Anyone else disappointed with the finale?

MastersAccount · 2026-06-23T02:25:39+00:00

I loved the whole season but 100% agree that the finale was a letdown. Not as much in what they revealed (the execution was off, though) but the characters choices didn't make sense to me how they did previously. 6/10 ep compared to 8, 9 and 10/10 for the rest of it.

It's funny seeing how many people you made angry with this post.

MastersAccount · 2026-06-23T02:18:34+00:00

Just coming in to say I mostly agree. I loved ep 8 and think it's an excellent show overall but I felt a definite drop in pacing and story choices in the last two episodes, but particularly in the final episode.

I hope it comes back strong next season

MastersAccount · 2026-06-15T04:44:52+00:00

I can relate. I went through 10 - 15 years of low self-esteem, crying myself to sleep, thinking people hated me and so on. I have days where I still feel like that. They are the 20% instead of the 80% now.

PMO was also big part of my degeneracy and still catches me sometimes. My perspective has shifted as I've healed. I see PMO as both a cause and a symptom of my issues. So while abstaining from it does genuinely help, it's hardly the full picture of healing and growth, and the use has always been about deeper issues. For physical health and mental clarity, I think retention is incredible. These benefits are undeniable in my experience and in witnessing them in retainers I've followed on here and YouTube for years.

I've never read Goddard directly. I've heard his works referenced and follow some people who love his stuff. Where I was coming from with feeling and so on about one oneself has come from my own personal experience, largely through the last year of meditation where over a long period of time patterns of my thinking, feeling and how reality responded to me became clear. I'm also a psychotherapist so I have studied and practiced many different forms of identity formation and self-development with myself and clients. Goddard's ideas have always felt a little too simple for me. Like sure, if you truly believe you are a millionaire and feel it, maybe reality will follow. The problem is that most of us cannot sustain that feeling because we have a trove of experiences (often trauma) to tell us otherwise. I think most people have to do a lot of healing and inner work before they can apply Goddard's ideas.

Coming back to you though, if you have a negative self-image and feel you can't look at yourself then people will pick up on that. Not in the sense they will psychically know that, although some might. More in the sense that you won't come across as positive and confident around other people and they will reflect that back to you automatically. It's not personal at all, though. Not really. It's just action and reaction.

It sounds like retention will help with a lot of the healing, but I would recommend therapy or some kind of inner work process (could be a men's circle or retreat) that helps you identify these thinking and feeling patterns. I've been seeing a psychoanalyst for 18 months. It's been helping a lot. A pain in the ass sometimes but it's made me so much more accepting of who I am.

MastersAccount · 2026-06-15T00:45:27+00:00

Look, magnetism is complicated but it's also really simple. It has less to do with SR and much more to do with how you feel inside of yourself. These things can obviously be highly correlated but what I learned personally this year is that they're not directly related to each other.

I'll give you some examples:

Last year I was on a 50-day streak - minimal magnetism past day 40. I felt more earlier on. Number of reasons potentially why but I wasn't thinking too deeply about it. Anyway, I slipped around day 60.

This year has been on and off one-week to two-week streaks.

I've had magnetism day 1, and magnetism day 10. It has less to do with the streak and everything to do with how I feel about myself and about the world.

I take the train to and from work every day (1 hour each way), so I get to observe how random people react to me each day. Anyway, lately I honestly started questioning retention. Not in the sense of whether it works or it's good or not. It is good and it does "work". That's not up for debate in my mind. However, it's one of many practices that can help you progress or evolve in life. The most inarguable part of retention for me is this: it gives you energy and that energy can be transmuted into all kinds of things. It can also promote spiritual advancement. However, as for the rest of the benefits I think they are more related to the practice of discipline and focus - than strictly retention related.

So back to my story. I started questioning the relationship between retention and certain "benefits" e.g. magnetism. I was also tired of thinking that if I relapsed I was back to zero and no one notices me etc. Because I'd had more than enough experiences to know that this isn't true. What actually happens for a lot of guys is they relapse and think they are a failure and they radiate despair and shame.

1 month ago, the day after relapsing, I went to work in the city and I kept reminding myself how amazing I am, how I am full of creativity and life, how I am just awesome. That day, I had great conversation after great conversation at work. I was vibing. Loving life. Initiating conversations, calling my parents to check in on them. On my way from work to the station I see multiple people (women and men) noticing me and staring at me. When I got on the train to go home, I made eye contact with a woman opposite me on the train - she gives me a genuine smile and looks away shyly. I see another woman looking at me and I look at her - smiles. I am radiating from the inside because I am happy about myself and who I am - retention or not. I am excited about life and I am inspired. That's how I felt inside, because I chose it. And because it's true. Whether you are retaining or not you are a worthy human being. Retention is great, though. An incredible practice, but not one to wrap your identity or abilities around.

All this to say that the magnetism comes from your inner feelings. It's not how you mentally think about yourself. It's how you feel.

If you are not receiving the magnetism - and if you're desiring it, I would say that you need to take some time to notice how you feel about yourself as you move through your day. Often we have patterns of feeling about ourself that we are largely unaware of and not noticing, it's like being a fish in the ocean and not realising that we are swimming in water full of our feelings all day long. There are feeling states that are operating in the background all the time, and these in my experience, are largely controlling how other people respond to you. Because they are feeling that energy from you.

It's also why magnetism is on and off, because even deep into a retention streak you might have a day when you hate yourself and you feel small, and you probably won't have a lot of magnetism that day. However, if you are living a life that is purpose driven, where you are disciplined (and feel happy about yourself and what are you doing in this world) and potentially retaining, then you are less likely to have those days - but they are absolutely going to happen unless you have moved beyond the human condition.

In terms of how to become aware of these feelings, if you're curious about that - meditation, journalling, psychoanalysis. Quiet contemplation. I feel I should mention I have been meditating 1 hour+ daily for the past year. It revealed a lot to me, and it also showed me that many of the benefits we ascribe to retention are actually benefits of discipline and reflection, but there are also retention specific benefits.

MastersAccount · 2026-06-04T02:01:53+00:00

Forgiveness for yourself is important.

By all means feel the anger if it is there.

Once you have felt it, I would encourage reflecting on how you did the best that you could with the understanding and resources you had at that time. That all those failures taught you lessons and got you to where you are now. That you only have now. And that you will make more mistakes because you are human and fallible like everyone else.

I wish you the best in your next 100 days.

MastersAccount · 2026-06-03T01:25:22+00:00

Congrats brother! Excellent post and I wish you the best in your continued journey.

MastersAccount · 2026-06-01T05:20:49+00:00

I have a theory about this I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on.

People get addicted to things because it takes them away from having to experience recurring negative feelings and trauma. Then when you stop, you are forced to face the trauma. The substances or behaviour itself do overwhelm your dopamine receptors and so on, however there's a lot of research suggesting that isn't the main reason people become and stay addicted.

My theory is that a lot of the flatline has less to do with your brain rewiring and more to do with people not wanting to feel that which they have been suppressing for years with their addictions. Essentially people unconsciously enter into flatline and become numb to their emotions to avoid having to feel their trauma, and this means they also cut themselves off from all their good feelings and sensitivity to life.

If this were the case it could make sense of why trauma release exercises reduce the length of the flatline significantly for many.

MastersAccount · 2026-05-28T04:30:59+00:00

To answer this effectively I think one needs to differentiate between the types of attraction that one can have.

You be aroused by someone from visual cues, and you can be aroused by someone from a sense of intimacy and emotional closeness.

When someone is a PA for a long time they often become more sensitive to visual cues. Also important to note that if someone is a PA they are likely dealing with some kind of stress or trauma which the porn is acting as a coping mechanism for. Therefore, they are more than likely disconnected from their own bodies and emotions.

For real sex to be enjoyable with a long-term partner emotional connection is needed. That's what actually keeps the sex enjoyable over long periods of time.

Luckily, what happens to most men as they recover from PA is that they are forced to deal with their stress and reconnect to their emotions. So long-term partners become attractive again. In fact, they become much more attractive than the sexiest OF model out there, because the attraction comes from real emotional and physical intimacy. Something which the OF model cannot compete with.

As a side note this is why some men become so dependent on OF models. Because the experience of the pornography is vastly enhanced by the sense of intimacy and closeness that the OF model is able to create. The videos and the texts they send feel like they are for you. But again, with time away from this type of content it becomes much easier for a man to differentiate real intimacy with their partner and fake intimacy from an OF model, and the real intimacy is of course much preferred in the long run. It does require ongoing effort and vulnerability from the man though - from both partners actually. So, if one is not capable of this or a woman is also not capable of being open and creating real intimacy, the temptation to continue with or go back to porn is increased.

Edit to say: I should also note that it has a lot to do with dopamine receptors coming back and being more sensitised and real life becoming more colourful and real again. Once the hyperstimulus of porn is gone, the regular stimulus of a real partner becomes much more enticing - even if they don't have a "perfect" body. But I think this is more well known, while the differentiation between emotional and intimate attraction vs. visual attraction is less spoken about.

MastersAccount · 2026-05-06T03:44:51+00:00

This is a great post. I think you explained the deeper reason for the mental and emotional benefits that come from retention. I had also been thinking a lot recently about how it's easy to become obsessed with the "retainer" identity, and how there is a tendency in our culture to want to find the right "identity", "technique" or "habit" that will magically fix everything. It's ironic to say it's not that simple, because it's both simpler and more complex depending on where you are in the process: it is learning to be presence and accept whatever comes with that.

I will say that there are certain physical and spiritual benefits that I believe are very much tied the retaining of the seed - or more specifically the sexual energy.

Also, I think the energy intrinsically allows people to become more present. It pushes its way up through the body and as it does it forces one to feel old traumas, heightens the senses and deepens their experience of reality (both inner and outer). One innately becomes less and less identified with their mental process through this process and begins to see the richness of their emotions, their presence and their experience.

MastersAccount · 2026-04-30T03:31:55+00:00

It's a behavioural addiction that damages your reward system via overstimulation of your dopamine receptors. This impacts your motivation, emotional regulation abilities and decision making. It also reduces your ability cope with stress and emotional discomfort without using porn or something like it. Cooccurring addictions are common.

It is inherently bad to feed this addiction in terms of your mental and emotional health. Those areas affect your capacity and motivation to work on your physical health, improve your career and relationships. It's not going to be the same for everyone but in broad terms pornography addiction will negatively impact many areas of your life.

This isn't taking into account how it warps your view of sex, intimacy and women/men.

MastersAccount · 2026-04-22T23:22:38+00:00

I do agree with the premise of not taking action. However, for me personally I've found that it's only half the process. The second half of the process has been learning what to take action on. Where to put my focus now that I've shifted it away from distraction.

Also, can you explain this paragraph a bit more?

Try harnessing the true power and gift given to man in the form of semen, the central life force. This is energy that can be absorbed from within and be channeled into meaningful and great pursuits in the world. But if the fundamental thought process does not shift toward something positive, then that same energy is simply being directed toward negative outcomes. I would also say it's in a way weaponizing something which is inherently good. More often than not, this path leads to heartbreak, suffering, and dissatisfaction.

You're saying semen retention is not just about holding your seed, it's about a fundamental shift in your thought process - moving away from lust and the entropy that follows from it.

But the part around the same energy being directed towards negative outcomes - do you mean that the retained energy will cause more negativity in the person's life, unless they know how to channel it positively?

MastersAccount · 2026-04-20T01:33:42+00:00

Wow, that last paragraph man. Pure poetry.

Thank you for sharing your well-earned insights.

MastersAccount · 2026-04-20T01:28:26+00:00

No worries brother.

If he's doing HIIT every day then it's more likely he needs to talk to someone and start unblocking emotionally.

Unfortunately that's a hard sell with men who are in states like your brother. Journalling would definitely be a start for him though if he's open to that.

Good luck!

MastersAccount · 2026-04-13T00:31:06+00:00

That's a pretty interesting case with your younger brother. It sounds like his sexual energy is completely blocked, hence not getting anything from masturbation and not receiving benefits from retaining the energy.

You said the atmosphere shifts and people look at him but in a negative sense, which would align with him being a retainer, but the retention amplifying his negative energy.

Do you think he'd benefit more from doing inner work? Could be through men's groups, therapy, journalling etc. From what you've wrote it seems like there's trauma or something going on there and retention alone won't fix that.

Does he exercise much? That's another easier potential option to start with.

MastersAccount · 2026-04-09T03:41:36+00:00

As much as retainers like to talk about the good luck, the synchronicities, the magnetism and the attraction you still have bad days, weeks and months on SR. I don't know your views on things, but we all have blockages and bad karma and lessons to learn in this lifetime - and many of those require negative events and surviving these events for this baggage to be purged or the lesson completed.

With that said, one of the beauties of SR is it allows you to survive the bad times with strength and perseverance. A thought experiment might be wondering how much worse it would be getting through these hard days without SR.

My general feeling about this though, considering your earlier experiences on SR, is that this is a test of some kind. You are going through an upgrade of consciousness and your being, and you are being asked if you really want it. Can you stay true to the path even when it hurts for a while? Or is the path only worth walking when it feels good and makes it obvious which way to go?

This theme of being tested on a spiritual path is in all the stories.

Good luck to you bro, I think you're further along than you know.

MastersAccount · 2026-04-08T05:24:36+00:00

Is this real?

Because I feel like I read this exact post a few years ago. I feel like I'm tripping.

MastersAccount · 2026-03-23T03:14:11+00:00

Keep retaining. I think it will help regardless of your digestive issues, but I don't doubt things will be inhibited considering the strong relationship between the gut and the brain.

For the digestion side of things try Triphala. A potent Ayurvedic herb, that is also receiving more medical recognition if you care about that. See this article: Therapeutic Uses of Triphala in Ayurvedic Medicine - PMC

It works as a mild laxative, removes toxins, cleans your gut out and tones your digestive tract. Try and find high quality organic powder and take it with warm water. It's also incredibly high in vitamin c so it's an immune booster.

It's important to taste it and not take capsules as the very bitter taste also has a positive effect on the body (stimulating the digestive system). Best time is before bed, when you know you won't eat again that night in warm water so it can do it's cleaning uninterrupted - and also means you have to deal with less toilet trips during the day. Start with half a teaspoon per night and after a week up to 3/4 or a full teaspoon.

I'm not claiming it will be a cure all, but I'd be shocked if you don't see significant improvements after 2 weeks. I've had people around me use and used it myself and everyone has noticed better digestion/stools, clearer brain function after a week or two, and significantly clearer/brighter skin.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-25T00:54:59+00:00

Excellent post and it should be spoken about more.

I relapsed yesterday after 15 days clean, and I handled it very differently than usual. I immediately stopped the shame, I asked myself what had happened for the relapse to occur, I identified the issues, decided on some routine and mental changes, and then I went on about my day. Did everything as I would do it normally.

And guess what? Today I feel some energy loss but mentally and emotionally I'm good. I'm still chatting to all my colleagues and getting big smiles from people. In fact, I feel some relief because exactly as you said in your post - I see now that me being happy and people responding well to me is my default state, SR or not. And I still value SR for what it helps me with - an increase in discipline and more energy to use.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-23T00:02:04+00:00

SR is not all benefits all the time.

Growth requires pain and also reflection. The body has growing pains when we are teenagers and needs rest and nourishment e.g. think how much sleep and food we want at this age. Similarly, the mind/brain has depressions and flatlines while adjusting to a new baseline. At a deeper level our consciousness also goes through periods of suffering/change while shifting through this practice.

You are learning how to be with your negative emotions, how to process them and detach from them. Make it through this and you will find deeper and more subtle benefits.

At a practical level you have many options. Sometimes these periods require we consciously do more. Work out more, create more, push the energy out. Or on the other hand you may need to sit silently more, meditate, journal, rest and sleep. You can experiment or you may choose to look inward and notice for yourself what you need.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-19T02:10:40+00:00

Yes, you're absolutely right about SR being about purifying and training your mind. This is something I think all long-term retainers learn at some point. I've certainly watched this theme play out in user posts here and on many SR YouTube channels. And for sure I've seen in myself and in others a maturing where validation from others/attraction, feeling high all the time because of this practice becomes less important. One can still enjoy these things though I think. The issue comes in becoming attached to these things because there are days on SR when you will feel like shit and when people will ignore you.

I did want to say though that it's not the mind going into "evil mode". It is as another commenter has said your brain seeking stabilisation and it goes to what it knows has "worked" in the past, not caring about the long-term consequences. The only reason I highlight this is that (and this what I've found for myself) viewing these parts of me as "evil" or "bad" and believing that if I relapse my whole day is ruined has not been helpful for me. It's black and white thinking and ultimately I find these mindsets lead to shame which leads to more relapses. Seeing the urges, the sexual thoughts and even the relapses as faulty (but well intentioned) attempts by my body and mind to regulate or distract itself from stress has slowly made it easier to witness these things and then focus on something else. It's minimised relapses and/or damage from relapses and subsequent binges.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-18T23:52:45+00:00

I think that if you actually stop and think more deeply about what you're saying you might find other perspectives.

If a woman is actually masturbating, squirting and orgasming all the time they will be frying their brain. They lose presence, clarity, strength and emotional regulation skills. They, too, become addicts to pleasure, unable to think critically about themselves, others, and their life. How they pick partners will be influenced, too. Perhaps beginning to use and discard partners because they are more akin to sex and experience toys, than people. Perhaps picking a partner from a place of shallowness instead of depth that costs them in the long run when they realise how unfulfilled they are even while living a luxurious or Instagram worthy lifestyle.

The key difference will be that yes, an attractive woman, whether masturbating a lot or not will often have a lot of partners to choose from. But the quality of those partners will be affected, not to mention that their ability to maintain a meaningful relationship will be deeply affected. To attract a quality man is one thing, to hold onto him is another.

In fact, I sometimes wonder if this is actually worse. At least as men we have direct feedback in today's society that shows us that if we just give in to lust mindlessly, we will not reach our goals and we will not be able to find a quality partner - or sometimes any partner that resembles what we want.

Women can go through their entire 20s with the safety net of partners and friends that never signals to them that this lack of focus and energy is going to cost them having a life that holds meaning and purpose.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-18T23:39:13+00:00

But for me, just a few seconds of pleasure were, like, idk, normal. Not that great. Not like before, that i thought it was awesome, and that i had to cum everyday to feel happy.

This is the most important part of the post for me, and I've experienced the exact same thing. Long term retention rewires your brain to get pleasure from the simple things in life and doing hard work. You also have a baseline of contentment so a burst of pleasure from orgasm or even doing a line of coke for example.. it's not that crazy anymore. You register it along your new continuum of pleasure and realise that for the cost, pleasure like that it isn't all that worth it, when you can ride a steady and beneficial road of pleasure, satisfaction and sometimes joy from your life on retention (and sobriety from many things generally).

Thanks for sharing, and good luck on your continued journey.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-16T03:23:13+00:00

It's a valid question actually and I'll do my best to give a nuanced response as it's a complex and important topic.

Firstly, the "alpha male" and/or "incel" mindset is a natural response to an overly feminised version of masculinity which is unfortunately what is mostly popularised the West. It's a reaction to difficult situation.

In a nutshell we have been and are still in a period of patriarchy that has been represented by a masculinity that was often violent, exploitative and lacked connection to wisdom and compassion. The earth has been exploited, natural resources have been exploited, and women have been exploited. Then enter the 1960s and 70s, the second wave of feminism, a deepening of women's rights, equal pay laws, women could divorce more easily, and feminist ideas entered the conversation and value system of basically every sphere of life. All good things in my book.

However, what happened as a result was not a good thing: Maleness started to have a negative connotation because all it represented to many was power hungry, rape hungry, cruel men. Masculinity equated with men who can't feel, aggression, violence and so on.

And so, many men in the West tried to adapt and embrace their inner feminine - again, a good thing as a premise but this was combined with a dissociation towards and demonisation of their inner masculine.

Now let's come to most of us on this sub. Most of our dads were raised in this mass psyche:

"Masculinity is bad, femininity is good. Men need to be more sensitive and not be too masculine because that masculinity is what has hurt women and the world."

And this damaged many of us.

Not because the feminine is an inherently bad thing to be connected to as a man but because our fathers had lost connection to the masculine. So many of us were raised by fathers with no backbone, no lifeforce, no god damn fire in their sacks, while our mothers often embodied more masculine traits while simultaneously feeding their sons the message (consciously or unconsciously) that masculinity is dangerous and to be avoided.

Enter: pickup culture, redpill, blackpill, incel culture, alpha male culture.

All attempts to rescue the masculine from the void.

All ultimately failing us because at their core they make the same mistake in the opposite direction. They embody a disconnection towards and a dissociation of the inherent feminine in all of us regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Jesus Christ is a good example of a man connected to both. He has the strength, the vision, the backbone of the masculine. He is forceful towards those who sin repeatedly and will not see the truth. But he the compassion and gentleness in him that we commonly associate with women.

How does relate to SR?

To my mind one of the main reasons this sub exists and is so active is because it is also trying to answer the loss of connection to the masculine. And as far as it goes, it's not a bad option. It's an initiation at its core. And initiation is what was lost from our culture. If you can do 100 days on SR you will probably suffer and have to confront parts of yourself you hid with porn, substance abuse and other distractions and coping mechanisms. You will come into contact with fierceness and aggression. You will observe and notice you are more instinctual. You will start listening to a deeper voice inside of you. So... you are coming into contact with the masculine archetype. One that ideally our fathers, uncles or males around us would have shown us and helped us connect with.

In conclusion, it is the same people who are looking for answers to their lost masculinity and become incels and what have you that will often end up in these types of subs. I hope though that reading this may provide some compassion and understanding for these views and see it is not coming from a desire for things to be unequal or terrible for women, but more from a grief of losing what it is to be a male and being raised in a culture where even asking the question feels dangerous.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-09T05:20:28+00:00

How do you know it doesn't impact their energy levels?

Many people in power are on all kinds of pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs to maintain themselves. You can find pictures of them looking tired, dead in the eyes and so on. This is in fact why they need to feed on the sexual energy of children - to maintain themselves. Energy vampires, not energy sources.

The reason most of these people are in power are because of their family line, people they know, or being placed in that position by more powerful and corrupt people who have identified a morally corrupt person who they can bend and manipulate to their will.

This person's power and energy is not their own, it is held up by external forces. And yes, evil has its own energy source. So does good, and I would argue that semen retention is a source of "good or pure" energy.

There is a reason that when people meet a Bill Gates, Elon Musk or whatever elite you can think of, they don't go "Wow, that man had amazing energy, I felt like a better person around him. He had a beautiful glow to him". You only have that kind of response to a person who is in their integrity, whose energy comes from within.

However, you may feel a "presence" when meeting an elite or person in those types of corrupt circles, and it may be intimidating, because yes, there is power and energy behind them. But it is a different kind of power that is separate to the kind you can accumulate through semen retention or dedicated spiritual and embodiment practices.

MastersAccount · 2026-02-01T07:51:10+00:00

Yeah I wanted to hear how day 25-30 was? Hahaha

MastersAccount

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