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 203

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Zach Spafford: 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 everyone, and welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host, Zack Baf. I love this time of year partly because there's a lot of birthdays in our family, our twins. We were born in July. Darcy was born in July. Our number, let's see, three child, four child. She was born in July. There's a lot going on 4th of July.

Darcy's great. Grandma was born in July. Darcy's parents were married in July. So we have a lot of things that we do in July. They're really fun, really important. Tomorrow is. Pioneer Day here in Utah. If you're not from Utah and you don't have any idea what Pioneer Day is, pioneer Day is the celebration of those men and women, children, young adults who traveled from.

The West, or sorry, the east coast of the United States to the West Coast of the United States to this particular part of the United States, to Utah, to found and create and build this state. And in part they did it to escape from some of the persecution that they were enduring. On the East Coast or in the Midwest, but it's an amazing time and an opportunity to celebrate some of the coolest things that people have done in the past that have created a place where we now get to live in extraordinary comfort.

Here in Southern Utah, even though we're in the. Triple digits for heat. It's really warm these days. We have air conditioning and we have the things that came before us, created this place that we get to live. And I think, whether it's Pioneer Day in your home town or it's , celebrating those who have created the life that we get to live by making it possible to stand on their shoulders and build something more. I think that's a pretty cool thing. So today I wanna talk about unleashing the power within thriving. B. Beyond pornography. And in today's world, there really is so much omnipresent, easily accessible pornography and so many individuals find themselves.

Turning to it because it's so easy to get to. It's so simple. In fact, I'll be honest with you, sometimes we get messages onto our Instagram page that are pornographic, and it's really frustrating. I'll be honest with you. It's like, why would you send that to us? That's not really cool. It's not kind. That's not really appropriate either.

But it's just a reminder of how easy it is to access and disseminate pornography. And the truth is that the desire for pornography is not really about necessarily the explicit content itself when it comes to men and women who are struggling with pornography. Those who. Sit down and they're like, I, this is not who I wanna be.

This is not how I wanna live my life. This isn't how I want to engage with my sexuality. They usually, if they're turning to pornography in contravention and against their values in a way that is contrary to their value structure, it's usually a symptom of deeper issues and unmet needs. The good news is that everything you could, Ever possibly want have or need is already available inside you.

You don't have to go outside of you to deal with these unmet needs, but you do have to understand and address the underlying issues and maybe even learn some skills as to how you can address and create solutions to the unmet wants, needs, or problems that you are struggling with. And then you can.

Easily, much more easily liberate yourself from the grip of pornography and discover a more rich and fulfilling. Life and a sustainable path forward. So if you think about your own pornography use, you're probably listening to this because you or someone you know struggles with pornography use. And if you consider what it is that is.

Happening for you in the 30 or so minutes before you turn to pornography? What is going on for you mentally, emotionally, physically, before you're turning to pornography? You'll find what is preceding the pornography use and that the pornography use is often an escape from some. Anxiety, some discomfort, some maybe even stress, and instead of directly dealing with the root causes of our emotional struggles, instead of dealing with that stressor that we are facing in that 30 minutes before we turn to pornography.

I have a lot of clients who, they're in school and they're like I sit down to study and I feel like I just can't get started, and then I turn to porn, or I have lots of, and this was my experience. Often was, I have big projects at work and I have a really important presentation that I have to create.

And instead of working on that project and actually lowering my stress level and managing through working on that project, I would turn to pornography before I could begin that process of creating what I needed to do. And this is us not dealing with the root of our problem. And. Instead moving into a place where we get temporary relief by consuming pornographic content.

And this actually perpetuates a cycle of greater stress and greater anxiety and greater frustration in the long run, which can really be a harmful trap. It can be a really harmful pattern because, It diminishes our capacity, our self-confidence, and our capacity to believe in ourselves. And that's really a huge component of this whole problem.

It's not simply that we are viewing pornography, which may run contrary to our value structure, it's that we're not engaging in helpful ways of mitigating our stress and anxiety is that we're not engaging in resolving that anxiety or that stressor. At its face because maybe we don't have a skillset to do that, or we're just not confident in our skillset to do that, or maybe we don't have a habit to do that, and we're compounding the anxiety by adding on top of it this layer of.

Engaging in behavior that is contrary to our value structure. Using pornography as a means to address our problems may provide temporary relief. And I want people to recognize this. This is something that makes this a valuable tool. A lot of people go out and they say Porn is bad unequivocally, and it's never good.

And I often ask them, well, if porn is so bad, then why do we keep turning back to it? If it is so bad, and I'm not, I don't want you to mistake me, I'm not saying that porn is good in any way. What I'm saying is there's a reason why we're turning to it. It is providing something for us. It's giving us a means to manage something, otherwise we would be less likely to choose it, and that's really the important component of this.

We have to understand what it's doing, and it may provide that temporary relief. It may provide a little bit of a distraction, but for most people who find pornography contrary to their value structure, it ultimately leaves us worse off. And it becomes a bandaid solution that fails to address the root cause of our dissatisfaction, loneliness, stress, or other emotional struggles.

Moreover, I want you to understand that relying on porn as a solution creates a cycle that perpetuates the very problems that we're trying to escape, and the key lies in recognizing that porn is not the answer, but a symptom of a deeper longing for something more. Rather than focusing solely on the pornography itself, it's important to delve deeper into the underlying reasons behind the attraction to it.

For example, someone might realize that their frequent use of pornography is a way of seeking connection and intimacy. Someone else might think of pornography as simply a way to distract themselves from the discomfort of having to start a new task. Which is very likely one of the reasons why you choose pornography.

By understanding this, you can begin exploring healthier avenues to fulfill those parts of your life, to deal with those parts of your life and to create new habitual ways of addressing it when it shows up, such as building meaningful relationships. Or creating new ways to become more mindful of your struggles or your discomforts, and then create new habitual ways of addressing those directly through things like meditation, deep breathing, mindfulness these are the, a lot of the techniques that we teach help address those issues upfront so that discomfort and those unwanted feelings can dissipate on their own. So we're addressing them directly instead of avoiding them, which is what most people do. There is a better solution available to each and every one of us. And these solutions , the true way that we resolve pornography struggles is by looking inwardly and going, okay, what's actually happening for me?

And it may sound unconventional or even strange because I. A lot of people, they come to me. A lot of people are looking at this problem and they're saying porn is the problem. If I didn't have porn in my life, I know for me, I used to pray to my Heavenly father. I used to say, Hey, if you'll just take this one thing away from me, I'll be a better everything.

I'll be better for myself. I'll be better for others. I'll be a more capable of serving. I'll be more capable of being the person that. I expect myself to be, and the truth was that porn wasn't the problem. It was all the things that I wasn't taking care of mentally and emotionally that I didn't know how to take care of.

By the way, it wasn't like I'm some sort of deviant that I didn't understand, like I just didn't understand. Why I felt this way, thinking I was supposed to be happy all the time. I thought I was supposed to feel good, and when I felt bad, I didn't know how to address it. When I didn't know what to do with my emotions.

When I, as a man, I've often said this, men are often offered just three. Emotions that they're allowed to have hungry, angry, and horny. Those are the emotions that I think men are often told. Those are the only ones that you get. So I didn't know what to do with frustrated. I didn't know what to do with lonely.

I didn't know what to do with stress. And as a result I just turned to what felt good. And this is the work that you have to do. And I know, a lot of people might think this is sounds really hippy dippy, but I'm not hippy dippy. These emotions are there because they're helping you solve problems.

When we see our emotions, our struggles, our difficulties as markers and indicators of a problem that needs to be solved, that allows us to direct our attention to that more curiously and less frustrated, helps us see the thing more clearly and allows us to address it. Directly rather than trying to sidestep it, move around it.

And when you embrace these changes and explore these alternative paths, that's the first step toward breaking free from unwanted pornography use and other habits that are keeping you from being the person you want to be, like overeating, or maybe too much video game, or maybe you're staring at your phone too much.

Recognize. That the power lies within you. And as you look at your past achievements or moments of resilience, then you can remind yourself of the inner strength that you actually have your capacity to resolve these things and embrace those positive moments. See them for what good they have brought to you, but also be willing to see what you've done in the past that isn't really you being the best version of you, and not see that as you being inadequate, but a guide for you to check out and see what was actually going on for me that took me towards that.

Behavior towards those choices that sat outside of my value structure. Why did my emotions take me away from the place that I want to be towards? Something that just feels good in the moment and utilizing that. As a marker and a guide to start figuring out what can I do better next time in addressing those emotions and those issues directly rather than trying to move around them.

Unlocking the power within you starts with self-awareness and self-reflection. You've gotta be willing to look at your behavior. You've gotta be able to look at you. That's the number one thing you know. I teach NAB as one of the many ways that we can. Create mindfulness in a moment when our brain is offering us porn.

Notice and name are the very first parts of nab. If you can't notice what's going on for you mentally and emotionally. In fact, I had a conversation with a new client just. This week he, I said, okay what was going on for you emotionally? What was happening for you mentally? He's like, I, I don't really know.

Begin by identifying that as you get good at identifying that, you'll get good at being able to address it. I can't tell you how many times I've used this example with a client in the moment, and I say, when you're at work and something goes wrong, what do you do? What's the very first thing that you do?

You go back and you look at what went wrong, what was happening, and let's say you're an engineer and a bridge fails. You don't go back and go, what was wrong emotionally? You go back and say what part failed? What was the first part that failed? What was the. Thing that created that part. Fail parts failure.

As you do that, you start to learn lessons of how to address that, and then you address it in the next bridge that you build. And nobody says, no, hopefully nobody dies when your bridge falls down. But nobody says, oh, you're not good enough. Everybody says, we need to work together to solve a problem. And that's how we can approach our brain when it comes to pornography and.

As you do that, you start to identify those needs and the issues that drive you towards pornography. What is it that's driving you there? Is it desire for connection? Is it desire to escape? Is it desire to just feel good? Are you looking to solve for stress by pinpointing that underlying cause? You can explore alternative ways to fulfill those needs without resorting to porn.

So if I could give you one thing, like one place to just start from and get really good at right now, I would say pull out your phone, start a note. However your phone takes notes. That is simply what happened in the 30 minutes before I chose pornography. Mentally, emotionally and physically, what was going on for me in the 30 minutes before I chose pornography, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

If you can't name that, you don't have the awareness that you need yet, and that's okay, that's totally fine. You don't have to have that yet, but what you can do to practice that is. Stop at any point in the middle of the day, maybe it's lunchtime, and look back in time mentally and say what happened to me at 10 30 mentally, emotionally and physically, that made it so I didn't wanna start on that project.

What was going on for me mentally and emotionally? Let's say you're headed to bed. What was going on for me mentally, emotionally, and physically that made it so I didn't want to go have a conversation with my wife or didn't want to. Play with my kids, whatever it is, made me lash out at the dog.

I don't, it doesn't matter what it is, but the more curious you can get about your emo emotions. And by the way, if you don't know what your emotions are, if you like, if you can only name like three emotions, hungry, angry, and horny do yourself a favor and sit down and start thinking about all of the emotions that are possible in your life and define them.

Because that, again, is gonna help you create awareness that will allow you to be mindful, be capable of addressing it, and then learn why it is that it's a problem for you. That is the very beginning. There's a lot of steps beyond that, but that's the very, very beginning is just being aware. Knowing that you can have this power, unleash it, and then start addressing what's actually happening for you.

That's the goal. All right, my friends, I love you. Please write us a review. If you write us a review and send it to me in the month of August, I'm gonna draw for 50 bucks and I'm gonna send it to you. So write that review out, or just hit the stars. I don't care if you just hit stars, write that, review out if you can, but.

If you have to just hit stars, you can change your name on the reviews, but do that, and I will put you in a drawing for $50 and I will send it to you, whoever I draw out of the hat. All right, my friends, I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening. Please share this with somebody who needs it, and I will talk to you next week.