Hey, everybody welcome to our podcast I think you guys probably noticed something that there was no intro music. did you did you guys notice that did you notice that Darcy I don't know because I can't hear it. So. If you notice that there was no welcome to episode number 163 this is the one hundred and sixty third episode of our podcast the podcast that I've been producing since October of 2019 so that's kind of cool and you probably notice that there's no intro music or intro. Whatever. That we usually hear every time you turn on the podcast. We're changing. We're growing and we're looking to become hopefully more valuable to you as we do that. So the very first thing that I want you to know from us is that there's a name change. You might have noticed that. Maybe when you open up your app this morning for the first time in a week that that the name of the podcast has changed to thrive beyond pornography or it might not be updated yet depend. Yeah on you might know same device to use. It can sometimes take a week for that to like process through. Apple Podcasts or Amazon or Spotify wherever you're listening from that said, the reason we changed. The name is a really important one and d'arcy and I have we've kind of worked a lot on thriving.

Becoming a thriving couple becoming individuals who are thriving on our own and hopefully you guys have been doing the same for yourselves. So we want to focus on. And and this is the second thing that you'll probably notice as we go forward. Is you know we're going to continue to focus on individuals who have struggled to overcome pornography. We are also going to integrate what was once separate coaching for individuals to couples and those in relationships. Who want to not just eliminate a pornography struggle from their lives. But really begin to move past that and begin to thrive and begin to create growth and intimacy in their most valuable relationships. Darcy and I have worked on that a lot ourselves we we found that. And and I've said this to so many people as they've come through and done a consult with me or just talked to us in random places at random times because people stop us and they're like hey you talk about porn all the time. Yeah, absolutely. Um and I've said this so many times it's when the couple. Really does the work together is when the relationship moves forward the most effectively and it's also when the person who struggles with pornography is able to move forward most effectively. It's when the person who doesn't struggle with pornography who may feel wounded and.

Oftentimes the word betrayed comes out and they are trying to find a new reality that they're proud of we we want to help both those people we want to help spouses. We want to help the person who struggles. So that's why we're changing. From from the self-mastery podcast to thrive beyond pornography. Additionally, we are going to change some of the things that we do in our coaching our coaching will now offer more to both spouses as they work together to move forward. Through and then beyond the struggles that have been keeping them from thriving. So if you've been listening to our podcast long enough. You've probably noticed that we don't just say hey remove pornography and everything's going to be amazing. And one of the things that we realized in our own journey was that just stopping the behavior of Zach turning to pornography did not necessarily create the thriving marriage that we wanted the intimacy and the connection. And the sexual relationship that we wanted. It was a great thing and it was exciting when he did stop turning for pornography but it it wasn't the answer to creating the thriving marriage that we wanted to yeah it didn't help heal.

Everything that needed to be healed and it didn't give us necessarily the tools to actually enjoy each other to not make it problematic when something went wrong and to you know, keep from creating long-term rifts in our in our relationship. So what's this look like for you. Well we're gonna keep producing all the same great content that we have. We're gonna continue to be here every single week. We're gonna work to integrate the relationships into each podcast that we produce and and that we offer sometimes you're gonna hear Darcy. Alone and sometimes you're gonna hear me alone and sometimes you're gonna hear us together. But our main message is going to be more focused on the marital relationship and thriving beyond pornography. Yeah absolutely and if you're part of our membership. You're gonna get. More access to the resources that we're going to create for spouses and of those who struggle with pornography to help if you're part of the membership you're going to get more great resources to for spouses. Of those who struggle with pornography to help you not just move through the difficult and often challenging work that you're going to be doing to overcome the difficulties. The pornography has contributed to your relationship but we're also going to help you by providing resources.

To help you begin to thrive in your marriage and as an individual beyond that pornography struggle if you've been listening for a while you might have gotten to a place where you're feeling like I've got a pretty good handle on my actual pornography struggle. But you might realize that. There's areas in your marriage that are still struggling despite your ability to have a relationship with pornography that's more in line with who you want to be and who you've essentially committed to be in your marriage. Yeah and I and I think this is really important because. You know I can't tell you how many clients have come to us from other coaches from other programs from other systems where they said you know I got a handle on pornography and then my marriage didn't get better and that made it so that pornography continued to be. Ah, resource for me to deal with my feelings to deal with what was wrong in my relationship to deal with all of the difficulties that you know we just don't have a lot of coping skills to manage through so this is about not just eliminating 1 particular issue from your life. But it's really about.

Moving beyond that issue and into a place where your marriage is so much better and if you're struggling with pornography if you're the person who struggles with pornography you know in our in your coaching with me and in coaching and the membership. Not only are we going to keep working to eliminate unwanted pornography. We're not gonna we're not gonna leave that by this wayside. But you will also begin to have resources that are going to help you thrive both in your marriage and as an individual beyond this pornography struggle. So next week we're going to have all new production values and we are going to start a 3 part series that will begin with our story. As you've never heard it before we're so looking forward to this Darcy and I have been working together to make this happen for a long time and we are really excited to offer this new direction to you all our listeners and we hope that you will share this with others so over the past. About 3 years well it it's been 3 years yeah it's been 3 years said where we we started this podcast mostly it was Zach doing this. It was mostly Zach's business and I was kind of like the sidekick hey Robin yeah to my and. I'm ready to step in and not just be a sidekick I want to be an active participant in our coaching practice. Um I'm really passionate about helping wives get to the place where they're not only just thriving there. But.

I'm really passionate about helping the wives get to a place where they're not just surviving every day but they're truly thriving in their lives and we've kind of made this shift because. That's what we're most passionate about we are most passionate about the marriage relationship. Um, and our upbringing. You know there's been a lot of discussions around pornography destroying marriages and we we. That's our goal like our goal is to help end that struggle and really create strong healthy marriages Even when Pornography is an issue. Yeah and when Pornography has been an issue.. There's a lot that goes on both in the in the minds of. The spouse and in the mind of the person who is struggling with pornography and we want to help go through that with you and create not just a marriage but a thriving happy marriage not just something to endure but something where you can have joy and passion. And compassion and love and Intimacy. So Our hope is that if you are someone who's struggling with pornography and you're married that this can be a podcast that you and your spouse can listen to together or maybe you listen to separately and then you come together and discuss what it is that you hear.

We want this to be a great resource for married couples who are struggling with pornography and if you're in that process and maybe your spouse isn't ready to have this conversation start doing this work yourself regardless of what side of it. You're on and as you do that work your spouse will begin to come along. We know that for a fact because that's often been the path that each of us has had to take separately one of us would move forward while the other one waited then the other one would move forward while the other one waited and in our experience over these last three years Zach has coached hundreds of men. And there's been a couple handfuls of the wives who have worked with me and we found that when both the husband and the wife are working together and both committed to this process. It goes a lot more smoothly and. Couple seem to get to a better place in the end. Yeah, they really do get to a better place and I think that is the key we want to get your marriage to the place where you are so proud of it and so pleased with your lives that you would never go back. And when you look back and you see what progress you've made. You can be super super proud of it and you could share it with everybody around you all right? My friends we're so looking forward to this journey with you. All we're grateful for your listenership. We hope.

We pray that you will share this with someone who needs it because it is so so much it it shows your love when you offer this to someone who does need it and we love to help as many people as we can. So thank you for listening. And we're looking forward to seeing you next week bye still

One of my clients sent me a message a couple of weeks ago that I thought was common but interesting.  

He was talking about how he had become bored while he was studying and the thought crossed his mind to google something that he could tell at the time was a distraction from what he would ideally choose.  He just wanted a little high, just wanted to kill time with something interesting, as he described it. I wanted something more subtle. 

Then he moved from there, out of curiosity googled, “do people walk around naked at home?”

So, he asked me, “Is there anything that I can do, even when my brain is being subtle, is there any tool that I can catch myself?” Knowing as he mentioned in his voice memo, I would suggest that he listen to my course video “the truth, the justification, and the lie”

Then he said, “Is there anything that I can do to get rid of this right away?”

One of the things I do in my individual coaching is deep dive into what is going on in the 30 or so minutes before we choose pornography. 

For this client, his brain is being very subtle as it offers him something that will be highly appealing at the moment.  

What is happening for him in that moment is that the habit running part of the brain has received a cue, that subtly begins the response process, in order to create a highly appealing reward.  In episode 69 I dive into how our brain can create new habits. 

One of the keys that this client and everyone who is working to eliminate a pornography habit from their life must do is create and practice new ways to respond to cues.  

I know that sounds overly simplistic, even if it is true.  

Those who join my membership and those who get individual coaching with me work on some very specific techniques to retrain their brains to respond to the cues we receive in order to avoid the rabbit hole altogether in the long run. 

Before we change our habits, we have to be able to recognize when our brain is being subtle and start identifying where we are playing into its desire to feel good now rather than deal with what’s uncomfortable. 

I think there are a few questions I might to ask that might help decipher between the wholesome passing of time and the start of the rabbit hole.

It’s also really important to ask these questions with the same curiosity that you are bringing to the questions that are working to pull you away from your values.  

1. Is what I am currently doing on the internet something that I would be comfortable and confident doing when I am at my best and living my values?
2. If I were to ask myself on my best day, considering my current relationship with pornography would I encourage myself to search away on the current topic or would I be able to see that I might be approaching a line of what I would feel was contrary to my values?
3. If I look into my past have there been similar instances like this that have lead me down a path that I am wanting to stay off?
4. If I were on the outside looking in would I be comfortable with the person I am currently being?

Set a Free consultation with Zach at zachspafford.com/workwithzach

Set up a free consult at zachspafford.com/workwithzach

Thrive Beyond Pornography

If you are listening to this podcast, you are probably like everyone else on the planet and have chosen to do something that feels good right now at the expense of sleep. 

I know I’ve done it.  Whether it is watching one more episode of that binge-able new tv show until you look over and its 4 am or knowing you are so tired but you just keep scrolling social or crawling into bed, feeling ready to sleep then, your mind offers you that “you’re alone” and “you might as well get away for a bit.”

These are all real-life examples from my life, Darcy’s life, and the lives of my clients.  

And if you are human, as imagine there is an example like this in your life that makes you wonder, “Why did I choose that instead of sleep?”

For many of my clients, the hour before bed is a regular time when they choose pornography. 

Today we’re going to look at why that may be and give you some really clear, actionable tools to put you in a position to make the decisions that meet your values when confronted with the urge to view porn before bed. 

• It’s easier to do than quieting our mind
• It’s easier than laying there restless
• It’s easier than tossing and turning
• It’s easier than transitioning to the next thing
• 
  

• Curiosity is probably one of the key reasons our brain engages us in pornography viewing.  What does this person look like nude?  Who is this person?  How can I see more of this person?  
• Problem-solving is one of the most powerful things our brain does.  When it comes to viewing porn or binging screens late at night, the problem solving feedback here is twofold.  First, it is solving for anxiety by avoiding it.  Second, it is solving for our desire to know as much as we can.
• Learning is an outgrowth of curiosity and problem solving and our brain feels justified in learning everything it can about the world around it.  
•   
• 
  

• Dopamine, 
• Arousal
• Escape from responsibility
• 
  

A study reported that 65% of participants who had an orgasm before going to bed reported better sleep quality. 

in order to attain high-quality sleep, our bodies should be able to enter a state of relaxation and calmness.

Cortisol is a stress hormone that prevents that. It’s often associated with our body’s fight or flight response, making our bodies feel more alert and restless.

Fortunately, research shows that masturbation and sexual intercourse inhibit this stress-inducing hormone's production.

Cortisol is also often associated with a slew of health problems, from high blood pressure and fatigue to decreased bone density, so it’s always ideal to have a low count of cortisol in your body.

• (https://primemensmedical.com/blog/does-masturbating-make-you-tired/#:~:text=But%20here%20comes%20the%20kicker,bed%20reported%20better%20sleep%20quality)

I’ll link to that information in the notes. 

I want to be clear, I’m not advocating viewing pornography and masturbation in order to improve your sleep.  What I’m offering is an understanding of why this habit may have formed and why you may be engaging in it as you do fall asleep. 

This is about realizing that you might be using orgasms to manage stress and cortisol levels. Fortunately, these are not the only ways to manage your stress, cortisol, or sleep patterns.  And just knowing what you are facing gives you a lot of power to make changes and change patterns. That’s why we have the membership, so you can figure out what is happening and resolve it, even if you can’t see it yourself at first.

I know that for me, there were many times that I lay awake at night, and the thought would come to me to view pornography so I could just get to sleep. It was probably most often on business trips, during which I rarely slept well.  But it did occur at home as well on nights when I found it tough to sleep and on nights when I didn’t find it difficult, but I just didn’t want to have to go through the process of falling asleep. 

I wish I had understood this earlier on in my life so I could arrange for my brain to create new ways of dealing with my stress and sleep struggles.

These reasons are some of the likely ones that I’ve come up with.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this.  Feel free to email me at [email protected]

The first thing that you’ll want to do is create a sleep routine.  

This is a matter of intentionally laying out how you would like to go to bed.   Creating a wind down that already incorporates some of the habits you have now and augmenting those habits with new items that will help you maintain good sleep structures for yourself.  

An example of this might look like, right now, I brush my teeth, get into bed, and scroll my phone until I fall asleep.  

A new sleep schedule might look like, brushing your teeth, putting your phone in another room, taking a few minutes to meditate and laying in bed until you fall asleep.  

At first this will be excruciating!  I know because I’ve done it.  But over time, as you do this, you’ll find that it starts to gear your mind up for sleep and falling asleep becomes easier and easier.  

It is also a simple process, so for those of you who have a sleep schedule that varies, the activities you put in place to gear your mind toward sleep are not dependent on a specific time of day.  

When we have a sleep routine that helps us engage our brain in a process of falling asleep each time that is really helpful  The second most helpful thing that we can do to lessen the impact of urges to view pornography at bed time or when we are sleepy is to get adequate sleep. 

If you are sleeping less than 7 hours per night, you are likely not getting adequate sleep and impairing your capacity to make good decisions. 

One of the main reasons people choose to scroll endlessly, stay up late, or view pornography is that when the day is done, they want to take time for themselves when they have not been fulfilled.  

I know lots of moms, dads, students, and employees work tirelessly to do all the tasks they need to accomplish in a day, only to climb into bed feeling drained and frustrated that they will need to just get up and do it all again tomorrow. 

This is a key reason why we choose these ultimately unfulfilling but immediately gratifying activities. 

When we don’t really have anything to look forward to, it can create a vacuum where we feel like it is impossible to live a rich, full, and meaningful life.  

This kind of energy and sense about our lives can lead us to do what feels good and easy in the moment rather than living with purpose. 

If you want to reduce the number of times you scroll endlessly or choose pornography, create an intentional plan of how you can live more fully.  I know this can feel really difficult and there are a lot of reasons to put off doing this.  I promise you, if you will seek to do the fun things, the things that bring meaning into your life so that when your head hits the pillow, it can think about the joy you bring into your own life, you’ll be less likely to choose pornography.  

None of these things will solve the whole problem.  And none of these things in isolation are the silver bullet.  Over time, by adding to your process incrementally, you will find that the compounding effect of each of these techniques will move mountains. 

Adding these techniques to other things that I’ve taught through the podcast and in the membership and individual coaching will help you reach your goals.  

Most importantly, this understanding and these skills will help you Overcome Pornography Forever. 

One of the biggest issues that every person who works to overcome pornography has is that they often feel like they are failing if they have any sort of setback or make any sort of mistake in the way that they are handling themselves. 

So today we are going to talk about two ways to ensure that you never fail again when it comes to overcoming pornography. 

A guy that I was working with told me the story of when he was doing a physical challenge of some sort, I think it was a multi-day race, and he stopped at a home that was part of the race support.  I heard this story a long time ago, so the details are a little fuzzy for me, but the message is clear.  

He goes into the house, they point him to a bedroom and since it’s the end of the day and he’s been racing all day, he goes in, faceplants into the bed and goes to sleep. 

Fast forward to the next morning and his wife, who, for some reason didn’t sleep in the room with him, comes in to wake him up.  As she does this, she notices that the wall above my friend’s head is a mural of a naked woman. 

I imagine some of you are right now thinking of your partner or yourself and wondering how much trouble that guy was in.  

Turns out he was in quite a bit of trouble. 

His wife was quite furious with him that he had slept in that room and let him have it. 

So my friend defends himself by saying that he had no idea, he had just come into the room, it was dark, he hadn’t even gotten undressed, that he had just slept in the room without even looking around because he was so tired from the race he had been running. 

This is key number one making your journey to overcoming pornography forever fail-proof:

Learn to recognize what is problematic and what is incidental. 

Too often, we become hyper-sensitive and hyper-focused on the ways in which pornography intersects our life and this intense management of the thing we want so badly to avoid creates a reality where we are more likely to notice it, and often, we beat ourselves up over it reinforcing a negative reality. 

Just the same way you notice every car on the road that looks like the one you just bought, your brain is constantly looking for ways to reinforce itself.  This happens in ways that are positive and valuable and it also happens in ways that reinforce negativity in our lives.  

In the case of my friend, the fact that there was a mural of a naked woman on the wall above his head was a non-issue until his wife made it into a big deal, reinforcing a number of negativities that seem inescapable.  

I don’t know what her thoughts were, but I imagine she felt like we can never get away from this, that no matter what, we always have to be diligent, and maybe any trauma that she experienced was being dredged up and relived in that moment.  

For him, it might have been that he will never be able to do enough to stay away from this, that even when he isn’t doing anything, he still gets in trouble because of his past behavior, and maybe even that his wife will never get over this and that it is a hopeless issue. 

Think about what you’ve felt over the time you’ve struggled, what would you have thought or felt.  I know that I would certainly have felt attacked for something I didn’t do and that I had no control over.  

If you want to overcome pornography forever, you need to be able to triage what has happened in order to understand if there is something more to do. 

In this case, there really wasn’t anything to be done.  My friend had no idea the mural existed, and as such, nothing happened and there was nothing to learn from the experience.  

This, in a lot of ways, could be summed up as stuff happens, and making it into a bigger deal than it needs to be won’t make it better. 

The second thing that you can do to never fail again as you overcome pornography forever is to learn from each time you choose pornography. 

I know that seems simple, but it’s not and I’ll tell you why. 

First, people do not like, in fact, they hate, confronting when they act incongruously to their values. 

Second, we like to move on quickly and put it behind us. 

Let’s talk about those two reasons why we don’t like learning from our mistakes really quickly.  

You’ve probably noticed that when you go all in on something and everyone disagrees with you that it is really hard to back down.  Well, the reason that is tough for most of us is that it makes us feel like we’ve been wrong and no one likes to be wrong.  When we don’t live our values, we see it as wrong and we don’t like admitting we’re wrong. Not to others and not to ourselves.  So that is what is going on when we work really hard not to confront our behaviors that don’t align with our values. 

The second reason I mentioned there, we like to move on quickly has to do with the first as well, but there is a nuance there.  Running away is a standard move in keeping yourself safe in unpleasant situations.  The move on from my own mistakes move is a lot like running away, but in a mental version. 

One of the key modules I have in the membership and in my individual coaching is called Learn Something, Move Forward. 

In there, I give you a step-by-step process, to help you focus in on what happened, why, and how to create a game plan that you can practice and execute the next time you are faced with the same or similar challenge. 

In fact, If you write me a review for the podcast and email me when you’ve done it, with a picture of the review, I’ll send you the video and workbook so you can use it for yourself.

Learning from our mistakes means that we never fail because we never give up and we got something of value out of the moment. 

Saying that you’ve failed is like telling a baby that is learning to walk that if they fall down, they are a failure.  

You wouldn’t do that.  You’d be a monster if you did that.  Just imagine standing over a baby and shouting at them that they are a horrible failure for falling down when they are trying to learn to walk. 

Now some of you might be listening and saying, “but my husband or I am not learning to walk, we’re making choices and choosing poorly.” 

To which I say, ok, you might be choosing poorly, but, based on your track record, does it look like you have all the necessary skills, tools, habits, and processes to make the choices that most closely align with your values in this space?  If you’re listening to the podcast, the answer might be yes, but only because you’ve been listening to this podcast and doing what I’ve taught you. 

More likely, especially if you are new, the answer is no.  This means, that much like a baby learning to walk, you are in the process of getting together the requisite skills, tools, habits, and processes to be successful.  

So, do yourself a favor, stop standing over yourself and yelling at your unskilled mind, telling it that it's a failure, and actually start learning from these interactions.  It will make your life much more successful.  

Learn to see what is problematic and what is incidental and learn from your mistakes.  

That is how you never fail ever again.  

At anything, by the way. 

Join the membership for 50% off using promo code LABORDAY50 Click here to join https://www.zachspafford.com/jointhemembership

Here is a story that we are all familiar with, that we all believe is true, and that we inflict on ourselves when we think about our pornography struggle.  

The story begins with us seeing the hero of the story at their lowest point.  They are being crushed by the world and see no light, no end to their suffering, and no way to rise above the challenges that are before them.  

In this struggle, they come across a single truth, weapon, or skill that opens possibilities to them, creates a path forward, and allows them to triumph. 

While I struggled with pornography, I found that this is how I thought of what I needed to overcome pornography forever. 

I thought, if Heavenly Father can just give me that one tool, that one skill, or just take this one thing away from me, then I would be immediately successful and clearly win this fight. 

I don’t know if you have thought of your porn struggle in this same way, but this was my mindset for a very long time when it came to pornography. 

I’m sure, that like Saul who saw Jesus on his travels and was renamed Paul, there are people for whom extraordinary shifts occur in moments and then, forevermore, that newly minted being of awesomeness is plagued no more by their trials. 

I know, for me, that this wasn’t the case.  

I found that really overcoming pornography forever was about three things. 

Regularly refocusing, habits around my urges, and experimenting with totally new ways of thinking. 

In the process of overcoming pornography, I found myself regularly discouraged when a setback occurred or a process that I had put in place seemed to fail. For a long time, this lead to an out-of-control spiral and frustrating despair. 

Each time made mistakes, I had to dig out of that hole and refocus and redouble my efforts.  

The clear lesson for me around this is, that you don’t have to wait until you make a mistake to refocus.  

If you are working to overcome pornography, setting regular checkpoints, working with a coach, or regularly evaluating your progress, process, and potential is something you can set up before you make mistakes. Adding key touchpoints to help you evaluate and adjust will yield high levels of self-awareness and pivot points that allow you to move toward your values.   

These regular refocus sessions, whether you are doing them on your own or with a coach can help you clarify where you stand, what you are doing well, and if there is an area that you might want to improve.  

If you are thinking about overcoming pornography forever from a strategic perspective, checking in with what’s working and setting time to evaluate it is a perfect start to getting you where you want to go. 

You might have a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly refocus session set on your calendar where you celebrate your wins and see how you want to focus your energy for the next period. 

Speaking of how to focus your energy, one of the key components that you’ll need to focus on is how you are habitually dealing with urges.  

Willpower is a regular go-to when we engage with our brain around urges.  

But if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know that willpower fades and is never enough to totally eliminate pornography from your life. 

Creating and practicing new ways to deal with urges seems really simple, I know.  When it comes to the things you are most effective at in your life, you have created habitual ways to engage with them. 

I’m reminded of Phil Mickelson and Michael Jordan and Tom Brady.  

Each of them has risen to the height of their sport.  But how?

By doing the same things, over and over and over and over until it was habitual, not reactionary. 

My favorite example of this is the well know “Flu Game” during which Michael Jordan, struggling with what he speculates was food poisoning from the pizza that he ate the night before, put up an astounding 38 of the 90 points his team scored that night. 

Michael performed as well as he did because he was able to engage habits that he had built through countless hours of practice.  

When urges confront us in our day-to-day life, the way we react to them makes all the difference.  

If the way we react to them comes from a place of habitual performance, honed through dedicated practice, our urges become less about a struggle and more about just letting our habits take over and guide us to success. 

You can learn all the right habits in the Self Mastery Membership or through individual coaching.  Just sign up for a free consult at https://www.zachspafford.com/workwithzach  

Figuring out the right habits and how to practice them the way Jordan did free throws or Mickelson does putts isn’t something you have to do alone.  

Lastly, experiment with totally new ways of thinking. 

This is really experimenting with totally new ways of thinking and doing.  But you have to think it before you do it.  

A lot of us are doing the same things, over and over but not getting the results that we want.  So, like the idea before, we are letting a habit take over our process.  The question you need to be asking is, is this process actually resolving my issue, or does it keep leading me back to results I don’t want?

Let me point out that there is a difference between not being successful because of ineffective habits, skills, ideas, or actions and not being successful because you have not yet integrated the right habit fully enough to be effective.  

A good way to know if you haven’t yet integrated the right habit is to see what the conventional wisdom is on that habit and ask if that technique is working for others.  You can also ask yourself, does this process make sense in the totality of my understanding and has it yielded any sort of value?  

When I worked through the 12 steps, there were some things that just didn’t make sense to me.  One really big one was how you are asked to admit that you are powerless.  

That idea really struck me as not terribly helpful in the totality of what I was trying to accomplish.  How could I take responsibility for my actions and start making different decisions if I was powerless against an external force? That’s the way I thought of it, but that may not be the way you think about it. 

And really this step is about that very thing, experimenting with new ways of thinking and see if they make sense to you. 

See if the idea, the process, or the mechanics of what you have been thinking make more or less sense. See if a new, different, or off-the-wall idea that you hadn’t considered can fill a gap in your process.  

Also, see if someone else is being successful with new ideas.  Try them.  See if you can become more successful than you have been up to this point with those ideas. 

When I worked through my own struggle, I often had to throw out old ways of thinking and create new ones. 

The old adage that if you want different results, you have to try different things is also true of the way we think and feel.  

Putting our thoughts, feelings, and actions together differently than we ever have before will yield different results. 

As you work through your own struggle and start down the path of Regularly refocusing, creating new habits around your urges, and experimenting with totally new ways of thinking you don’t have to do it alone or ask people who have never done the work.  You can work with a coach who has traveled that path himself and helped hundreds of men and women do the same. 

I’m here for you.  

When you’re ready, make an appointment at zachspafford.com/workwithzach and I’ll walk you through this process personally. 

As I was discussing pornography with one of my clients, an odd phrase occurred to me. 

Pornography is a participation trophy. 

On the podcast we don’t do a lot of porn bashing, mostly because when people come to listen I feel like they already have a really keen sense of shame and know full well that watching porn is not their ideal way of engaging in life. 

And a concept that has been bubbling around in my head for a while is how effective pornography is at engaging people.  

Let me tell you what I mean.  

First off, I think its really important to recognize that validation is one of the most highly sought after interactions a lot of us chase.  We look to others to validate our views, this is why we see the ever narrowing of our social media spheres of influence.  We want the news programs that we watch to validate our sense of the world.  We want our politicians to validate our sense of fairness or that the other side is doing us wrong.  

Closer to home, we want our partner to validate the view we have of ourselves as a good spouse, a good parent, and a good lover.  Why else would you ask, “How was it?” after dinner or dessert?  

We want validation for a number of reasons, most important among them, it feels good.  

This is part of the reason why, when we ask our spouse if they want to make love and they say no, it can be some of the most disorganizing, frustrating, and invalidating words our spouse can say. 

When they say no, however they say no, it can feel personal, causing us to worry and feel like we aren’t enough, even that our spouse has rejected us.  

So many of us feel even worse because we might have put in all kinds of effort to make the rejection less likely by cleaning the house, putting the kids to bed, or whatever we think might keep our spouse from being able to say, “Yes.”

This desire for validation, especially the validation that I’m ok or I’m enough then shows up sometimes as neediness.  I have a client who would view pornography and then after he viewed pornography and told his wife, he would mope and pout until she would have sex with him.  He connected her having sex with him as a re-validation of himself into a person that was worthy of participating in their life.  

As I’ve thought about pornography and it’s capacity to draw people in, although this is not the only reason people view porn, it seems to me that one really clear reason why people choose pornography is that it always validates them. 

Think about it.  No one ever goes to google and types in a search only to have the system say, “Oh, not tonight, I’m just not in the mood”.

Pornography is, especially in today’s day and age, always on.  It always says, “Yes”. It is willing to try out anything you might want to try.  It like the things you like.  It believes in what you believe.  It wants to please you.  The face it makes is always one of desire for you.  

You see, porn is like the participation trophy of emotional and sexual interaction.  

You didn’t really earn it, but you got it anyway.  

The difficult reality is, when we are willing to face up to who we want to really be, most of us don’t want participation trophies.  

Most of us want our lives to be a mix of real desire and honest growth.  

Neither of which come at a command, but are earned with effort, over time. 

I used to think that once my wife and I could have sex because we were married that my pornography problem would go away. 

Then when we got married and my pornography problem kept going, I used to think that if we had sex that day, I wouldn’t turn to pornography.  

Then if we had sex that day and I chose pornography, I used to think that our sex life needed to be more interesting before my porn struggle would end. 

There are a lot of reasons why people choose pornography when they are morally opposed to it.  Many of those reasons stem from trying to resolve an issue that is difficult or painful.  Often they either do not have the tools to resolve these issues or that they are unskilled or unpracticed at using the tools they do have. 

WIthin the Self Mastery Membership we dive deep into the tools you need as well as help you hone those tools to make them effective in your day to day life. 

When I believed that sex would solve my pornography problem, I failed myself by believing that the answer to my struggle was outside me. 

I believed that Darcy would solve my problems.  I believed that God would make me stop somehow. (Agency tells us He won’t) I believed that if I had my needs met often enough and well enough that I simply wouldn’t have more desire than to be with my wife.  

The idea that external forces will help us resolve our pornography problems is the same idea that keeps us from solving our pornography problems.  

The more we believe that someone or something outside of us has power to solve for how we feel or what we need, the more we will believe that pornography can help us solve for how we feel or what we need.  

The idea that Darcy could make it so I wouldn’t want porn is the same concept as porn could make it so I wouldn’t struggle with my difficult or painful issues.  

When Darcy can make the bad of porn go away, porn can make the bad of loneliness go away. 

Placing our ownership of what is going on for us outside of us, in the hands of a person, a substance, an electronic dopamine machine like video games, or in pornography only aleviates the struggle for a short time.  Then, we have to face up to both our choices and our previously unaddressed difficulties. 

So, if sex won’t solve your porn problem, what will?

I’ll give you a one word answer that you may not want to hear: YOU

You are the only person who can solve for how you feel, why you choose porn, and learn the skills you need to practice in order to leave it behind. 

I can teach you those skills, you can learn them through individual coaching or in the membership, but you have to be the one who takes the steps to make it happen. 

Heavenly Father could create the perfect conditions that would make your life perfectly simple and easy to live, but you have to be the one who exercises your agency around pornography. 

Your wife can have sex with you every day, three times a day, she can be understanding of your issue and not make you feel shame or guilt when you choose porn, she can be emotionally available and alway meet your “needs”, but you have to be the one who owns your emotions, experiences your frustrations, and resolves them internally before they become so overwhelming that you feel like you have to escape them.   

This is why more sex won’t solve your porn problem.  

You have to hold on to yourself and create the sense within yourself that you are capable of solving the problem, learn the skills and utilize them, and stop relying on externals to manage you.  

This is why I don’t encourage accountability partners, too often we think of them as external checks on internal choices.  (they can be effective if used as a way to become known more fully)  This is why I don’t recommend internet or device filters for adults.  Too often we use them as external puzzles to be circumvented.  This is why, no matter how much sex you get, it will not keep you from looking at porn.  

If externals, like sex, had the power to keep you from choosing porn, there would be a lot less people choosing porn.

Here’s what you do about it instead. 

First, take a look at all the reasons you choose porn.  

Get familiar with them, understand how they keep coming up, and get open feedback on them from those close to you who are willing to honestly discuss them with you. 

For me, stress was a huge struggle.  Talking about my stress with Darcy helped me understand where it was coming from, how I was contributing to it, and how often I would need to deal with it. 

Second, learn key strategies, skills, techniques, and processes that you need to become proficient in to mitigate, eliminate, or endure those reasons that you choose porn.  

I often say this during my initial coaching sessions with people. “I’m going to teach you how to get good at feeling bad”.  If you want to resolve your struggle with pornography, feeling good is not going to help you.  Desire to feel good is the reason you’re probably turning to pornography.  

If you want to talk to me about how you can get good at this, set up a free call with me by going to zachspafford.com/workwithme and scroll all the way to the bottom.  It will be the best 30 minutes you spend on pornography ever.  

Learning to get good at feeling bad, I realize is a terrible sales pitch.  But if rings true because if we want to have joy in our lives as Lehi described in 2 Nephi 2:25 we need to get good at dealing with opposition to joy in our lives as Lehi indicates just 13 verses earlier in that same chapter.  

The third and final thing that you need to do is practice.  

Malcolm Gladwell is an economist and writer who is famous for coining the term, the 10,000 hour rule. 

If you want to become excellent at something, whether it is sports or business, singing or the piano, there is a process to getting there that requires about 10,000 hours.  

Please don’t let that number discourage you. It’s likely that most of the hours you need are already racked up and waiting to be leveraged.   

You can start today by devising a path, create a plan of doable steps that you can execute on but that expand your capacity.  Some of the things you need to do are already things that you do, but that need to be honed.  Some of the things you need to do you already know about and need to be learned. Some of the things you need to do are things that you will discover you didn’t even know anything about but that will be key to your longterm success. 

I can promise you this.  If you will 

1. Take a look at all the reasons you choose porn.  
2. Learn key strategies, skills, techniques, and processes that you need
3. Practice resolving why you choose porn through what you’ve learned

It will change the trajectory of the struggle you’ve been engaged in and help you finally overcome pornography forever.  

If you don’t know or don’t see the reasons you choose porn, please set up some time to meet with me.  I will help you figure this out.  

As we say in the coaching world, it’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle and you are no exception.  Sometimes, we need someone who is skilled at seeing things we can’t see and who will teach us how to observe and address it. 

Find more at zachspafford.com