships and interpersonal contacts require a good dose of empathy and attention, qualities that risk fading if you distance yourself from others and begin to have a distorted view of reality due to a wish not fulfilled.
- Traveling is a good way to experience celibacy.
- You do. Act. Become a volunteer. Help the community, help your friends, visit your parents. In addition to keeping you busy, this will clear your soul of unwanted thoughts.
- Keep yourself healthy and fit. Exercise with your partner, friends or alone.
- Diet. Certain types of foods and drinks, such as meat, chocolate, coffee and tea, induce animal instincts, while fruits, vegetables, nuts, rice and dairy products are easier to digest and keep the mind. and the body concentrated. In his autobiography, Gandhi states that the diet had a major impact on his celibacy vows.
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Yoga explores fluctuations that affect the mind. Such fluctuations will try to move you away from celibacy. You can learn to control them in various ways, but the most important is to be aware of your mood swings and what affects them. Here are some tips made by yogis:
Incorporating yoga into your routine can help you a lot, whether you do it alone or in a group. If you don't fear temptation, join a group. In most cases the interaction will be minimal between students and you will not look at others
Warnings
- Don't risk innocent hugs or cuddles, at least until you've adapted to celibacy.
- Avoid dealing with people who want a physically intimate relationship with you.
- Be sure of who you are, so that your willpower can prevail. Your choice will be tested, either by yourself or by another person, and you will have to be brave to resist temptation.
- By making new friends, you may have to continually deal with the loss of your old married friends or feel like a third wheel when you are with them and their wives until, around the age of 65, when half of them are divorced or widowed., you will find single friends like you. They may even become celibate, as many people, women specifically, give up dating at a certain age. As you hear more and more stories of men and women feeling sorry for sacrificing their careers for a husband or wife and going through chronic betrayal, ugly divorces, and custody battles to the death, you may feel tremendously grateful for having. chosen a life based on chastity.
- Another risk of remaining celibate is social alienation from married friends.
- The greatest risk of choosing to stay celibate and give up sex comes when your carnal desires eventually prevail, and they may manifest in ways you didn't anticipate.
- For men, the temptation to not want to be more chaste may increase with age, as there will be proportionately more unmarried women than unmarried men over the years, and women may begin to actively insist on undertaking a romantic relationship with you, despite having done nothing to attract this kind of attention.
- Don't make this decision too rash as you may not be able to honor it.
- You may find yourself struggling with fake gossip circulating about why you never got married. Some may socially exclude you for being different, because they are afraid that you secretly have their wives' desires to conquer, or maybe because you simply remind them of the compromises they have made, being ashamed of themselves because of marriage and its maintenance, such as turning a blind eye to chronic betrayal.
- In choosing to remain single and celibate, there is no lack of risks and costs, which tend to worsen, especially during middle age as explained below.
- If at some point in your life you change your mind and decide that you don't want to be celibate anymore, you may not have as many opportunities to go out or find a partner that suits you as much as you did when you were young, although it must be said that a Sometimes chastity affects women more negatively than men, who tend to die earlier (leaving unequal proportions in society) and to date younger and younger women over the years.
- As for female chastity, just think of the following figure: 90% of women in the United States are now married at the age of 40. If you are a woman in your 30s, 40s, or 50s, many of your friends and people you work with may feel they are no longer able to relate to you, especially if you are not a single parent who has chosen the path of chastity (or a single person who has adopted a child). They may feel sorry for you.
- Traveling, living in a cooperative community, and / or living in a medium or large city are choices that could help you meet other people who live alone or who are single, and thus lessen the pain caused by the social alienation resulting from your parents. married friends. It is no coincidence that single people or people who live alone are more socially active and do more volunteer work!
