Thrive Beyond Pornography

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There are three natural roles that we tend to gravitate to in our relationships with others. 

Steven Karpman codified these in what he called the drama triangle. 

Understanding how these roles work can really help each of us figure out where we are in this space and then, ultimately move out of the triangle into the fourth role that is where we all want to be. 

The thing about these roles is that we tend to occupy each of the roles at some point or another.  When it comes to our behavior, and especially addictive behaviors that we want to stop, this can be a real stumbling block to real progress in the search of becoming the best person we can be. 

The other thing is that how you move from each of the roles in the drama triangle to the role that you ultimately want in order to maximize fulfillment and minimize the pain that you are creating and feeling is slightly different. 

The three roles in the drama triangle are – victim, villain or prosecutor and hero or rescuer. 

The role that you want to have and the one that will bring you the most long term satisfaction is that of what I call the owner. 

Let’s take a look at each role and then we’ll talk about how you can move out of the drama triangle and into the owner role. 

Victim – 

This is probably the most self-explanatory  role.  When you are the victim you feel powerless, helpless and stuck. 

For someone that is dealing with pornography use as the user, they might think, “I’m an addict” or “I’m powerless against my addiction” 

For someone who is working at a job they might think, “This is the best job I’ll ever get, I can’t leave it” 

For a spouse of someone who is overeating they might think, “I’m stuck with this person forever.”

At it’s most extreme These are people who believe that the world is happening to them.  Nothing goes right in their life and nothing good ever happens.  

You might describe them as an energy vampire.  Always sucking the energy out of life and unable to give anything back.  

The issue with being the victim, as you might have surmised, is that, in their mind at least, nothing is their fault, nothing is in their control and they can do nothing to make their life better. 

Villain/persecutor – 

This is the person who is self righteous and can even show up as a bit of a bully. 

In this role the person taking responsibility for the actions of others.  They do this from a judgmental and self-satisfied tone. 

In a marriage this person might believe, “my husband just needs to stop looking at pornography, it’s that simple”

At the office this might look like, “If accounting doesn’t like the way we are doing this, then they can come up here to sales and do it themselves.”

As a parent you might get something along the lines of, “I saved your butt once before on this, you never learn, I don’t know why I even try”

In that last one you can see how fluid these roles can be, in that you see someone might have been the hero before, but now they are really laying into the other person.  

Hero/rescuer – 

This is a person who takes responsibility for other people’s problems and make it their own, even though, in their own life they may not have their own life together.  

This is the person who will come in and spend a lot of energy in a short period trying to fix someone else’s issues, often at the expense of their own 

So this is a person who may believe something like, “if I help this person they will appreciate me”

When spouses fill this role it often looks something like being in charge of your partner’s internet browser.  It may be that you become their exercise or diet plan creator.   This could be a husband who is always stepping in to fix their wife’s spending issues. 

This may also be a parent who is always standing in for their child to keep them from facing consequences of their actions.  Like not getting good grades and asking the teacher for extra credit or arguing that a paper might deserve a higher grade. 

When this happens at work, you may come in and help out a colleague who is consistently underperforming or really, not even qualified to do their job in a way that enables them to continue that way. 

Unfortunately, for the rescuer, this often creates a pattern that can create resentment that puts them in the victim role when the person they try to rescue now becomes dependent on them.  The hero also may resent the people they rescue because they don’t feel as though they have been properly thanked or that the person they rescued doesn’t like them enough.  

often, people in this role feel empty in the end because they are seeking external indications that they are a good person who others love because of what has been done for them.  As we’ll see when we talk about the owner, this is a red herring chase for a sense of self confidence, self esteem or self love that can only come from within

Interestingly, to me at least, is that the relationship between the hero and the victim is essentially the plot of every romantic comedy.  Person “a” , usually a woman, has a problem they can’t solve.  Person “b”, usually a man, comes up with a solution.  Boom they fall in love, everyone lives happily ever after. 

This is also a significant source of friction when we think of young men and young women when they get married. 

Young women often think as the victim, “I’ll marry this perfect man who will solve all my problems and take care of me the rest of my life”

Young men often thing as the hero, “I’ll marry this amazing woman who I’ll take care of for the rest of my life”

Those are natural roles that we gravitate to but they are not exclusive and women also seek to be the hero and men the victim as often. 

Owner – 

The owner is the final role and, to me, the role that we all should be seeking to fulfill in our interactions with others and in our interactions with ourselves.  

In this role, the individual takes responsibility for what is in their control, recognizing what is not in their control or their responsibility and not arguing with what is.  

They might think, “when my son yells at me because I won’t turn on the internet, that is him dealing with his emotions. I don’t need to lose my cool or give in.”

Between spouses this might look like, “When my husband looks at pornography that doesn’t mean anything about me.”

As a business owner myself, this really hit home in that everything that goes on in my organization is my responsibility, but not always up to me to fix.  I once had a staffer who wasn’t able to do the work.  It was my responsibility to get it done, but I still held her accountable for the work and was candid in my conversation with her about it.  She eventually left the company because she knew she was unable to do the work.  She fixed the problem because I took on the responsibility for the health of the entire organization.  Had I just come in and rescued her and given her less duties for the same pay with no accountability I would have resented it, she would have eventually resented it because it wouldn’t have been right and the work would still have to be done by me.  

As an owner you are not looking outside for someone to satisfy your need to feel love, but creating a sense of self confidence and self esteem are your responsibility and within your power as you work to create the person you want to be. 

Let’s take a look at each of the roles int the drama triangle and talk about how we can get out of each. Because no matter which of the roles you occupy, they all eventually lead to feeling powerless and helpless.  Hero’s lose their ability to control or rescue Victims.  Villians feel as though nothing they do will ever be enough.  And victims, well, they start out as powerless and helpless.  

First, victim. 

To become an owner, you have to start by believing you have the ability solve any problem.  

This person will ask themselves, what do I want?  What steps can I take?  How can I take responsibility for the outcomes in my life?

It is important for people who often feel like they are victims to actively look for the things that went right.  Find things that they are grateful each day.  Start with one a day and increase it over time.  Also, look at what you are accomplishing each week.  Look back and figure out what you did do.  Feel free to congratulate yourself and feel proud of the work you’ve done. 

This will begin to reorient your mind to what you have control over, how you can impact the outcomes you are looking to create and create actions that you can take.

Next, let’s look at the persecutor role.

This is one of reorienting what you are taking responsibility over.  

For instance, when you are working with your spouse on their pornography problem, reorient from, “he’s bad, he’s not keeping his covenants, why won’t he do what I tell him to do with his internet browsing’ which are all things that are out of your control that you are trying to take control of and move to things that are in your control. 

This comes in the form of being firm but fair.  That might sound like, “If you choose to look at pornography, I will choose to not be intimate with you until I am ready”. 

I want to be clear, if you are choosing to withhold intimacy as a punishment or there is no long term plan for you to get to a place where you are working to return to intimacy, then you may be staying in the persecutor role. 

Being firm and fair is a requirement of ownership.  This allows you to own your feelings, set clear and achievable boundaries and recognizes that this is not your problem to solve. 

Last, let’s look at the hero role.  

When we want to leave this role, just like in the persecutor role, this is a moment to reorient yourself on the responsibility that you are taking for the situation.

When I think about my kids and how they might be failing their classes or not getting the grades they want, I have to place myself in a position to help them succeed by supporting, encouraging and listening as they work to identify solutions to their grades problem on their own.  

Encouraging them, coaching them, and stepping back as they seek to take responsibility for their own grades. 

Here you can ask a lot of questions like, What would you like to see happen?  And what do think you can do to change the outcomes here?

You also have to be willing to do nothing.  Remembering what your responsibilities are is key.  Is it your responsibility to do your child’s schoolwork so they get good grades or is it your responsibility to teach your child good executive function skills so they can survive in the real world without you.  

In the case of kids, I like to remember that it is much better if they fail 1000 times at home because it will be a softer landing.  

When it comes to other adults, this is an opportunity to stand back and recognize that you can’t make other people’s decisions for them.  At work, for instance, If you have a colleague who is consistently failing and that reflects on your work, be open and clear about that, create a paper chain that both encourages them and distances you from their performance.  That doesn’t mean let the work fall flat, because that still has to be done.  But being encouraging, while still being clear about who is responsible for the work will help that person move on or get better. 

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who we think we are, Who we are and who we want to be. 

This week one of my clients was talking about his life and the choices he had made

His story, the thing that he believed about his life was, “I didn’t have the courage to make a different choice”

He wasn’t talking about pornography, he was talking about his career choices. 

He comes from a family where what his parent’s want for him is extremely important. 

His values make it so that deferring to them is part of his culture and his identity. 

He also wants to be successful.  

It is part of the fabric of his community that he needs to be able to provide for his family, be a pillar in his community and to give back. 

He actually chose to be a doctor.  He is practicing medicine every day and questioning it, questioning his fellow doctors if this is what they really want to be doing and wondering if he can last. 

Now before you judge him and say, ‘well he’s a doctor, he has it great, why should he complain’ I want to take a moment to explore this thought that he has from the lens of these three ideas:

Who we think we are

Who we are

And who we want to be. 

Let’s start by going back to the story he is telling himself. 

“I didn’t have the courage to make a different choice.’

This is the story of who he thinks he is. 

What does that thought mean?

It means that he failed, that he wasn’t who he wanted to be, that he wasn’t even who he chose to be. 

It’s a story of a victim. 

A victim of circumstances

someone who was pushed in a direction he never wanted to go but found himself there because of forces beyond his control and at the behest of others with no capacity to decide for himself and only responsibility for what he didn’t choose. 

Often when we look back at our lives, the story we tell ourselves is one of regret and disappointment. 

Things we didn’t do, things we shouldn’t have done, or things we wish we had. 

We might believe this perspective is objective, valid and helpful in driving us to greater heights, better outcomes, and more effective decision making. 

But take a look at how you feel when this is the story you tell yourself.  

Disappointment

Most of us know what that feeling is like. 

Even if this isn’t the story you tell yourself, yours might be, “I wasn’t as go a missionary as I could have been.”

Or “I should have overcome this problem sooner.”

Whatever the story, ask yourself, is this version of my history helping me become the person that I want to be by creating the feelings that drive me to improve, focus and succeed. 

I can tell you how it worked for this client.  

His disappointment brought him to second guess himself, avoid his thoughts about his career and how he might change his life, tell himself that he stunk.  He also treated others differently, he would second guess his friends choice of career, would be abrupt with his patients and be unfriendly and unengaged.  

This creates a world for him where not only did he not have the courage in the past, but he also doesn’t have the courage to do what he wants now. Keeping him a victim of his circumstances and beholden to the past, his perception of his family’s wants and his perceived inability to become the person he wants to be. 

I can tell you I have seen myself in this exact place.  

At one point when I was in my career I felt trapped and incapable of moving forward.  I had to be someone I hated because so many people depended on me to provide for them and I was responsible for their happiness. 

Or so I thought.  

Then, I just decided that I could figure it out and stop working for a big company and be an entrepreneur.  

That little shift in who I thought I was brought me so much happiness.  

For my client, that little shift was just beyond his ability to see in himself. 

Let’s talk about who we are. 

So often, the people I work with are people who believe that who they are is a fixed reality of things that they have failed to accomplish or are yet to accomplish that will be forever out of reach. 

But what if you chose to believe the very best version of your story?

The one that a kind, but fair biographer would tell when they were writing at length the story of your life. 

Take my client for example. 

He is the son of immigrants, who started his own business at age 20.  He built it into a thriving enterprise that now requires little to no intervention on his part.  As the son of immigrants and the best English speaker in his family, he took on the role of chief translator, immigration attorney and the next great hope of his family legacy. 

He went to medical school, is a medical resident and a real estate developer in the spare moments he can take away to fuel his passion for business.  

He cares for his wife deeply, works to be the man who she can count on and is preparing his life so he can be the father that he wants to be for his future children. 

Is he doing something that isn’t his passion to provide for all of this? Yes. 

Is it harder than he wants it to be?  Yes. 

Here is where we often go wrong in our assessment of ourselves.   

We think that if we compound the discomfort that is required to be successful in our lives and in our families with harsh assessments of our past, we can avoid pain in the future through better decision making.  

That’s where we miss the mark.  

First, assessing our past harshly makes us feel bad about what happened. 

Feeling bad about what happened, often makes us feel bad about what is happening. 

Feeling bad about what is happening rarely creates the feelings required to improve the situation in order to feel how you want to feel. 

Take a look back at my client’s thought – “I didn’t have the courage to make a different choice.”

Which created disappointment, that drove all the second guessing, self critical, projecting and unfriendliness.  

In that moment he was feeling bad about his past and acted in a way that made him feel bad in the present. 

Then, on top of that, because he was avoiding his current reality because it was tainted by his past, he kept from progressing to the life he wanted.  He didn’t critically lay out a plan to move his life steadily in the direction he wanted it to go.  He never chose the courage that he would need to make hard choices about the life he wanted.

But, when presented with the alternate story I told you about him.  All of it true, by the way, 

He began to see himself differently.  

He began to see the greatness that was already there, within him, just waiting to be acknowledged and let out. 

He began to see who he was. 

Often times, this is the hardest step.  

Partly because we think that we have to atone for what we have done and for who we were. 

Fortunately, that part was already done for us by Christ. 

Taquitos and why can’t I pray away pornography – download it for free. 

If we can just remember that part, we can start to see who we are. 

Which brings me to the last piece of perspective I want to bring to this thought that my client had. 

His thought, “I didn’t have the courage to make a different choice.’ Keeps him from being the man he wants to be. 

Not because he can’t make new decisions, but because he thinks he doesn’t have courage. 

Just like some return missionaries think, they should have done better, so now they avoid doing missionary work. 

When we believe that we are less than, or incapable or that we didn’t try our best at the time we hold ourselves back from becoming the best version of our self. 

Belief in yourself is essential and key to success.  

It is just as essential and key as being willing and able to feel uncomfortable. 

I never could have become a coach if I didn’t believe in my self. 

I might have told the story on the podcast that my sister in law once said, you can’t be a life coach, you don’t have your life together enough. 

What she meant by that was, you have too many kids, your house is too messy, your kids are too loud, your life is too chaotic, and you have no reason to believe that you can succeed. 

So many of us are either being told by others, or being told by our self, that we aren’t good enough to succeed.  

Whether it is in business, in overcoming a habit, or just in learning a skill that we have always wanted to have, we hear these voices and we believe them. 

I want to submit to you, they are wrong.  

Ask anyone who tells you that to prove to you what your future looks like. 

Ask them to show you, without looking in the past, because the past is no predictor of the future, just ask any stock broker, what your future is. 

Because if they can do that, you better ask them for the next break out stock pick. 

The truth is, they can’t.  No more than they can tell you how the stock market will behave or who will win the world series, if we even have one this year or even what the weather will be tomorrow with absolute certainty. 

Who you want to be is a wide open field that you get to choose to run through in whatever way you see fit.  

So how do I get this belief in myself, how do I make my future what I want it to be, not what I feel trapped into becoming?  

Start with the story of your past. 

Become the hero. 

Tell about your origin in the light that Christ would tell it.  

Recognize your faults without making them the part of the story where you stop becoming the person you want to be. 

Who would spiderman be if he stayed disappointed in himself for the death of his uncle.  

Heroes are not perfect people.  They are people who learn from the mistakes they make, tell themselves and others the story of how they built and created and triumphed against the odds and see their future as one of possibility and completely within their control.  

 So, take a few minutes today and look at the story you are telling yourself about who you think you are and ask is this way of viewing my past helping me create the future I want to live.  

And if you are having trouble seeing how you could view your story differently, feel free to set up a free consult and we can look at it together.  

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17TH ANNIversary edition. 

Happy anniversary, 

This week, in honor of our anniversary, 17 things we’ve learned in our marriage. 

1. Number one marriage takes work

a.     

2. we can do hard things   

3. It takes commitment

4. stay calm

5.  follow your path

6.  assume the best

7. : support and encourage your partner. 

8. believe in yourself

9.  Everything is figure out able

10.   work on your own stuff

11.   do what you feel needs to be done 

12.  own your mistakes. say sorry 

13.   you are not responsible for the happiness of your partner 

14.   dream big, failure will happen, don’t let it hold you back or keep you down

15.   empathy and compassion are invariably better than judgment and purposeful misunderstanding 

16.  the shower is a great place to talk

17.  You never know when your greatest trials will become your greatest triumphs until you’ve made it all the way through 

18.   

Number 2: 8 kids is a lot of laundry

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This is the link to Brene Brown's YouTube video.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EXMsKZAeL0

-       Brene brown is talks about this in her SUPERSOUL SESSIONS: THE ANATOMY OF TRUST .

-       First, Brené references Charles Feltman work on trust and uses his definition. 

-       Which is, ‘trust is choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else’

-       In the case of pornography use, what is it that we spouses making vulnerable?

Darcy: 

-       For many women, this is right at the top of the list for what they would call a nightmare scenario. 

-       This is probably something that many of them worry about because of how they anticipate they will feel 

-       I think the moment you get married you have placed this all important and sacred eternal life in the hands of a partner

-       I think the thing that feels most vulnerable when you find out that your husband is using pornography is that you may have just lost everything 

-       That’s devastating. 

-       For members you are committing to eternal marriage

-       You feel vulnerable

-       Wonder if your marriage is in jeopardy

Darcy: What about the users, what are they making vulnerable?

Zach:

-       I think this is, for so many men, their greatest failing and for many of us a huge source of shame

-       Which, when we are either found out or confess, is a huge moment of vulnerability to the actions of the non-user

-       What will they do?

-       How will they react?

-       How much should I tell them?

-       Are all questions that run through our minds. 

-       

I think its also important to touch on what distrust is as well. 

‘Distrust is what I have shared with you that’s important to me is not safe with you.“  again from Charles Feltman

This is really important when we take a look at the two things that are vulnerable for the two parties. 

For the men – They have probably just participated in talking about the thing that they are most ashamed of

For the women – they have had the thing they hold most dear ripped up in front of them. 

The thing that the men hold dear is their ability to be a worthy, loving husband.  

The thing the women hold dear is their ability to have a worthy, loving husband. 

Darcy:

So, I think this is a moment where, wives react in a way that takes what the husband has done and puts her in a position of distrust as well.  

He has acted in a way that creates distrust by taking the spoken or unspoken agreement that he would not use pornography and not kept it safe.  

So, this moment is where she now has his most vulnerable and important sense of self in her hands. 

I’ll be honest – the thing I did and the thing so many of us want to do is to tell him we’re leaving or if you keep doing this we are getting divorced. 

Some women just cry

Some lash out 

I’m not here to judge any of that. 

But What we want to do is give you a few tools that will help you build trust and create the relationship you want 

Especially when what has happened feels like the opposite of trustworthiness.  

This comes out of the research that Brene Brown did into how trust works. 

The first tool is:

Boundaries:

-       Be clear about boundaries

-       Uphold them

-       Respect the boundaries of each other

Reliability:

-       Do what you say you are going to do

-       Over & over & over

-       That includes not promising things that you can’t deliver on

-       In a marriage, especially one that is dealing with pornography, that means:

o   Not promising things we can’t deliver on

o   Not threatening things we mean in a moment but then don’t really mean when it comes down to it

o   Honest in what we are feeling – 

o   Honest in how we will act – 

o   

Accountability:

-       If you: Own your mistakes

-       Apologize 

-       Make amends

-       If I: Allowed to own it

-       Apologize

-       Make amends

Vault:

-       What I share with you, you will hold in confidence

-       What you share with me, I will hold in confidence. 

-       Respect my story and the story of others

-       Who you choose to confide in is important and needs to be selected carefully. 

-       Not for social media

-       Not for everyone to hear. 

Integrity:

-       Choosing courage over comfort

o   Wife: step back into trusting

§  Maybe leaving if that is right 

o   Husband: get help

§  

-       What is right over what is fast or easy

o   Wife: 

§  

o   Husband:

§  

-       Practicing your values, not just professing them

o   For both

o   

o   Wife: owning your agency

o   Being clear about how you would like to move forward

o   Acting in line with the values you have been taught and believe

o   

§  

o   Husband: owning your agency

o   Being clear about how you would like to move forward

o   Acting in line with the values you have been taught and believe

§  

§  

Non-judgement:

-       Be in struggle and fall apart without judging one another. 

-       Its clear in our marriage that at various times we have both struggled with things

-       You might say, well, he was sinning and she was just depressed. 

-       Creating trust, especially in a marriage is not really about saying, its ok for me to struggle with this but if you struggle with that, that’s not ok. 

-       We would rather help

-       Being able to ask for help, is trusting – if you can’t ask your spouse for help, as brene brown put it, that is not a trusting relationship

-       If you think less of yourself when you need help you also think less of others, even unconsciously, for needing help.

-       That eliminates trust

-       Being able to ask for and receive help has to be reciprocal in non-judgement

-       

Generosity:

-       Assume the most generous thing about what the other person has done, said, or intentions

-       Assume that your spouse is not doing this in an effort to hurt you

-       Assume that your wife is threatening to leave because they are hurting

You say, I don’t trust you 

Be able to articulate what you need specifically with your partner

Self trust is also a huge component of how we interact with the world. 

When you have these difficult conversations, the first thing you may want to do is take a step back and reflect. 

Have I followed my own boundaries?

Have I been reliable?

Have I held myself accountable?

wasI protective of my story, Did I stay in integrity?

Was I judgmental of my self?

Did I give myself the benefit of the doubt?

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Pain that we feel often drives us to pursue pleasure. 

dianaswillinger.com

-       Do you really want to or is there a part of you that isn’t willing to let it go yet?

-       Choosing to do this on purpose.

-       Not waiting until you never look at porn to have the confidence to be a free person

-       Commitment vs wanting – if you want something that doesn’t mean you will be able to get it.

-       To want is to desire or wish for something – there is no action required – it is passive

-       Wanting is really easy – all you have to do is think “I want this”

-       There is no risk involved.  

-       It doesn’t require anything of us.

-       Saying “I want to stop looking at porn” isn’t going to get it done

-       It increases desire without any positive results – which can create a negative result in that you think you are doing something without results – 

-       

-       When we think we  are doing something without results we are creating failures

-       This is proof in our heads that we are failing. 

-       

-       When we want something but aren’t doing anything to get it we are creating a gap that our brain tells us is insurmountable. 

-       

-       When we are committed we promise to do something. 

-       Have you ever said to someone, “I’m going to get this done”.  Whether is was, going into a certain profession or building something that you had no experience doing?

-       As you go through that process, in your mind, you never waver.

-       

-       You know it is going to happen no matter what. 

-       

-       That is committed. 

-       

-       Action is required – until you get to the place you want to be.

-        

-       You aren’t waiting for it to happen before you believe in it. 

-       

-       Being committed is uncomfortable and challenging. 

-       

-       It also gets results

-       

-       You will have to do things differently and think about circumstances differently

-       You have to see the world differently than you do now to make that thing happen

-       A really simple example of this in my life has been becoming a podcaster. 

-       I had no idea how to podcast 6 months ago. 

-       It wasn’t even on my radar. 

-       Then I wanted to be a podcaster because I thought it would be a great way to get the message out that there is help and there is a way forward for people who struggle. 

-       But that didn’t make me a podcaster.

-       For months before I really committed to doing it I wanted it and I thought about it and I didn’t do it. 

-       Then I sat down and went through my “how to get stuff done” course again

-       In that process I committed to getting my first podcast done. 

-       As part of this you will get the basics of the how to get stuff done course so you can begin the process of becoming committed to overcoming pornography. 

-       So as I sat down and actually laid out what I was committing to in a very specific way 

-       I changed from just wanting, which was easy to being committed by really defining what it would take to accomplish the goal of publishing my first 3 podcasts.

-       

-       100% commitment is easier than 98% commitment

-       If you are wavering at all, if you think, “well, if I don’t get all the way there, that will be fine” – 

-       You have already lost. 

-       I know that sounds dire, and dramatic, 

-       Its true. 

-       People don’t go climb mt Everest to say, I got 98% of the way there. 

-       Being committed means that you are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish the goal. 

-       That often means sacrificing something else in the process. 

-       People who climb mount Everest lose fingers and limbs and even their lives in the pursuit. 

-       You don’t have to loose a limb to overcome pornography, but that is still the kind of commitment you want to bring to the table 

-       Because it is the only way to make it all the way to the goal of being pornography free. 

-       I will do this regardless

-       “jack canfield said: once you make a 100% commitment to something, there are no exceptions. It’s a done deal. Nonnegotiable. Case closed! Over and out. 

-       That doesn’t mean you will succeed tomorrow. 

-       What it means is that you will think about, write down, analyze, share, and execute everything that you can think of to get there. 

-       Then when you fall short, you do it again.  

-       And when you fall short again, you do it again. 

-       Over

-       And over, 

-       And over

-       Until you succeed.

-       That was my mindset when I overcame pornography

-       I knew I was unlearning something that I had taught myself over the course of years and so I knew it wasn’t coming undone in a day or two.

-       I also knew that the only way I was going to fail is if I stopped trying to succeed. 

-       So I got smart about it. 

-       I got curious about it. 

-       I got committed about it. 

-       That is what you have to do. 

-       So, take some time. Don’t just make a snap decision, 

-       Think about the costs 

-       Think about the benefits. 

-       Write them down.

-       Earnestly pray about whether you want to commit to this because it will not be easy

-       Then let everyone you can in on your commitment.

-       Be vocal about it. 

-       Be clear about it, to yourself and others. 

-       Then you will be ready. 

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1.     Write down the websites you will visit that day

a.     Writing down the websites gives your higher brain control over the situation. 

b.     Why not just write the sites you won’t visit – there are too many to count

c.     If that day you visit a site that leads to pornography use, evaluate that site for tomorrow. 

d.      

2.     Only visit those sites

a.     What if I have to visit a site that isn’t on my list for the day?

                                               i.     If it’s for work, then you do it. 

                                             ii.     If it isn’t for work, then you need to make a judgement call. You are the owner of this process and when you are free of pornography then you will be making these calls all the time.  

                                            iii.     You may decide that if there is a site you need to visit, that you will have your spouse do it with you

                                            iv.     Or you may decide that it can wait until tomorrow. 

b.     

3.     Allow urges

a.     What is an urge?

b.     

4.     Repeat 

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-       What about, giving him sex so he doesn’t act out?

o    Control v partnership

o   

-       Seeing other women and being worried it will lead to pornography?

o   The beach

o   The fro yo place 

o   

-       Controlling devices and checking up

o   Accountability partner – webinar question

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#pornographyrecovery

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