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.

With this podcast or at https://www.GetToThrive.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 68

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Hey everybody, and welcome to another beautiful Mastery Monday here on the Self Mastery Podcast. I'm joined by my favorite wife. Elizabeth. What? No,

I actually said I couldn't help myself. I said that to a friend. Well, I said that in front of a friend who had been divorced and he, his wife was like, oh, I actually am your favorite wife. You remember that? Yes. Yeah. That was fun. But you're Darcy though. Yes. You're not Elizabeth. So this is Darcy. I just was being silly.

How you doing? It's late at night and I get a little bit silly. Happy New year. Happy New Year. Happy new Year almost. Uh, so if somebody's listening to this, this will be, this will be the week before new Happy New Year's. Yes. Right. So we're recording ahead of time so that we can enjoy. We're recording ahead of time.

Time with all of our loved ones. So many freaking loved ones. We're excited about it. Yes, we, and don't worry, we've all taken appropriate precautions. If you're thinking about us, we're thinking about that. Awesome. So tonight Darcy had a topic that I think. Really, really is one of those topics that comes up for us every single time we talk to, we talk to church groups every time we talk to, uh, we, you know, when we do Sunday school lessons, when we do webinars, when we talk to individuals, when we talk to wives, you know, when someone messages us on Instagram.

This is something that essentially is in the back of every single person's reality. Tell us what it is. Why. Do we give pornography so much power? So I was driving home from my parents' house tonight. We had just had a surprise party for our son who turned 16, and I just could not stop thinking about this.

Why do we give pornography so much power? I love that we think about pornography. All the time now. Yeah. It, it, it is, it is kind of sad. No, it's awesome. In a sad kind of way. I just, you know, whenever I'm driving I just think of, of the ladies I work with and just the messages that we get and just thinking back to our journey and I just, I can't help but think.

About it and, and ponder how we can help people and how we can strengthen marriages. And this is a thought that just keeps coming to my mind. Why do we give pornography so much power? And so I really wanted to have a discussion with Zach on air and, and talk about this. So why do we give pornography so much power?

What does it mean to give pornography power in your mind? Well, to me, pornography. Really is powerless, right? Is it, it is only as powerful as we give it power. Right. And what I mean by that is it's, it's literally just naked people on a screen and you have to consent to it all along the way. Yep. Right?

There's consent in, in pornography, there's not power in pornography. And the, the way that I like to illustrate this with people when I talk to 'em is I, I say naked people never showed up to your house. Busted into your living room and was like chained you to your couch and we're like, we're gonna have sex and you're gonna watch us, right?

Like, that's never happened to anyone that I know of. I'm sure it's happened to someone, but it's not, it's never happened to anyone that I know of, and I don't think it's happened to anyone you know of either. So if that is the case, right? If that's never happened, then what, where is like, what is pornography in terms of the power that we give it?

It's consent, right? Yeah. We say yes to it. So why? So maybe twofold, right? So why do we say yes to it? And then why does it hold so much power in its capacity to, you know, we think it has this power to destroy us and to destroy our marriage. So why do we allow that in our lives? I know for me, a lot of the, the, uh, ideas that I have been fed were that.

Pornography destroys families, it destroys marriages, it destroys lives. It, you know, all of this very heavy, heavy, heavy thoughts and ideas and beliefs and Right. Like if you look at pornography, it's gonna destroy your life. Yeah. And I think when we think that way, it then it does, right? Because we know that what we think.

Agreed affects how we feel, which affects how we show up in the world, and then our result. And so anything we're thinking ends up in our result line of our life. It just, that's how it goes. And this is not to say that you don't want to not look at pornography like this is not to say that, oh, this is a bad commandment or a bad thing.

Like, yeah, of course this isn't who you want to be. You know, I have never come across a man who was like, I just like looking at pornography because it feels great. And that's fine with me. Don't now Those people exist and I don't care. I just, I, and I don't, you know? Yeah. And the, I don't care how that's gonna impact my family.

Yeah. I don't care. The impact on my wife, I don't care the impact of my life. Right? Like, I'm sure that person exists, but I haven't run across them. So that's not really the issue here. The issue is how do we act when we think and believe that Pornography's gonna destroy us? And we just had a conversation this evening with someone who she was like, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of what HA will happen because my porn, my, in her case fiance, when he lapses back into pornography use. When he has a particularly stressful week. And the truth is, is that it's about, that's, that's about fear. Mm-Hmm. That's about not creating an intimate relationship that's about fear, that's not about being there for him, that's about worrying how his actions are gonna impact you.

And there's, you know, the truth is, is, you know, pornography doesn't end marriages. What we choose to believe and how we choose to react to pornography use. Is what ends the marriage. And we're not saying that if you choose to leave a marriage because pornography is there, that that's wrong or right. Like we we're not trying to place a moral judgment judgment on, on this.

We are just trying to point out the, and and clarify the reality of, of what's going on. Yeah. Where does the result come from? The result comes from what we choose to believe. And if you choose to believe pornography is destroying my marriage, then that's gonna result in some pretty interesting feelings.

It's going to, it's gonna result in fear, it's gonna result in frustration, it's gonna result in trying to control someone. Right. So your actions are gonna be control, but control in a marriage is not a, a good move, right? Yeah. Well, and I think for the, the person who's struggling with pornography, pornography's gonna destroy my life.

How? Wow. I am pretty sure every time they struggle, they're like, yep, it, it destroyed my life. Right? Like, it just, it doesn't drive the result that people are looking for, which is that they don't turn to pornography to feel better. Right? So to get away from this idea, you know, pornography's gonna destroy us and, and how do we give, how do we take back our power?

Right. That's, that's really the question here. Yeah. And, and I think that's more what I'm saying. It's like how, how do we, how do we win against pornography? Yeah. Because I, I don't want marriages to fail because Pornography's there. Right. I don't want families to be broken up because pornography is there.

I also do not want families to stay together if there is actual abuse and. Right. We're not advocating that you stay together just because Yes. That's not, that's not what we're looking at here. But the people that we work with are very awesome, strong LDS couples who are striving to do what they believe is right and live as closely to the gospel as they can.

And the men are men who want to be righteous. Yeah, they do. Yes. They, they struggle with this and they think, man, how do I, how, how can I be a better man? So how do we take our power back? What do you think Zach? Well, I think the very first thing you have to do is you gotta recognize that you have agency, and we talked about this on the last podcast, and we're talking about how.

For women, it's, it often shows up and we talked about how Jennifer Finlays and Fife was like, if you can't say no, then you can't say yes. And for men, it's exactly the opposite when it comes to pornography. 'cause we talk about this, and this is like the biggest thing that comes up in, in our conversations with our clients, is the tool that I teach, which is Plan Ahead, which is it's really about agency.

It's about saying, this is what I'm gonna choose to do because I choose to do it, not because I'm reacting to my emotions. And for men it's the opposite. It's if you can't choose to say yes to pornography, then you can't choose to say no, which is, again, it's abdicating your agency, it's pushing it away.

It's, it's saying I have to follow a set of rules that I have not chosen, but I am obligated to uphold. And that's not gonna help anybody because when you have to follow rules that you haven't chosen. Even though that's what you really want, right? Even though what you really want is to not look at pornography, but you also don't feel like you have agency in that space.

Then you become incapable of saying yes or no, but only beholden to the whims of your emotions. And this is the problem, right? You can't, you can't tell people, and we put this in a box, right? We put it in a very special box. Pornography use goes into this very special box where the answer is no, always, no question.

Absolutely. Whereas never. Never. Right? Never. It's kind of, I mean, there's very few things that I, well, I guess not very few things that are like a never, but I just think of all the other things that we struggle with in life, like we allow so much grace. For each other, right? Like it, you know, I just think of like yelling, right?

Or losing your temper or saying hurtful things, right? Like there's always that time where you say something to your spouse or even your children that you're like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. That wasn't nice, or That came off wrong. Or I'm certain that that tore that person down, right? That didn't uplift them.

But all of those things that we do, which I believe are all sins. Right. They're not, I don't feel like they're wanna show up very price, like, and how we want to show up in the world. It's okay if we mess up in that area. Right? But like, pornography is this area that it's like black and white, never mess up.

Never, never ever, ever, ever struggle in this one area. And if you do, it's very bad and your life's gonna be ruined. Destroyed, yeah. Destroyed, right? And so. Also remember, we teach people how to not look at pornography. So we are very much on the same page as we don't think that you should look at pornography, and that's not what we choose to do.

Right. But we also allow for agency. Yeah. And this again, like I, I always like to say that. That was Satan's plan, right? The, you know, being unable to do something because that's what you chose to do. That was Satan's plan. That was not the way that we chose to come down here and, and work and learn, and grow.

We chose to be able to be able to have the capacity to do what we want to do, because that's what we choose, and that's one of our fundamentally most sacred gifts that we've been given by our Heavenly Father was the capacity to use our agency, and we're gonna screw it up. Yeah. And that's why the atonement iss there.

Yeah. And, and, and all of those things that I mentioned before, we mess up and we, we do things all the time that we are not happy with. That is not the way we wanna show up in the world, and yet we keep going. Right. We don't. Hopefully we don't beat ourselves up to the point that we feel so bad that we just keep doing it.

Right? And so I feel like oftentimes with pornography, that is the pattern of behavior, that that becomes reality. For a lot of men who struggle with pornography and women, I. Yeah, assume. Absolutely. So when we, if, if you wanna take back your power and stop allowing pornography to have so much power in your life, you gotta start by just realizing that you can look at pornography.

Now, do you want to? Probably not, but you can. You might want to in that moment, but your long-term goal, right? Your, your higher brain. Right, because I think it would be like, no, no. I, I actually wanted to, right. Just like I wanted to eat the, that Big Mac and those fries or whatever. We don't eat McDonald's, but if we did, wow.

You, you referenced eating a hamburger, like you're not a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian. Yeah. Anyhow, point being is we do want things in a moment, and we also don't want those things long term. And being able to separate those two things and being able to say, yeah, I can choose this if that's what I want, or I can not choose this if that's what I want, and that's okay either way.

That's okay. Knowing that it's my choice and not some obligation that I'm. You know, required to take on. I'm not required like, like for instance, when it comes to, you know, members of the church and coffee and alcohol, right? We have the word of wisdom. We're not supposed to drink coffee and alcohol. Lots of people would say to you, Hey, you're a Mormon, you can't drink coffee.

And I always, you know, I worked in corporate for a long time and alcohol was readily available every single event that I went to. And, and there was a period where you were required to buy it, like as part of your job? Yeah. Oh yeah, actually, which is really a funny story. Zach and I, we, we'd been married probably like, what, five years?

And we're standing in the alcohol line or in the beer section. We lived in Milwaukee at the time. Which beer is a really big thing here, and we're standing there like, what beer do we buy? We have no idea. Like, we've never even had a sip of beer. Like we had no idea. Uh, they sent the wrong people to buy the, to buy the beer.

I think my bosses liked that I bought all the beer 'cause they knew I wasn't like buying extra and just keeping it at home. Yeah. That, that I'm certain, I'm certain that every once in a while he would sneak in a. Root beer for itself, I would, I would buy root beer and bring it to the, to the events, and then of course, nobody else would drink it.

So I, my boss was like, we'll just take it home. So that was fine too, anyhow. But this idea that as a member of the church, you can drink. Coffee or you could not drink coffee, but that's a matter of choice, right? It's, I can, but I choose not to. If somebody says you can't drink coffee, and if you were stranded in the desert and the only thing available to you keep you alive, literally was coffee, you would drink it and you wouldn't freak out that you were, your entire life was gonna be destroyed.

You would just be like, oh, this is what I needed to do to, to survive in this moment. And I like to equate that to pornography because the truth is that our emotions sometimes feel like we're gonna die. We feel lonely and we feel distressed, and we feel frustrated and we feel lost, and we feel hopeless.

And even though you know, you and I can right now in this moment, or you can even feel really excited. Oh yeah, right? Like if you're not re like not good at feeling really excited. Like, you're like, oh, I need to eat something to tone this excitement down. Right. I don't know if that ever happens for pornography users, but I I see that happening with food for me.

Yeah. And being able to say, I can choose this if I want to. Having that agency taking back your power from pornography and, and its consequences and its effects, and say, no, I have the capacity to choose this. I absolutely am not beholden to it. And if I'm gonna choose it, I can choose it now. I can choose it, you know, five minutes from now.

I can choose it tomorrow, I can choose it in a week. But that's a totally my choice. I can also say no, and we don't really allow that. We, you know, it's interesting. When I was a member, or sorry, when I was, um, when I was, we don't really allow that. When I was working corporate, you know, people would say to me, Hey, you're a Mormon, you can't drink alcohol.

And I would say to them, I, I can, I just choose not to. But if you were to take that same phrase, I can and I choose not to, or I can just the first part of that and say that to your wife, I can look at pornography or to relief society. Right? Society. But really, I even think like. Really taking that to your spouse because I know that you have men that say, oh, I cannot, I did not choose to look at pornography.

Yeah. In our, in our membership and then the, the techniques that I teach, so I mean, if you are trying to work through this and you need some help, you can go to our membership and in one of the components in our membership is plan ahead. Right, and I go into depth in this, in, in the membership, and I'm like, this, this is what you need to do to take back your agency and create a process in your frontal cortex.

And men say to us, I could never choose to look at pornography. My wife would never be okay with me choosing to look at pornography. And I get it. Oh my goodness. Like as a wife, I totally get it. Like, I, I hear you women, I, I'm on your side and this is, and it's really hard because this is part of the process, right?

Just like if we feel like we cannot say no to our husbands because we feel like if I say no to my husband, he'll go look at pornography. Then we also feel like I can't say yes to my husband and really be there. A hundred percent yes. Yeah. Because there's that resentment and that bitterness that happens when you know your husband touches you and you're like, oh, I know what he wants.

Right. That feeling, I know you know what I'm talking about, and that feeling is there. I believe a lot more in marriages where there's pornography because. There's always that period where women try to use sex to control pornography use. Yeah. And part of taking back your agency, taking back your power from pornography is being able to say, I can totally do this if I choose to.

Owning that agency a hundred percent. And then if you don't choose to, that's okay too. And by no means that's better. That's perfect. Yeah. By no means am I advocating yes to use pornography. That's not what I'm saying. Please don't misunderstand me on purpose, uh, because you would have to really, really misunderstand me to misunderstand me on this.

My goal is not for you to use pornography. Most of the time what's happening is you already are using pornography, right? You already are taking that step. We are not saying. You know, just take that step willy-nilly. I'm saying if you are going to choose to use pornography, choose it in a very specific and very, uh, you know, prefrontal cortex, totally owning your agency way, that it's not about the power that pornography has over you.

It's not the about the power that pornography has over your family. It's not about the power, power that pornography has over your life. It's about you choosing to do something to deal with your emotions and. Sometimes that's not really who you want to be long term, but that may be who you choose to be in that moment.

And that's a hundred percent a choice. And I always like to, for the wives to kind of understand that better is equate it to shopping. And when we think that, you know, when we plan ahead, like, okay, I'm gonna go to the store, I'm gonna buy, you know, three pairs of pants and I need a sweater and I need to buy two shirts and.

Um, my kids need this. And, you know, you're all planned out. You have your money, you have your budget, you're ready to go. You get to the store and you're like, there is nothing here. Oh my gosh, the styles are horrible right now. I, I, I cannot find anything. Right. And you really struggled to get what's on your list and to, to spend that money that you allotted.

Yet another scenario would be like, you go into the store and you're just bored. You're like, oh, I'm just gonna go. You know, walk through Target for fun or whatever. All of a sudden they have so many cute clothes in there. Their, uh, clothing section. And there are so many, like good sales, and the shoes are on sale and Right.

Like we, we find all of this stuff when we're not planning on it. And it's like we spend hundreds of dollars and you're like, I didn't, I, I came here for, for sugar. Right. And that is kind of, I'd be very surprised if you showed up at a clothing store for sugar and then you walked away. No, I said Target. Oh, target, okay.

I said, target, dude, pay attention. I, I apologize. Right. And so that is kind of the idea behind it. Because if we are actually planning to do something like that, it's not as, as, uh, you don't get the same rush. Yeah. You don't get the same rush. You don't get that same feeling. You are not necessarily, it's not a impulse.

Yeah. You're not necessarily numbing. Right. Or avoiding an emotion. Right. It's like it's purposeful and it's, but it's also giving you the power to, to choose if that is what you choose. And this question of, you know, how do we, why do we give pornography so much power and how do we take it back is really a, you know, I think it's really one of agency.

It's one of how can I reassert my agency in this space? Allow myself to feel my feelings and put into place a process, a, a, a technique in my day to day that is going to help me say, I am reasserting my agency over this. And for everybody it's different. Yeah. And I just think, you know, most of the couples that we work with are really, really awesome couples.

Like, I'm like, I totally wanna hang out with them. Like, I, I think we should have a live event and just all hang out. It would be so fun. I'm very much looking forward to live events. Again. Live events, no, COVID, that would be amazing. Right? And so. I just think, how amazing would it be if all of us couples that are struggling with pornography in our marriage get together and we're like, pornography, you are going down.

We are winning. And we take back the power that we have as a husband and a wife, or as a mother and a father and a child. And, and we just to say to no, pornography's not going to ruin us. Right. I am not. Even if someone looks at pornography, it's not going to ruin us. Yeah. I am not going to allow pornography to win.

I love that. How, how amazing that would be. I just think that that is so much more beautiful and so much more empowering to come together as a couple and be like, look, we don't like that Pornography's here. You know, I haven't made, I haven't heard of husband that Zach works with. That's like, yeah, I really like that.

I look at pornography. I'm really proud of this. I really, it's, it's really, this is something I actually about, it's really one of my shining moments. Right, right. Like, it's not the case. Just like women. I've never met a, a wife that I work with that's like, yeah, I am so grateful. My husband looks at pornography.

I love it. I think he should just keep doing it. Right. That is not who we're working with, and so. I just think if both the husband and the wife can get together and get on the same page and fight this battle together against pornography and win, how much better? How much better would it be? Yeah, because I just feel like sometimes it feels like a, this is your problem.

You did this to me. Why do you suck so much? You should be a better husband. You should make better choices. Like I could just keep going on and on and on. I feel like we've had this conversation before many years ago, right? So we could, we could come at this like that. I. Or we could come at it as like, wow, we are a pretty awesome couple.

Like we have amazing kids. We have amazing fun together. We love to go on walks, we love to go on date nights. We, we go on date night about three times a week. Yes. It's nice having older kids now. Problem, right? Like I just, I just think if we could focus on all the amazing things that are going on in our relationship and realize that pornography is.

Just a symptom of where we sub, we need someone to improve in an area that needs some work. Yeah. Right. Like just if there's like, I don't know, I just, dental work just popped into my mind, right? Like if you've got some cavities, you don't throw away the whole person. Yeah. You're not like, well, we've got some cavities.

Let's rip out all of your good teeth. And just put in dentures. In dentures. Right, right. Where like, oh, I can see that there's an area you definitely need to get that cavity fixed and drilled out and filled and Right. And I just think of our husbands or even the wives. Right. Or, and this doesn't even have to do with pornography.

This can be for any, any weakness, any struggle. Talk about weight. We could talk about, we could talk about over shopping, we could talk about video games. We could talk about yelling at your kids anger. We could, you know, all of the things, right? If we were like. You know what you have like, I don't know how many, you have like 20 really, really good teeth, right?

And you just have these few that need some work. Like let's focus on how amazing your teeth are, all those other ones, and let's just also work on that instead of like so much like. Freaking out emotion. Like just, yeah, just so much emotion and, and it's really hard to fix a problem when we are so overcome with emotion that we can't even.

See what the problem is. Oh yeah. This is, this is very much the kind of thing that, especially as a parent, you understand. You know how sometimes when your kids come in and they're like freaking out and losing their minds and they're so upset and you can't even understand what's going on. Oh yeah. And they're just screaming, right?

Yes. Our 4-year-old is really good at this right now. Like she will have these tantrums and. You literally have no idea why she is even crying, right? And she's like trying to talk, which she's so emotional that you can't even understand what she's saying. And then the words that you do understand, you can't make out what she's saying still.

And you're like, dude, I really, really do wanna help you, but I. I li I really can't understand what it is that you want. And as the adult, as the parent, then in that moment you're like, okay, well I'm ready to hear you whenever you're ready to talk so I can hear you and understand you. I'm here, I'm ready.

I'm listening and being that kind of a person in that moment, I. Rather than freaking out yourself. 'cause if you freak out yourself, what's gonna happen? The kid's gonna like, keep going and you're never gonna solve the problem. And, and it's not even gonna work. Oh. And we have plenty of examples of that, right?

Where you lose it as a parent, you're just, it's like late at night and the kids, you're like, oh my gosh. Like I am gonna go crazy. Yeah. I, and you don't solve any problems. Right. And then it's just like, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until somebody comes to. Okay. And then you, you might find a solution.

Whereas oftentimes as the parent, if you stay calm, you can typically help calm the child, help them gain control of their emotions, and have a real conversation. And typically it's like, oh, you want a sippy cup of milk? That's all you want. I could totally help you with that. Let's go get a sippy cup of milk.

This. Let me show you how I'm your hero. Yeah, right. But like, I don't know that I, I don't, it's probably a tangent, but I just feel so passionate about how we can get couples on the same page fighting this battle together and love and understanding and. And real intimacy, intimacy connection. Just being connected and being willing to accept someone for who they are.

Yeah. In this moment. Accepting them for who they are. I think that is probably the biggest component of intimacy, that we all forget that, that it, it really is. I, I mean, if you really want intimacy in your life, you have to be willing to accept your partner where they are. And that creates, in my mind, it creates a, it creates a space for them to improve.

It creates a space for them to risk and to be more, and to do more than they would have otherwise been able to do had you not accepted them where they are. You know, if you're constantly telling your spouse, Hey, you gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this, because if you don't do this, I can't feel good, then it's gonna be really hard for them to risk.

The, the opportunity to change, you know, change is a, is a risk. It's difficult, it's not simple. It's not always easy done, easily done. And if they want to stop doing something right, like looking at pornography, then they're gonna have to risk feeling. Something else. They're gonna have to risk dealing with their feelings in a way that they've never done before.

Yeah. And I think it's not accepting the behavior, right, but it is accepting the person for who they are and where they are in their journey. Just the same way that you would accept your child and be like, oh, I get it. You know, you might struggle with, uh, being L-G-B-T-Q, you might struggle with having difficulty with your, um.

With, with your schoolwork. Like we're accepting our children where they are and not freaking out about what's going on with them and helping them resolve the problem by creating a soft landing when they take those risks and they find new ways to, to become a better version of themselves. Yeah. And and I think that goes also with accepting ourselves for who we are and where we're at too.

Right. Which I think that's where it starts. A huge Yeah. It's right. You can't, it's very hard to accept somebody else where they are if you don't accept yourself where you are. And that's where it always comes back to the, I think the best way to help your, your spouse is to help yourself a hundred percent and stop giving pornography so much power in your life.

Stop acting as though it's showing up and it owns you. And it's doing what it's, it's making you do what it tells you to and that it's destroying your marriage. Because it's not, it doesn't have to. Yeah. It really doesn't. In fact, in fact, it's funny because you and I we're sitting here and we talk about pornography, and I think our marriage is stronger now because of the struggle and the trial that we went through.

As you know, me trying to get through pornography, use, you trying to get through the, the control of me and the struggle with feeling, you know, the, the pain of me viewing pornography and what it meant, what you thought it meant about you. Yeah. And, and it's, I, I always think about this, like, what, okay, what would I do if Zach.

Came to me now and said, Hey, I looked at pornography and I really think the only thing that I would think was, man, I'm really kind of sad for you because I know how important it is for you to not look at pornography like I feel like it would be, I would, I would feel sad for him and I don't think I would be, feel sad for me.

Like I would in the past. Yeah. And for me, you know, I'm, I'm serving in a Bishop Rick now for, for the first time, which never thought that would happen in my life. But, you know, I'm, I'm in this place in my life where I think, you know, I have this standing in the community and I'm upholding myself as someone who struggled with pornography and now I no longer do.

And all of that narrative, that story of who I am now. You know, that would, I think there'd be a chink in the armor if, if I had to come to you and say, Hey, I, I looked at pornography. And so that would be a sad moment for me too. Now, would it destroy us? Would it make it so that we stop doing this? No. No.

Nope. But it would make me look and say, what am I missing? What's the thing that I need to learn right now? And if we choose to learn from our trials. Then they don't have power over us. They have power to build us. They have power to create the best version of us. And I think that's really where, you know, we can take our power back from, from pornography or any trial, uh, any trial or any struggle.

Mm-Hmm. Awesome. Hey, you guys. Happy New Year again. Love you guys. We're so grateful for you. Come join us in the Self-Mastery membership. It's awesome. Uh, there's only a few days left before you, the price goes up to the regular price. Uh, you can get founding membership pricing right now, and that is, it's reasonable.

It's one date night every single month, and it's you and your spouse getting the help that you need. It's something that you can sign up for and cancel anytime. So there's very little risk and. A lot of upside. Yeah, a lot of reward. And you can give yourself the gift of, you know, solving this problem this year.

And I, I feel like I've grown so much this year. By by doing this with you. So to me, this has probably been one of the best years. Aw, I love you. You're the best. All right, you guys. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Self-Mastery Podcast. Imagine you sitting next to your loved one and no longer bogged down by the greatest trial of your life.