Learning to Thrive Beyond Pornography use was the greatest challenge of our life and marriage. It had rocked my self confidence, tainted all of the most important experiences of my life and become the most impossible challenge I had as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

With this podcast or at https://www.zachspafford.com you'll learn about the struggle, how to overcome pornography use, and where to find additional resources to begin to thrive beyond pornography with your spouse.

At some point I took a step away from all the 12 step meetings and councilors and started to figure out my own brain, to look at my issue as something that I had the answer to and I was going to figure it out. Here I share those lessons and give you the power to start your own journey free. Whether you struggle with unwanted pornography use or are the spouse or partner, whether you feel stuck or just don't know where to start, here I will teach you principles, tools and skills that you can use today to change how you think and, in the end, what you do.

You'll hear interviews with my spouse, with experts on human sexuality and with former and current pornography users on how you can overcome your own struggle with addictive behavior.

The Thrive Beyond Pornography podcast will bring new perspective to your struggle and keep you coming back to improve all aspects of your life. (formerly, The Self Mastery Podcast: Overcome Pornography Forever)

Episode 198

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I'm Zach. And I'm Darcy. We're an LDS couple who struggled with unwanted pornography in our marriage for many years. What was once our greatest struggle and something we thought would destroy us, has become our greatest blessing in trying. Our hope is that as you listen to our podcast each week, you'll be filled with hope and healing and realize that you too can thrive beyond pornography and create the marriage you have always desired.

Welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. We're so glad you're here and we believe in you.

Hey everybody and welcome back to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host, Zach Spafford, and today we're back at the top six reasons why quitting porn can be difficult. Two episodes ago I introduced this topic and covered issue number one, which was Temptations and triggers. Feel free to go back and listen to that one. It's a good episode.

Last week I went in depth on issue number two, which was emotional and psychological dependency. And this week we're gonna focus on the loss of coping mechanisms and the discomfort associated with no longer choosing to use pornography to manage our emotions. Now, the upcoming episodes that we're gonna talk about on this particular vein are shame and guilt, lack of support and understanding, and, finally, lapses and the discouragement that come along with them.

So let's just dive in. One of the primary challenges individuals face when quitting porn is the loss of coping mechanisms that they rely on to manage their lives. Pornography often serves as a way to escape the stress, loneliness, or other emotional challenges that we have in our life.

When someone decides to break free from this habit, you're listening to this, you're, that's why you're here, right? You're saying, okay, I'm gonna decide right now. I'm gonna break free from this habit. You might be experiencing a lot of upfront discomfort. Including anxiety, restlessness, irritability.

I couldn't name all of them, but if you think about your journey through quitting porn, you could probably name what it is that the discomfort is that you're having in terms of being able to manage and deal with emotions instead of avoiding them. And as you practice these new ways of addressing your urges, thoughts and emotions.

You are probably seeing that you have been avoiding and suppressing and circumventing them by viewing pornography. These uncomfortable symptoms can make the journey of quitting porn particularly challenging, and it's important to recognize that these feelings are totally natural. They are a natural part of the process of setting aside pornography as a way to deal with our discomforts.

As we begin to address those discomforts head on and upfront, and by understanding and acknowledging this, you and I and anybody who's doing this can better manage and navigate. Through these particular difficulties. So the question that you're coming here with is how to, how do I effectually, learn and habitualize new ways of addressing urges to view porn rather than relying on pornography to help me manage, rather than utilizing it as a way to cope with my unwanted feelings, thoughts, urges, whatever's going on.

So here are, I'm gonna give you six items that you need to put into your process so that you can put this coping mechanism component of why it's difficult to quit pornography behind you. Some of these are gonna repeat across all of these reasons why that it's difficult to quit pornography.

But I want you to recognize that getting good at each and every single one of these takes practice. And if you're willing to do the practice, you'll get good at it and a lot of the pieces will start to fall into place. As you become just a little bit better and a little bit better, and a little bit better.

So number one is acceptance and awareness. What you need to be doing here to put behind this, put behind you, this coping mechanism is recognize that the uncomfortable f emotions and cravings that you're having are temporary and they are part of the growth process. Accepting them without judgment and acknowledging that they're a sign of progress, they're.

Part of the process and a sign of progress, and a lot of us want to control or eliminate our discomfort. The reality of most people's lives is that discomfort and struggle are part of the package. Just being a human can be uncomfortable and it involves struggling . if it didn't, we, life would be so much easier.

How can we have joy if we cannot adequately and effectively handle the misery that can be inherent in life? And this is really about being aware of the fact that I'm gonna feel uncomfortable and instead of. Fighting with it or trying to avoid it. I'm gonna accept it as a possibility and a part of life and deal with it upfront rather than avoid it.

The next thing that you're gonna want to think about is a values-based alternative. So as you see your choices and create awareness from a position of calm curiosity, you're going to want to see what alternatives. Are available that more closely align with your values and move towards those. Now, you might be thinking that this means to run from your urges and keep yourself busy with some task that's quote unquote good.

The old change was on the stage of your mind, or I. Whatever it is that you've been told to suppress or push back on those thoughts, feelings, or urges. But please do not take that from what I'm saying here. If you do, you run the risk of just fighting with your urges rather than addressing them in a meaningful way.

What it means to seek values-based alternatives is that we openly acknowledge our agency to choose porn calmly weigh the reasons why our brain is offering us this activity. So getting to the root of the actual issue, why is my brain telling me that it would be easier just to go watch porn and then from a grounded, emotionally calm place, make a conscious choice to move toward an activity that more closely aligns with our values.

Now, that might mean that we. Take one step in that direction, or two steps in that direction, or we fully engage with that activity, whatever that is. I. And it might mean that we don't get all the way there, but it's the practice and the start of the process to start going in that direction. But as we do this, we need to be in a grounded place.

This can be a really subtle and difficult thing to do, so don't get discouraged if you don't get it in the very beginning, if it doesn't happen for you right away. It's a process of learning to reprogram the way that our brain takes on. Struggle. Next one, emotional support. I highly recommend that you seek support from trusted friends, family, or support groups who can provide understanding and encouragement.

Sharing your feelings and experiences can help alleviate that burden and provide a sense of belonging. Working with a coach who's done this work is a huge. Component of this process, I want you to know that not everyone is gonna be able to hear your struggle and not make it about themselves, and that's okay.

As you start sharing with people, continue working with those who can hear you and acknowledge. What is going on for you from an open and understanding position? When Darcy started sharing what was going on for us, I was afraid that people would reject me, that they would think I wasn't good to be around.

I found the opposite to be true. Most people that you know are willing to. To love you as you work through this. All you need is to tell them. All you need to do is just tell them what's real in your life and they are more than likely going to hear you. And I've talked about this before on the podcast, and I've shared this on another podcast and in a book written by my friend Richard Osler.

But our friends. The Barris and the Baillios. They like, they just stepped up and they were more friendly. They were praying for us. They were seeking to see how they could help us by talking to our church leaders. They wanted to be someone that we could rely on, and I would bet you that that's most likely what you're gonna find.

Okay. The next one we're gonna talk about is self care. You have got. To prioritize self-care and practices that are gonna nurture your physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. This may include getting enough sleep, eating more nutritiously, practicing mindfulness or even relaxation techniques, engaging at in activities that bring you joy and peace, exercising regularly.

This is, this really means that you have to be willing to make small shifts towards your goals, desires, and needs. I don't want you to think you have to do this all at once cuz you don't. But realize that if you will stand up for you, choose activities that fill your cup, you're gonna start to feel better in a number of ways.

And this doesn't mean disregard the feelings or desires of anybody that you're in a relationship with. What it does mean is make decisions that bring you up. And that your spouse can understand, even if they don't always agree with that particular decision. This is about taking care of yourself, showing up, differentiating, if you've heard that word before, being someone who can be solid in themselves and ch and see themselves as someone who's choosing goodness for themselves.

Again, not disregarding something that your spouse says. There are those guys and people out there who say, well, I'm just gonna do what I want because that's what feels good to me. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is, Hey, this is the decision that I believe I wanna make and I'm gonna make this decision.

Unless you have an overarching or more meaningful opinion or a meaningful opinion, that is going to change my mind, and I'm willing to listen to that, and I'm willing to change if that's the case. But I'm not willing to defer my happiness to you. That's a big difference because when we defer our happiness to other people and they say, well, you have to choose the way that I think you should choose, that breeds resentment and it doesn't actually work.

One of the reasons why I think a lot of men choose pornography is that they often feel resentment. Over the sexual health choices that they're making or that their spouse is making within their relationship. This isn't everybody by any means, but it certainly is a certain component of the world.

In fact, I'll be honest with you, I get a lot of comments on my email, on my posts, on the internet, on my ad posts, on the internet that are deeply concerning to me because these people are not taking care of themselves and. Owning up to a better life, something that they want, they're simply deferring to someone else to manage them sexually.

And that's not gonna work in the long run. And you really have to be willing to step in and own that position and be the person that you wanna be, and then you actually become more desirable. All right, next one is guidance. If you wanna know how to invest, you might follow a guy named Warren Buffet.

He's the richest man in the world. He has been a, an amazing investor and has invested in billions of dollars in companies over the course of his lifetime. If you were looking to start an online business, You would probably look to someone like Russell Brunson, who is the founder of ClickFunnels, a highly successful ad produce, or sorry, a leads producing process that is amazing, right?

If you were looking to learn how to install a toilet, you might even just go to YouTube and watch videos on how to do it, somebody that's done it before you. The truth is when we wanna know how to accomplish something that we've never done before, we seek out someone. Who's already done it and use their hard earned knowledge to our advantage.

Doing this in the process of figuring out how to manage our emotions without pornography is totally the same. Consider seeking a coach to work through the underlying issues that lead to the reliance that you have had on pornography as a coping mechanism. A coach who's overcome in their own life can provide invaluable insight, guidance, and tools.

To help you navigate this process. That's what a coach does. They see things that you can't see. They show you things that would take you forever to discover on your own, and they guide you in a process that would be difficult to create if you didn't have their guidance. Okay. Last item on this list is patience and self-compassion.

One of the reasons why it's so difficult to find new coping mechanisms is because we use the coping mechanisms that we have when we're not patient with ourselves and we're not compassionate with ourselves. We use these mechanisms to help us manage through the. Self-flagellation. The way that we beat ourselves up and to understand this process is to understand that overcoming the discomfort of no longer relying on pornography to manage your unwanted emotions, takes time.

Be patient with yourself. Practice self-compassion. Celebrate small victories along the way, and remember that setbacks are normal. They're part of the journey, and they are in fact the data that you need. So that you can learn what's going on for you so you can formulate new and meaningful ways to address what's going on for you.

Here's what I want you to remember. Quitting porn is a transformative process and it's natural to experience discomfort as we rewire and create new habitual ways of engaging our unwanted emotions. By implementing these strategies, you can effectively manage and navigate through these challenges.

Ultimately, you're gonna break free from the grip of unwanted pornography. If you do that, you can change the way your brain interacts with your urges if you're willing to practice new skills and new ways of engaging. And you have to be willing to do that at game time. So when the urge strikes and in non-game time situations.

So when you're just. Sitting around doing nothing, and your brain's not really offering you porn. That's a good time to practice. And if you will practice the skills, you'll succeed in the long run. So that brings us to the end of today's episode. I hope that you find these insights helpful as you continue on your journey toward a fulfilling life beyond pornography.

Join us in the next episode as we explore more aspects of thriving beyond pornography. Thanks for tuning in, and if you found this episode valuable, please share it with somebody else. And don't forget to subscribe. I'll talk to you next time.