Thrive Beyond Pornography

1. Willingness to think differently about the problem
2. 
   

Episode 89 - Emotional Debtor and Episode 100 - Pornography is not THE problem 

1. An understanding of what is happening and why
2. Can’t run away, can’t push it out of your mind
3. You have to face it
4. Ask questions
5. Be willing to confront what it is objectively and curiously

Listen to - Episode 82 - Easter, the Atonement, and Agency  57 - Learn Something and Move Forward

1. A specific set of skills
2. Let me ask you who you would rather learn from, a Harvard professor with 30 years of experience learning about business who has never made payroll, never hired or fired anyone, and never had to actually make a profit. 
3. Or a person who has for 30 years, honed his craft, made profit, learned from his mistakes, and made himself millions of dollars, employed thousands of people, and profited himself, his company, and his stakeholders. 
4. Inside my membership and in individual coaching you’ll find the skills that I teach are different than anything anyone else has ever offered you. 

Listen to episode 141 - 3 Secrets to Managing Emotions and Episode 131 - Choice Point to Overcome Pornography. 

How much power do you give the random strangers in Las Vegas. 

On Friday we had tickets to see Jim Gaffigan in Las Vegas. 

I was looking forward to it.  Darcy was, too. 

Unfortunately, Jim got Covid and the show was canceled at the last minute.  

We didn’t find out until after we were down there and had dinner. 

So, we decided to catch another show.  

While I went to the bathroom Darcy and our friends picked Penn and Teller.  It was ok.  Kind of cool to see people that are famous.  

We went to dinner, we went shopping at Trader Joe’s because we don’t have one here in St George.  So, if you are listening and have any clout with the TJ’s people, please let us have one here. 

Then we went over to the Rio where the Penn and Teller show is.  We were about an hour early, so we decided to just hang out in the parking lot since none of us gamble and the inside of a casino is still a place where you can smoke in Las Vegas.  

Boy did we get a show before the show. 

To our surprise, we found that the Rio parking lot was the shuttle area for those going to an outdoor music event that features electronic dance music called Electric Daisy Carnival.  

From what I could tell this is a music festival where the women dress in their absolutely most revealing clothes and the men dress up in the same thing they would wear to go play basketball.  

This was an amazing opportunity for us to practice what we preach here on the podcast and that we help people work on and through in our membership and individual coaching. 

We would like to share our experience with you and a few tips on how you can thrive as individuals and couples when life offers you an experience like the one that we had on Friday. 

1. Just because someone is showing their body, that doesn’t mean my partner is sexualizing it.  
2. It was good to see the body objectively
3. They were just moving across the stage
4. It was a physical representation of letting something come into your mind and allowing it to move off on its own.  
5. They came and then they went one after another.
6. Really, objectively noticing but not sexualizing. 
7. In the past,    would have been a lot more on high alert
8. I wasn’t a zero on the calm level, but I wasn’t panicking. 
9. It was so absurd that we could talk and joke about it rather than making it more than just what we were seeing. 
10. 
    
11. Just because there is a nearly naked body, that doesn’t mean that it’s a problem. - 
12. In the past I would have to pretend that I’m not seeing this. 
13. I wouldn’t have been able to mention anything that I was seeing and I would not have been able relax at all. 
14. It was a dishonest position inherently.
15. Indicating that I was seeing it would have created greater tension
16. But there would have been a lot of tension there already. 
17. It would have been this fake moment. 
18. Then I would have waited for the inevitable questions from Darcy
19. “What were you looking at” “were you fantasizing about it” 
20. Were you wishing I wasn’t there so you could just gawk? 
21. Is that going to lead to something? 
22. 
    
23. 
    
24. I don’t have to give my power and emotional energy to the random strangers 
25. I wouldn’t have been able to be present, or enjoy myself, 
26. There wouldn't have been laughing or joking
27. This would have felt like a threat, almost like a life and death situation
28. The way i don’t give away my power is by realizing, 
29. I don’t have control over this and neither does my partner. 
30. Also, realizing that this is legal,
31. Other people find this ok, and I don’t have to be mad about that. 
32. “Ok, alright, these people are dressed for the moment” and that’s ok 
33. I wouldn’t have worn that. 
34. It was asking, how much power do I want to give these strangers that are just walking across the stage of my life. 
35. Not being a victim of the reality of the presence of others. 
36. We wear able to joke 
37. Instead of turning it into a big deal
38. We pulled up before those people were there
39. In years past we might have moved 
40. 
    
41. I’m not going to allow myself to be in trouble for something that was out of my control - 
42. In the past,   would have given my power to Darcy and the crowd and taken a one down, run away position.  
43. Instead, I made comments and acknowledged what I was seeing because I was living my experience
44. In past years, I would have put myself in a position where I would let Darcy guide the choices, and conversation while trying to manage my eyeballs. 
45. Instead, I chose to manage myself, not letting what was going on for Darcy to become paramount to my own experience. 
46. 
    
47. This is about maintaining equal status with my partner and not taking a one-down position
48. 
    
49. Watch your own plate.  -  
50. This is a dieting term, but I think it fits here. 
51. This is intended for you to be clear about what emotions you are dealing with and not engaging in guessing or worrying about what issues, thoughts, or feelings your partner is dealing with. 
52. A lot of the difficulty we see among couples is when one partner tries to anticipate and then manage the issues the other has.  
53. Instead, be aware of what is happening for you. 
54. Be willing to inspect the feelings you are having
55. 
    
56. Have the hard conversation
57. If you need to, feel free to ask. 
58. Be willing to talk about your part. 
59. You’ll need to be clear about what is going on in your mind and body. 
60. 
    
61. Acknowledge your issues as yours, don’t make them about your partner -
62. A lot of us want to say, “if only my partner would do x, then it would be better” 
63. We had a client who text us recently and said that she had been just asking her partner to be honest with her.  
64. After working through our group coaching, she said that he was now being honest, but that it was hard for her to accept what she was being told. 
65. She believed that if her husband would just be honest, she would be able to be ok. 
66. What she found was that when he was honest, doing the hard work of revealing himself to her, she was presented with some really difficult work herself. 
67. 
    

Our 4-year-old is an adorable little girl holding her own in a household of 8 kids and two adults.  

She is also a tiny human who I find fascinating to watch because she is an open book of emotions.  When she is sad she lets us know.  When she is happy, she wants to share that. When she is excited it shows on her face and in her voice.  

The other day, Darcy was with her and she became upset that she wasn’t going to be able to get to play with her friends, having thought that was an option.  

As she started to cry, Darcy just noticed out loud for her, “you must be frustrated, how does that feel? Do you want to take some breaths and come play with us when you are ready?” then went back to what she was doing.  

In the way that only a 4-year-old who is both super cute and highly articulate can, she cried for a moment or two longer, took her breaths, and came back to the fun while explaining how she had taken her breaths and was ready to play again. 

Without realizing it, Darcy and our four-year-old did exactly the only thing that we can really do when it comes to dealing with our emotions. 

In Acceptance and Commitment Coaching we call this dropping anchor.  

It is one of the most effective ways that we can deal with our unwanted or unpleasant emotions, thoughts, feelings or sensations and, quite accidentally, one of the key skills we have taught our little girl.  

Dropping anchor is a simple process and it is a component of the three secrets to managing emotions around any subject.  

One of the biggest reasons people choose pornography is because it is a way to take control of their emotions, thoughts, feelings, and sensations. 

Let me tell you what I mean by that.  If you are lonely, for example, because you’re on a business trip and your mind is offering you thoughts like, “you might as well just look at porn because you know it’s inevitable.” One of the ways that many people try to manage that, or get it to go away is either to fight with it until their willpower runs out or give into it.  

I’ve talked about willpower in episodes 38 and 134 which I will link to in the show notes.

Suffice it to say that willpower won’t get you all the way there and giving in will make it so that you create a self-fulfilling prophecy that will repeat itself forever until you learn the skills you need to stop.  We do a deep dive into this in the membership and in individual coaching, which you can sign up for at zachspafford.com. 

But what I want you to focus on here are the three secrets to managing your emotions.  So, imagine you are there in that hotel room or wherever, you can use a situation where you have given into pornography.  

In that moment with our 4-year-old, you can see the three secrets that you need to manage your emotions any time, anywhere. 

1. Become familiar with your emotions
2. Learn how to diffuse from those feelings
3. Practice your newfound skills daily

I’ll teach you what each of these are and what they mean here, and if you want to learn more, I have a free Masterclass that you can come to tomorrow night at 830 Mountain time.  All you have to do is go to zachspafford.com/freecall

1. Become familiar with your emotions - create a vocabulary and seek to notice and describe your experience. 

Start by learning about different emotions that exist. Brene Brown in her book, Atlas of the heart described a research project where she asked people to describe their emotions.  Most people only had 3 emotions. This lack of understanding is keeping us from being able to recognize what is going on for us, as well as, being prepared to deal with it

I would say that I am highly capable when it comes to fixing problems. 

But it is nearly impossible to make a plan on how to solve a problem if you don’t know what the problem is. 

If you only know three emotions, and I joke with people that men are only allowed to have 3 emotions, hungry, horny, and angry, you aren’t going to be able to accurately describe what is going on for you.  

This is like trying to deal with every home repair with only three tools.  That may have worked for you for a while, but as things get more complicated, a hammer, screwdriver, and pliers might not be sufficient.  

In fact, we have a rental unit where the sink was leaking and I took a pair of channel lock pliers and a screwdriver to fix the issue and ended up needing a special tool that I’d never used before and plumbers putty.  The screwdriver and channel lock pliers were useless. 

If becoming familiar with the emotions that you have seems like a hokey or soft thing to do, then you might want to rethink your position.  Because those emotions are pushing you around and keeping you turning back to pornography precisely because you aren’t capable of naming and dealing with them. 

If you want a feelings wheel, I would be happy to send you one. Just email me at [email protected] or you can just look it up online. 

1. Learn how to diffuse from those feelings.

Diffusion is a term we use in Acceptance and Commitment Coaching that means to unhook from an unwanted thought, feeling, sensation, or urge.  

When our thoughts push us around or drive us to behaviors that don’t meet our moral standards or values we are hooked by that thought in a similar way as a fish is hooked.  That thought, feeling, sensation, or urge can drag us wherever it wants without much hope on our part. 

The reason that idea can take us where it wants us to go, like the example of feeling lonely while on a business trip, is that we don’t know how to diffuse or unhook from that thought and make it something that isn’t part of us but that we observe objectively instead. 

There are countless ways to unhook or diffuse, from dropping anchor to NAB which I taught in a previous episode and that we learn in-depth in the membership.

Each diffusion technique is slightly different and each has it’s strengths, but learning a couple will be instrumental in giving yourself space in which to work so you can stop letting your mind push you around and you can choose your values. 

In the case of our 4-year-old, the way she diffused, with the help of Darcy was ACE, which is to Acknowledge the feeling, Connect with your body (that’s what taking deep breaths helps us do), and Engage, in this case the engagement was back into play. But in your case it might be to engage more fully in your work or the sporting event you are watching or just in the conversation you’re having with someone. I know that when I would travel for work, I would long for home, but when it came time for the actual phone call to connect with those I was missing, I would often be distracted and disengaged. 

1. Practice your newfound skills

Last, you’ll want to practice.  

The likelihood that you are going to be good at any diffusion or unhooking technique right away is pretty slim.  Just like you won’t be able to play golf like a pro the first time you pick up clubs, you’ll need to spend time using these skills regularly. 

In this interview with Latter-day Life Coaches, Zach discusses changing the Narrative around pornography and pornography addiction to help us create a shameless conversation geared toward overcoming pornography and utilizing the agency inherent in all of us.

If you would like to learn more, check out zachspafford.com/blog

Join Zach and Darcy as they discuss an email they received about pornography use.

Listen to more episodes at zachspafford.com/blog

Overcoming pornography isn’t just pushing a new thought into your mind to supersede the thoughts that have naturally occurred.  

I think we’ve all heard the analogy of the stage of your mind and how we can become totally free from the plague of our unwanted thoughts by just changing what’s on the stage.  

While I think this is a worthy attempt to advise and assist those struggling with pornography or any other issue, it falls short in actual practice.  

There was an experiment called the pink elephant or white bear experiment that gave us a pretty good indication of what trying to push thoughts out of your head or trying not to think a certain thought does.  

If you’re not familiar with the pink elephant experiment, let me tell you about it, from the perspective of bacon.  

I love bacon.  You have probably heard me talk about bacon on the podcast before, but if you haven’t it is one of my top favorite foods. 

The smell of it is inviting, the flavor is the most amazing combination of salty and umami, the crunch of it in a BLT sandwich is the most perfect feeling in the world.  

Now that you are hopefully fully in the grips of a desire to eat bacon, let’s try the experiment.  

Starting now and For the next 60 seconds, you are not allowed to think about bacon.  Each time you think about bacon then you have to pay me a dollar.  (Feel free to venmo me at theselfmasterycoach)  

Part of the reason you’ll need to pay me a dollar is to raise the stakes of the experiment.  The higher the stakes in this bacon experiment, the more difficult it will be for you to force your thoughts to stay away from the crispy, chewy, warm, savory bacon that you’ve conjured up in your mind.    

As you try not to think about the bacon I’ve asked you not to think about, you might find your mind wandering back to that unwanted thought. You might find that the smell of bacon in the morning greeting you from bed just pops into your mind.  You might realize that you’re thinking about your favorite kind of bacon, thick or thin, Maplewood or smoked.   Just make a tally mark each time you do think of the delicious, amazing bacon that you’ve eaten in the past, or count on your fingers each instance of all the future bacon you’ll eat as it pops into your mind.  

Any time you think about the bacon in your food and on your plate, you might also notice how much money you lose to me.  Notice how, when you lose money, you don’t like it.  So, you try harder not to think about the mouthwatering, flavorful treat that you’re not supposed to think about.  

Ok, experiment end. 

How did you do?  If you are like most people you probably found that bacon came to mind a lot more than you might have wanted it to.  

Now, you don’t really have to Venmo me, but you also might have noticed that if you took up the challenge for real and really intended to send money if you thought of the bacon, how much more difficult it became because of the loss factor. 

This is essentially the pink elephant or white bear experiment. 

In a series of experiments, researchers found that participants were more preoccupied with thinking about a white bear, despite being asked to not think of one. 

The conclusion was that trying to suppress thoughts “has paradoxical effects as a self-control strategy,” which can lead to obsession or preoccupation despite desiring and working toward the opposite. 

In other words, when we try not to think of something and actively work to distract ourselves from that thing, we are more likely to become obsessed with it and it is more likely to become the focus of our minds. 

What does this have to do with pornography?

You probably already have some sense, but I’m going to share an experience I had recently with a client that shows how we tend to show up around pornography and how we can think about this issue in a new and more effective way. 

After a session, my client texted me his plan for the coming week.  This is what he said:

“What I’m going to work on:

Notice thoughts when they come along and practicing (sic) speaking to the thoughts saying: “it’s ok that you’re here.” That’ll help me remember that they’re a part of me. Ask myself “does this thought serve me?” If it does: “how?” If it doesn’t: replace it with a more validating thought. 

I’m bad at that last part… what would you do to replace thoughts that don’t serve you? Do you replace them by complimenting yourself? By doing something kind for yourself? Any feedback is great”

 If you listened to that and thought, “ok, that makes sense, that’s a good plan.” Before I overcame pornography myself, I would have thought was a good plan too!

Then I’ve got news for you.  It's a terrible plan.  And I’m to blame!

Obviously, I didn’t do a very good job explaining his new experiment.  So, I’m going to share with you what I shared with him and point out two issues he has with the way he is trying to deal with his thoughts.

The two issues in this plan are: 

1. Your thoughts are not part of you
2. Trying to replace them with better thoughts is a losing battle along the lines of the pink elephant experiment 

Rather than thinking that our thoughts are part of us, it is often more helpful to believe that the thoughts our brain offers us are like the sounds coming from a radio.  That radio is a constant in our lives and is constantly broadcasting.  The part of our brain that does this is doing its best to let you know all the bad things going on in your life.  You could call it radio Karen.  Radio Karen is reminding you of all the bad things you did in the past, she’s telling you of all the bad things that might happen in the future, and she is definitely there, letting you know about all the things that are wrong with you.  

Radio Karen (sorry all the Karens out there listening) sometimes offers you valuable ideas or thoughts, but not usually.  

So, instead of believing that the thoughts are part of you, think of them as if Radio Karen were just there in your mind, always doing her job, but not who you are. 

In doing this, you can step away from radio Karen and become an observer of her broadcasts instead of a participant.  When you are an observer, you are more likely to be able to objectively determine whether what she is sharing is valuable or not valuable. 

That part of my client’s plan was good, asking questions that help objectively determine the value of the belief that Radio Karen is broadcasting is totally valuable.  

The issue he will have is the second part, trying to replace thoughts with new, better thoughts is a lot like turning on a new radio and turning up the volume to try and drown out Radio Karen.  

A lot like trying to not think of bacon, radio Karen will burst in there and break through and turn up her own volume to get heard.  

That is the battle that is created by trying to shove one belief off the stage to put something else on there.  Each side pushing the other just to get a few moments of your time. 

The simplest reason why pushing a thought out of your head and replacing it with a new one won’t work is the same reason that turning to pornography ultimately doesn’t help us feel good over the long run.  

People aren’t capable of controlling how we feel for long periods of time.  

We can do it in short bursts.  That’s willpower and it ties into the fight or flight system that we all have to take control in acute moments for finite periods of time.  

So, if that isn’t going to work, what is?

My client, the one who said, he was accepting his thoughts as part of him and then trying to replace those thoughts and anyone who is struggling to deal with unwanted urges, thoughts, and feelings needs to face them. Head on. Without thinking that he can manipulate or coerce his Karen out of existence.  

So, how do we do this? 

First, we take a step back and become the watcher or the observer of our brain.  No longer is everything that our brain offers us part of us or from us or about us.  It is simply something that is playing on radio Karen.  It is there, in the background, the same way a radio playing in a department store is part of the background.  

When it offers us an alert, like an Amber alert or a storm warning, we listen to it, we decide if it’s relevant, and then we go back to what we were doing if it isn’t and if it is, we do something about it. 

If we can stop believing that our brain is offering us only relevant information and remember that it is offering us mostly negative, not always useful information, then we can step back from it.  We can observe it objectively, knowing that most of what it offers isn’t relevant or useful.  

In doing so, we can engage curiosity to hear and judge what it is that our brain is offering.  

I get these Amber alerts from northern Utah. I look at them, I see there is something that is too far away for me to do anything about and then I stop looking at it and move on with my day. 

Radio Karen is like a constant barrage of Amber alerts or Storm Warnings.  Most of them don’t have anything to do with me or where I am, or what is going on in my neighborhood. So I see them and observe whether they are worth my time, then, most of the time, I go back to what I was doing.  Every once in a while, I see it and I say, this is something I need to deal with.  

But not nearly as often as our Radio Karen would like me to. 

The key here is to engage with this in the same objective way you would engage with those Alerts you get on your phone or hear on the radio. 

So, when my brain says, “I’m a victim because she shouldn’t have done that” we can take that alert and just curiously observe it.  Being curious, is this true, does believing it help me in any way, does this create the value in my life that it seems to present itself as, and so on. 

Often times the answer I give to these questions is no, but sometimes I get stuck.  So, instead of no, I say, “Maybe”.  

Maybe let’s me not have to dig into it.  It frees me from having to find the “right” answer.  It let’s the thing be without me having to refute it or embrace it.  

Using “Maybe”, or chosen ambivalence is a wonderful tool in this conversation with Radio Karen.  

In doing so, you don’t have to argue, you don’t have to battle, you don’t have to reject.  You simply render the issue a non-issue by saying maybe from calm clarity.  

I’d like to take you back to general conference a few weeks back. I loved listening to President Nelson as he spoke about how to keep spiritual momentum. 

If you don’t recall the talk, he offered 5 ways to Maintain positive spiritual momentum. 

The five were

1. Get on the covenant path and stay there.
2. Discover the joy of daily repentance.
3. Learn about God and how He works.
4. Seek and expect miracles.
5. End conflict in your personal life.

I’d like to talk about number 3 tonight and discuss an issue that I find keeps my clients from being able to successfully employ prayer in their quest to overcome pornography.  

I’ve made a study of prayer over the course of my life and find, sometimes, our prayers are ineffectual because we approach the act of prayer and the requests in our prayer in ways that do not conform to the purpose of prayer.  

As I struggled with pornography I often found myself praying earnestly to Heavenly Father.  When I drove was the time I often felt most able to pray out loud and listen for the answers. 

As I drove I would pour out my heart and plead for things that I was certain Heavenly Father would want to give me.  

It was a time of deep frustration because, no matter how hard I prayed, I never received the answers or blessings that I felt like I was asking for.  

It took many years of work to get to the point where I am now.  And I see prayer very differently than I did when I was a 19 year old working to get on my mission.  

In thinking back to that time, I want to share 3 ways that you can change your prayers to become more effective at engaging with our Heavenly Father in ways that, I believe He will be more able to answer you, bless you, and help you become the person you are trying to be.  

The three ways to improve your prayers to overcome pornography are:

1. Seek Understanding
2. Maintain Agency 
3. Be Willing to Try

Whether you are talking about a pornography addiction or just in general, these lessons will hopefully give you meaningful ways that you can utilize prayer more effectively to overcome pornography.  

1. Seek understanding

The first thing that I think we need to do differently is to seek understanding from our Heavenly Father.  

That might seem obvious.  But I promise, it wasn’t obvious to me and when you hear what I mean, it might not have been the obvious answer to you either. 

One of the things that I often did in my prayers was to ask my Father in Heaven to give me the strength or make my burden light, both phrases that we hear in the scriptures as important figures seek the blessings they want and need. 

In asking for these things, it felt like there should have been some inexplicable moment and then poof, my issues were gone.  

What has changed for me is that I believe that growth is our most important activity here and growth is hard to come by when poof your issues are resolved by heavenly intervention. 

While I’m not discounting the times that divine shifts are made on our behalf, I also don’t believe that the Lord is going to move mountains that we are meant to climb. 

In that spirit, I believe most of our prayers must center around learning, growing, and understanding. I also believe that words matter, what we ask for is what we ask for and we won’t be offered something else.  The Bible dictionary touches this point by saying, prayer is part of the process of getting the blessings that our HF is willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them.  

So, asking for God to lighten our burden when that burden is the one that will grant us the empathy we need to become something more, He’s not going to say, “Well, you asked for your burden to be lightened, so I’ll give you something else instead.”  I think the Lord wants us to ask for what we need, but knowing what that is requires us to be willing to dig a little deeper than just, Lighten this burden or give me strength.  

Understanding what the Lord is willing to grant us is part of that bible dictionary section on prayer as well.  In there, it talks about prayer being part of bringing the will of the child into alignment with the will of the Father.  

I also don’t thing HF is going to give us a things that we don’t want.  Meaning, His blessings aren’t things that he give people unwilling to have them, like pearls before swine.  

In asking for the things we need, He won’t give us stuff that we won’t accept.  So, understanding Him, His will, and what He is willing to grant is crucial to actually getting what we want, what we need, and what we are willing to receive.  

Late one night as a was driving home from a single adult activity in the Buffalo Grove stake center in Illinois, I prayed for the strength to overcome pornography. I begged God to strengthen me the way he had Nephi.  

If I could sit in the passenger seat of that car and talk to the young man I was then, I would tell him to ask for understanding.  

I would say, “ask Heavenly Father to show you why you choose pornography even when it isn’t helping you accomplish your goal of serving a mission.” I would tell me to, “Ask for help recognizing patterns that lead me to pornography.”  I would urge me to, “Ask to be guided in understanding how I can use this knowledge to choose to leave pornography behind.”

Understanding the way the Lord works means asking questions that are bound to enlighten you in ways that increase your ability to do it for your self in most cases.  

Letting the Lord make up the difference when needed.  

1. Maintain your agency

Speaking of doing it yourself, Maintaining your agency throughout your prayerful requests, I believe, is essential. 

When I was asking Heavenly Father to take away from me the burden of what I thought at the time was a pornography addiction, I was often asking him to take away my agency. 

I would ask him to take away the desire for pornography and make it so I never wanted it.  

To have agency, you must have 3 things, we dive deep into this in the membership, but for right now, agency is, the capacity to choose, the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, and having consequences.  Without each of those we don’t have agency.  

Well, if Heavenly Father had taken away my desire, making it so I never wanted pornography he would be violating at least two of those 3 values.  In taking away my desire, He would be removing from me consequences of seeing pornography.  In making it so I never wanted it, he would be taking from me the ability to choose for myself what I want.  

I believe that part of our purpose is to learn to bridle our passions and learn from the consequences when we don’t.  

In our conversations with God, asking him to violate our agency so we can be good disciples runs contrary to the way He works. So, of course he isn’t going to do it.  

As we pray and seek the help of our Father, we must also maintain our agency.  Agency is foundational to you actually being able to leave pornography behind for ever that without it, we would be participating in the plan of the adversary.  

I found out that the Lord wanted me to be able to choose so I could own the decision and make it my own, not simply be obedient, but to choose obedience.  Without that, resentment would grow instead of confidence.  

1. Be willing to try

The last thing that I think is an essential part of understanding the way that the Lord works, as president Nelson urged us, is being willing to try. 

I’m a natural experimenter.  I have always loved trying new ways of doing things and seeing if I can’t find a way to do it better. 

When we work with the Lord, I believe the things he urges us to do is to try new ways of thinking, being, and doing.  

More often than not, when the Lord offers us a prompting, I see it as an invitation to work in a way that isn’t natural to us, but that brings us to the way He works. 

As I sought relief from my struggle with pornography, trying new things was essential.  

Here and there I would find inspiration, insight into how I could do things differently.  Many times that nudge lead me to do things that didn’t fit with more traditional aspects of the way things were supposed to be done. 

For instance, the idea that embracing agency and acknowledging that “I can view pornography” still seems pretty foriegn to many within the Church. I talk about that in my very first episode, which I encourage you to go back to.  

Owning my agency was an experiment that I think we all need to try.  In my coaching I’ve guided thousands of men and women throught the process of doing just that to spectacular results for each of them. 

Trying is key to growth.  Growth is why we are here.  That is how the Lord works and is his way.   Learning about Him and working in the bounds of His process is a beautiful and enlightening experience. 

I hope these three Keys: 

1. Seek Understanding
2. Maintain Agency 
3. Be Willing to Try

Will give you a leg up on your journey to overcome pornography. They were instrumental for me.  

I was working with a client this week and he said something that really struck me.  

He said, the work that we had been doing made him think that he was less depressed, more hopeful, no longer part of the addict class.

This got me thinking. 

When I was attending 12 step meetings and saying, “Hi, my name is Zach and I’m a porn addict” the message of being an addict was clear.  Once a porn addict, always a porn addict. 

I don’t know why this ideology grew up in the 12 step system.  No matter why it’s there, being a forever addict seems to be the way that we are encouraged to think about our struggles when it comes to pornography. 

It baffles me a little because it would seem to be contrary to everything that the 12 step program would be working toward.  

This seemingly contradictory message of being a forever addict while simultaneously participating in a group that has, as its core mission, eliminating an addictive behavior from your life is, I believe one of the reasons 12 step groups fail to succeed and most people fail to actually eliminate their problems within those groups.  

Dr. Lance Dodes, author of The Sober Truth, details the evidence in his book, that about 5% of people who participate in 12 step groups are successful at actually eliminating their pornography addiction.  That is, by the way, the same percentage that occurs when you just do the work on your own and just decide to quit.  People who do it without any program, succeed about 5% of the time.  So, in terms of evidence based analysis of successful systems of intervention, 12 step programs are about as likely to help you overcome pornography for good as if you went to no one and did it on your own.  

By contrast, Acceptance and Commitment coaching has a 95% success rate at 30 days and 80% at 6 months. 

But back to the idea that Once a porn addict, always a porn addict has always been something that I bristled at, even when I was deep in the 12 step ethos.  

Why?  

I think there are 3 reasons why being a forever addict is not only a bad idea, but it is actually holding you back and keeping you from succeeding at overcoming pornography. 

1. Being an addict reduces your responsibility over your actions.

When we use addiction language we are often putting off responsibility for our actions to something outside of us. 

For instance, the phrase “I slipped this week and looked at porn.” Which is a phrase I’ve said and heard countless times.  It sets the locus of control for the actions outside of the person. 

It is even self contradictory.  The first part, I slipped, conjures up a sense that some unseen force like gravity pulled me in a direction that I did not choose.  The same as when we say, I slipped on some Ice or I slipped down the mountain.  

Gravity, regardless of your choices is taking you in a direction that you are not choosing to go.  

But then we say, I looked at porn, which looking is an action we take.  

I often ask people, when you view pornography how does it happen?  They tell me things like how they go on their computer or phone, they start with some website or another and after a few minutes they are engaged in viewing pornography. 

I have never once, had anyone tell me that someone showed up to their house and chained them to a chair, and made them watch pornography.  

We talk like we are out of control, but the reality is that we are making the choices even though we regret them later.  

That isn’t to say that there isn’t compulsion or urging in that direction, because, for most people there is.  But compulsion isn’t the same as being out of control and unable to choose.  It is that there are real, strong, and compelling reasons to view pornography or overeat or whatever you do to avoid your feelings.  

I slipped means that you couldn’t choose.  If you’ve ever walked down the sidewalk and slipped on ice, you know that in that moment, gravity is in control and has taken away your ability to stay upright.  

It seems like a relief to believe this about pornography.  It seems like a valuable way to couch the issue because in some sense it alleviates your culpability and distances you from the actions that you take.  Which is normal human behavior and can be valuable in certain circumstances.  But when it comes to the idea of pornography addiction and placing the control for what is going on with something other than ourselves, that is a losing strategy.  

Why is it a losing strategy?  Because unless can assert our preference around this behavior we will remain incapable of overcoming pornography.  

Addiction language is similar to the language of victimhood.  Being a victim when it comes to our own behavior is a really rough place to be. 

If you’ve ever tried to potty train a toddler you might have seen this.  As they start to get good at going potty on the toilet their confidence rises and they become a new person.  But if they poop themselves or pee themselves, sometimes they look to blame it on others or forces outside themselves and there is no real teaching them anything at that point.  When it isn’t their fault or on them that they are pooping themselves, then it becomes impossible to help them solve for how to go to the bathroom on the toilet.  Because they don’t believe they are in control, they can’t see how to take responsibility for their actions.  

It’s miserable to be around and it's miserable to try and get them to fix it.  

A lot of spouses and support people feel like this.  Because, when it isn’t someone's responsibility and they are, in essence, a victim, it’s really hard to try and help them because they can’t be introspective enough to see what’s actually going on.  

Teens are a lot like this, they often blame the consequences of their choices on others.  We have a son who, thankfully he’s grown out of this for the most part now, but we would say to him, you aren’t allowed to go hang out this weekend because you haven’t done your chores or your schoolwork.  His would argue, no, you’re just not letting me go, so you’re the reason that I can’t go.  

He was really keen to make it our fault that he wasn’t allowed to go out.

That is the same way we act and believe when we talk about being a pornography addict.  “I can’t stop looking at porn because I’m an addict.” is the same as “I can’t go out because you won’t let me.”

The underlying lack of responsibility impacts our capacity to deal with the issues in a direct fashion. 

As a result, we make little to no progress and stagnate into a pool of misery. 

Speaking of misery, the next thing that being a forever pornography addict creates is a need for never-ending vigilance.  

1. Being a forever addict means that you will need constant vigilance

Most people don’t have the attention span for constant vigilance.  I suspect that those who succeed with the 12 step programs and those who do it on their own are people who are capable of constant vigilance or the ability to fight a long term war with their behavior. 

I on the other hand, am not the kind of person who has a constant vigilance type of personality.  I’m distractable, curious about new things, and interested in change.  I can’t stay the same and, I suspect, neither can you.  

That need for constant vigilance is pretty demoralizing.  I’ve seen speakers talk about how they still go to meetings 15 years later and that is what is keeping them sober.  

I went to meetings for years without improvement and to think that I would need to dedicate an hour of my life each week for the rest of my life to going to a meeting, which means that it’s more like two hours with the commute and maybe 2 and a half with chatting and mingling afterward is too much for me. 

I can’t even play a full 18 holes of golf without thinking, are we still doing this? 

Being constantly vigilant is a willpower-based solution.  If you were a soldier on the wall of life and you had to constantly lookout for danger in an active and consistent way, you’d probably tire of it pretty quick. 

Then when the problem comes back, what do we do, we beat ourselves up and say, “I should have…” Paid more attention, worked harder, stuck to my routine, and on and on punching ourselves in the face because we aren’t strong enough to do it forever. 

What a miserable message.  

1. It negates personal capacity for growth and change

Lastly, the idea that if we are a pornography addict, we will always be a pornography addict, runs counter to my personal belief and, I think, the theology of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Repentance and the Atonement are a package system that has as its foundational and underlying premis that we can change. That growth is possible and even essential to our eternal progression. 

I have spoken at length about the atonement, in fact, last easter’s podcast, episode 82 which I will link in the show notes, covers this quite nicely.

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/1020bc29-1296-4c23-a1b9-832afed5bd81

What I would like to highlight about the atonement is, that it provides a path and a platform through repentance to allow us the freedom to look forward without making our past our constant and oppressive present. 

Imagine if you were the same person that you were 10 years ago.  If every aspect of your reality looked the same as it did then.  All the things you’ve learned, all the growth you’ve experienced, all the wisdom you’ve gained are in your head, but you have to be the same as you were back then. 

That is what it is like without the atonement.  That is what it is like without repentance.  That is what it means to be a forever addict.  

You aren’t allowed to be different. 

That is not my idea of a way to overcome pornography or any other unwanted or unwelcome personal behavior.  

I used to pray constantly that God would take this from me.  That He would resolve this so I could be different and not have it as a stumbling block in my life.  

When I believed that was the way to get what I wanted, for pornography to be out of my life, I was unable to grow.  

When I stopped asking God to take away this problem and started seeking His help in learning from it, understanding why I was choosing it, and letting myself believe that it was my responsibility to resolve and He would atone for the mistakes I was making on my journey, then I was able to become successful. 

Only then, could I overcome pornography forever.  Only then, could I put pornography behind me. 

The idea that we are pornography addicts is pervasive within our culture as Latter-day Saints, Christians, and Americans.  

But it is a misplaced, misguided proposition that keeps us from recognizing the truth of who we are and how much more capacity we have.  

Putting these ideas behind us will open a world of possibility to us. 

Hey, this month we are doing a webinar for those who want help overcoming pornography 

If you’re listening to this podcast and like what you hear, take the next step and come to our webinar on april 20th at 730 mt, there’s a link in the show notes or you can go to zachspafford.com/freecall

The seed for today’s podcast came from a post by a guy named Kris Heap.  in that he equated success to the way that an auction happens.  

Everything we do has a price.  In order to achieve desired results in our lives we have to be willing to cover the cost.  

We pay those costs in a variety of different ways. 

Money

Time

Energy

Effort

Discomfort

Commitment

Willingness

Some of those seem synonymous and some of them have varied connotations, but whatever you want to call it, doesn’t really matter.  You and everyone you know, pays for what we get.  

Darcy’s family comes from an amazing history of auctioneers. 

What are some of the cool things your grandpa and dad and uncles were part of auctioning off?

Darcy- I sent my dad a text and asked him about the most interesting things that he had auctioned.  

Hellen Keller - we still have some of her pieces at my parents house, including this Giant Tiger scroll that is in a japanese style

Revson Estate - which was the owner of Revlon

In their work as auctioneers they saw this happen so many times.

As the price of the item goes up, fewer people will seek to put forth the cost of getting the thing they are bidding on.  

The true value of the item is revealed based on the amount the people who are bidding are willing to pay for the item.   

In our work, people have come to us and tell us that they have a pornography addiction.  

Last week I talked about why I don’t like using the term pornography addiction, but that is what people tell us, and we are happy to meet them where they are. 

In fact, last week we did a poll and about 80% of the people that responded said they felt like they were addicted to pornography or they believed their spouse is. 

In a way, that person who is talking to us is placing an opening bid on overcoming their pornography struggle. 

When we talk to people they want to know, what is it actually going to take.  That first conversation is the opening bid, and it is a pretty low one.  

What’s the cost of the conversation? Basically, nothing. A little time.

Darcy and I love speaking to people and we love sharing our story, we do it for free in fifth Sunday lessons, zoom meetings like the one that I mentioned earlier, firesides, and in everyday conversations with random people who are impacted by pornography use in their lives. 

Each of those conversations is amazing and I think it elevates awareness and possibilities for each person to a new level. 

Every time Darcy does a fireside, or speaks to a Sunday school class, she just lights up and is happy for days. 

We get an immense amount of joy out of the work we do. 

We want you to get an immense amount of joy out of the work we do as well. So, we would like to talk about the transactional cost of overcoming pornography.  

If you think back to the auctioneer, only those who are willing to pay the price receive the prize.  That is as true in commerce as it is in our mental and emotional lives.  

A contractor, like an auctioneer, often puts out bids to see what people are willing to pay to get their place remodeled.  

Remodeling pornogrpahy out of your life is like remodeling your home.  Looking at what is there, deciding you don’t like it, and figuring out, what will it take to make my life look the way I want it to.  

So, we’ve put together a cost sheet. An itemized bid, if you will, of what it will cost to remodel pornography out of your life.  

The Cost of Removing Pornography From Your Life

1. Become aware of problematic patterns
2. Learn how to intervene in those patterns
3. Build new patterns

1. Losing the unwavering validation pornography provides
2. Something that has occured to me in the last couple of months, is that pornography never says no.  it always says yes and there is some validation in that.  Letting go of that good feeling which is something subtle and a little beyond the arousal is an important key to this process.

1. Enduring the real emotions we feel
2. Openness about who we really are
3. Willingness to be uncomfortable - loneliness, inadaquacy, feeling unloved, wanting to feel loved/not just needed, 
4. Letting go of covert contracts - if you haven’t read the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover, he goes into this in depth and we deep dive into this with many of our clients that use these, not everyone does.  A covert contract is essentially when we do something for our partner in an effort to obligate them to do something for us, especially when that has not been agreed to by the other party.

1. Learning new methods of emotional management - dealing with urges, uncomfortable feelings, and sensations

What is pornography addiction?

When I was growing up and as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints anyone who views pornography is essentially labeled as a pornography addict.  

I’ve talked about my experience with the Addiction Recovery Program or ARP that I attended in both Wisconsin and California. I have talked about why I don’t believe in the idea that most people are pornography addicts.  In episode 54 I covered in-depth how believing you’re an addict is basically a self-fulfilling prophesy that creates more harm than good. 

But I want to take a moment and talk about what I believe we mean when we say that we are addicted to porn and how changing the narrative around this pervasive idea will do more good for those who engage in viewing pornography than continuing with the current narrative that they are porn addicts.  

As members of the Church, we often talk about pornography in absolute terms.  Either you’re addicted or you’re sober.

Based on the way that I have observed others discuss the issue, being a pornography addict means that you are experiencing arousal while using graphic media. This media depicts the bodies of men or women in any state of dress. They could be fully clothed, wearing bathing suits or standard underwear, all the way up to and including the most graphic sexual imagery.  

This is my observation, so, I could be wrong or misperceiving the intent of others as they speak about this.  But, I think, after having spoken openly about pornography for so many years now, I’ve gathered some sense of the issues.  

This definition is problematic, for a few reasons.  First being, this definition is so broad and encompasses so much that it would be hard for anyone who wanted to purchase a nice bathing suit for their spouse not to identify as a pornography addict because they found the swimsuit models attractive. 

This definition pathologizes into addiction the sexual arousal of a teen boy (or grown man for that matter) merely noticing the beauty of another person depicted in media. 

It makes us bad, simply for seeing something that we might find attractive on some level for some reason.  

The problem with that is, as humans, we all experience the reality of noticing the beauty of another person at some point.  I think that most people have even experienced a sense that they might want to have an intimate relationship with someone because of that noticed beauty.  

Unfortunately, when we define sexual addiction or pornography addiction in this way, it loads so much meaning onto our shoulders that it becomes nearly impossible to carry in a healthy or meaningful way.  

Please don’t misunderstand me, I want to be clear, I am not advocating for us to swing all the way to the other side and stop using judgment to determine what appropriate media we want to view in our lives.  

But, if we can redefine pornography addiction, in some small way to lighten that burden, I believe that would be the most valuable thing we could do to decrease pornography viewing in the lives of those who struggle.  

When we speak about pornography addiction, I think that we are actually talking about experiential avoidance.  I use the term buffering as well, but Experiential avoidance is the term that I think best describes what is really happening. 

I’ve worked with thousands of men and women, individually and in the membership, each of whom started to realize one thing when they dropped the idea that they were addicted to pornography.  What they realized is, that they were avoiding something and pornography was the thing that was helping them do it. 

Simple questions like, “what were you feeling in the 5 to 10 minutes before you choose to view pornography?” provide the insight that I needed and that my clients need to dial in on their mental state and understand why they chose pornography.  

The answers are unique to each individual and their specific situation, but a clear pattern emerges over time for each person.  

For me, my pattern was that I did not like feeling alone or lonely.  As a result, my brain would lead me down a path that would help me avoid the discomfort of loneliness.  

Think about your own pattern.  Does it happen in the late hours of the evening as you try to avoid feeling drowsy or tired? Do you choose pornography rather than deal with the discomfort of studying? Is your brain offering you arousal to help ease the discomfort of feeling overweight?

When pornography is contrary to our moral values and we still choose it, the most likely reason is that we are using it to avoid an unpleasant, difficult, or anxious feeling.  

There is some really great research to back up this idea.  But, this new way of looking at pornography addiction probably resonates with you in a way that is more meaningful than anything an article in the journal Science could tell you. 

I know it is easier to say that someone is addicted to pornography, than it is to say, “my husband is engaging in experiential avoidance because when he feels stressed he hasn’t learned how to properly or effectively engage with his emotions.”

This narrative change is, however, the kind of change that helps people change the narrative in their own minds. 

If the culture and people around you believe something, you are more likely to believe that thing, regardless of its objective truthfulness. 

So, let’s dissect that for a moment.  If people around me believe that pornography is everything from the JCP catalog to videos of people actually engaging in sex acts, then I’m more likely to believe it.  If people around me believe that viewing those materials means a person is addicted to them, regardless of how often they are viewed or for what purpose, then I’m more likely to believe it.  

If the people around me believe that being an addict means that I’m broken, irredeemable, or unworthy and that I will always have this addiction, no matter how long ago it was that I last chose to engage with it, then I’m more likely to believe it.  

And if I believe that I am always going to be an addict and that the rest of my life will be one of constant vigilance against an ever-present reality of beautiful people in print, social media, television, and movies then what do you guys think that everyone believes about my chances to actually eliminate pornography addiction from my life?

I would think that most people would see that as hopeless…

I certainly would.  

This, my friends, is why I push back so much when people think that a habit of viewing pornography in order to avoid feeling discomfort, anxiety, or loneliness is a pornography addiction.  

Because it is hopeless.  It feels hopeless.  It is insurmountable because bodies are not going to get more clothing, they are going to get less.  Magazines are not going to get less provocative, they are going to push for more.  Social media is not going to make its algorithms send things that aren’t interesting, they are going to send the things that we click on, that we watch more and that we seek out.  

So, if you believe that you are addicted to pornography, my question to you is, what value, what good, what hope is that bringing into your life?  

Because addiction is outside our control, there is little we can do to prevail against it. 

But, when I learn that I buffer or avoid the experience of feeling my feelings because I’ve never learned how to properly engage with them, then I have a direction, a place to go, a hope of learning a skill that other people know.  I can practice a skill.  I don’t have to be endlessly vigilant, I have to get a new habit of how to deal with my discomfort.  

That, may not be as simple as saying, my wife’s addicted to porn.  Or my husband’s a porn addict.  But it is more true.  It feels more hopeful. And it is pointing in a direction that you can travel, rather than sitting you in a place of stuck victimhood.  

So, if you are listening to this and you can, try taking the words porn addict out of your vocabulary.  

If you hear someone say, pornography addiction, as kindly as you can, help them understand that isn’t a helpful idea.  Have them listen to this podcast if you can. 

We can change the narrative.  You can start the change from where you are.