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. Welcome to thrive beyond pornography today. I'm going to talk about a book I've been reading called the obstacle is the way, and I think this is a great book, to be honest, it's one of my. All time favorites at this point. And I want to just share with you some of the things that I've learned from it. Some of the things that have really resonated with me, I think this is a really.

Good book for anybody who's struggling to overcome pornography. Not because it's about pornography, but because it's about a way of thinking that will help you a way of thinking, doing an act and being thinking, doing. It's a way of thinking, doing, and being that will allow you to really effectively.

Begin the process of eliminating pornography in your life. What am I. Every single one of my clients, I think wishes that pornography was not part of their lives. Everybody that I work with, they are struggling. They have struggled deeply with the difficulty of managing an unwanted habit. That's really contrary to their values and keeps them from fully living the life they want to live.

There was an ancient. Roman emperor named Marcus Aurelius and. One of the things that he said was. What stands in the way becomes the way. Many of us, me included have worked to get around pornography to block it out, to minimize thoughts of it, to fight with the urges. And every other strategy that we've ever been offered to push porn out of our lives yet.

I think there it stays. Fully part of the world we live in now. Too many of us are failing to eliminate a pornography habit because we are working hard to pretend that we can make it. So porn doesn't exist. That's essentially, I think the way that we are approaching this problem is. Or that many people are approaching this problem.

Is trying to make it so poor and doesn't exist in their lives. And I think you can get to a certain point where. Mostly you don't encounter porn, but the reality is. There's this idea. There's this reality that porn does exist. And if we pretend that it doesn't, then we're not really addressing it appropriately or properly in the book, the obstacle is the way Ryan holiday described.

In the book, the obstacle is the way Ryan holiday describes the way of the stoic and ancient philosophy with powerful ideas that can be helpful to those who are working to create a life beyond pornography. There he describes three keys to anyone's success. The first is perception. How we look at a problem is the first key to how we're going to solve the problem we've been taught. I've been taught. You probably have been taught.

And we tend to have this perception that porn is going to destroy us. That is.

That it can control us that we are victims of it. In the obstacle of the world is the way, and the obstacle is the way. Paraklete is setting sail in the Peloponnesian war. This is an ancient Greek war that I had never heard of. Or if I had, it was only in passing. And a solar eclipse, blacks out the sun, and all of his men become terrified and say that it is a dark omen and that they shouldn't sale. And the gods won't favor them and all kinds of things. And apparently is this great warrior he's thinking fast on his feet. And he says to his man, if I put a cloak over your face,

Would you be scared and the men, these are, these are warriors. They're like, no, of course I wouldn't be scared of you put a cloak over my face. And Pericles responds in this matter of fact way. And he says, what does it matter? What causes the darkness? Darkness itself is not scary. We have been making porn out to be a sort of boogeyman that can come and get us. It has become something that we have been told can own us, hold us and keep us our whole lives. If we let it get a toehold.

But just like the darkness porn is not the thing that's going to get us. It's our own difficulty in dealing with our emotions, discomfort, and loneliness. That's drawing us into pornography. If pornography. Is the darkness that we want to get rid of in our lives, the darkness itself isn't what's scary.

I used to think that pornography was this huge difficulty that I had to overcome and beat. But what I now believe, and I know is true for you, who are listening is that pornography is not the difficulty we have to face. The difficulty we need to face is internal. It's the way we interact with our emotional state and it is the way we fail to face our discomfort and anxiety head on.

And this new perspective is exactly the way that we need to approach this in order to successfully eliminate pornography from our lives. Perspective is essential in eliminating an unwanted pornography struggle. And when we change our perspective from porn is the boogeyman to porn is just an obstacle that I need to resolve and it is an indicator of what things I'm not resolving in my life. Then we actually have a real solid foothold in what we need to do and how we can eliminate our pornography struggle.

Speaking of facing our struggles head on the second part of this stoic philosophy is action. This is often the part where we have no idea what to do, because we have not been given actionable clear tools to help us resolve our struggles. This is where finding tools that serve us with demonstrable effectiveness to take action toward resolving our struggle comes in.

The story of Demosthenes is a great example of this principle of action with effective tools as a young man Demosthenes was robbed of a great fortune by those who were meant to care for him in his anguish. He determined to bring those evil relatives who had wronged him to justice. He decides that to do this. He has to become a great order. An incredibly difficult task for him. At one point, he moves into an underground cave. He shaves half his head, so we won't go out. He's embarrassed to go out. So. You know, it was half his head is shaved and half of it's not and he practices. With rocks in his mouth, he shouts into the wind and he hones his abilities over years.

He finally does bring his family to justice. But more than the obstacle that he was facing, which was the loss of his fortune and this great injustice, he became a great orator. And one of the most powerful politicians and speakers in all of ancient Greece.

Many of us when faced with a trial or struggle, tend to hope it goes away on its own. I know I did when it came to pornography and overcoming pornography is just not going to do that. It's not, if that's the way that you address your pornography struggle.

It's not going to just go away. I know, I know. I pray. I kept saying to my Heavenly Father, "will you please take this one thing from me? And I'll be good."

And the problem was that it just kept lurking there in the background. No matter how long I stayed away from it. Finding tools, practicing tools and using those tools in game time situations is the only way. To move beyond pornography in a meaningful way.

No matter how many setbacks you have along the way.

And some of you will say, "what about Heavenly Father? What about the power of God and His capacity to help us resolve these things?" I absolutely believe in that, but I also believe in the fact that He is not going to take something away from you that is a trial that's designed to help you grow. That's just not how He works, I don't think. Yes, absolutely His grace, His capacity, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ allows us to move forward. But none of that. Takes away from us, the need to create greater capacity in our lives. None of that gives us a free pass to just lay down and wait for Him to do it. Those are different things. I know for me, that's how I felt. I was like," Hey , Heavenly Father, please just solve this for me. And then I'll be good." But what I was really asking Him to do was to take away a trial that was going to make me into a better person. And that's not it. He's not going to do that. We have to take action. We have to grow. We have to become better and He will give us the grace to do that and allow us the space to make mistakes in that process. That's what I believe.

And that perspective. Has given me the capacity. To lean on his grace. Lean on the atonement lean on. The things that. I can't do. When I need them. Like forgive myself. That sort of thing. And move forward and take action. And learn skills and understand my brain and all of the things that it takes to move this process forward in a way that I have empowerment.

And when I have empowerment, then I can actually start to succeed.

And I think that's what our Heavenly Father intends us to do is to be empowered, to utilize our agency and then lean on Him when we need it. Not wait for him to fix it. And then we become empowered. I don't think that's how it works.

And that may be a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one. And this is, this goes back to perception. You know, we're talking about action right now, but this idea goes back to perception in that. Understanding these subtle distinctions allows us to take more and better action. And when we can do that, we're, we're more successful every time. The last component of this ancient philosophy is will. In this context, it is essentially two ideas.

First it's willingness and second it's resolution. These two concepts come together. And I think this one idea that comes out of the book, which is. "Using everything that happens to us as fuel to become the person we want to become."

A lot of what I did when I struggled with porn was trying to run from it. Mentally, whenever I made a mistake, I would distance myself from that mistake. Emotionally, I wasn't capable of seeing what was upsetting or disquieting me. And I thought to be a man, I can't get lost in all of these emotions.

Willingness. And the willingness part of will is being willing to approach and address these kinds of discomforts head on.

When I got good at eliminating porn for my life, I got good at analyzing my mistakes. Head-on. And face forward. When I got good at being able to deal with my emotions. Understand why they are coming up and going through them directly instead of trying to avoid them. Was when porn stopped being problematic for me.

This came from a willingness to feel bad and. Essentially suck and have my life not always be enjoyable. It was a willingness to stop avoiding these things and deal with them that made it possible. There's this concept of Amor Fati or love of fate. In the book, the author quotes Marcus Aurelius, as saying, " what you throw on a fire? The fire turns into light and heat," and I used to have a boss who would say, "absorb heat, radiate sunshine." this is a concept that I can go through, take what I've been given and make it better and I'll be better for it. That's what we're looking at. This is a willingness to deal.

The next component of will is resolve. The resolve to keep going to endure, to rebuild each time we are beaten allows us to progress. No matter the odds

the famous story of Thomas Edison, who was at one point the most prolific inventor, powerful businessman and owner of his time and at the height of his success, his factory burns to the ground.

And he could have just retired. He was a wealthy man with many patents that he could have licensed to others to build his inventions. Rather than end his career in a literal ball of flames. He rebuilt. He took all that knowledge. He had any, all the skills he had acquired over a lifetime and came back bigger and better than ever before his resolve to keep going to try again, to rebuild in spite of the difficulty was and is legendary.

This will, or this resolve to create, to build, to become better, to have more, to go through, to. Just never give up. That is. That is quintessentially this stoic philosophy and putting all three of these together, you can see how. How much they will affect the way that you can. Attack and approach your pornography struggle.

And this book has really struck a chord with me. I found it really very closely. I found it very closely mirrors my own ideas and my own sense of how to resolve to be better in life. To be someone who doesn't struggle with pornography.

It also fits very closely the overarching philosophy that I brought into overcoming pornography for myself and for my clients. And if you are struggling with porn, You can start here and just take action. You know, I have a free call every single day. You can go to zachspafford.com/freecall

you can go on and just watch the video. You don't even have to wait for me. You can go on, watch the video and I talk in depth about how I can help you quit porn. You can also just sign up for a free consult. Go to zachspafford.com/workwiththrive. And you can have a conversation with me directly.

But. More than anything. If you take nothing else from this conversation. It's that this is doable. I hope you can understand that this is doable. Maybe you're doing it on your own. Maybe you're saying, Hey, I'll just do it all by myself. And that's awesome. Good for you. Keep going, keep doing it. This is doable. If you are willing to put in the effort.

Practice the skills and exercise. In non-game time situations all of the things that you're learning, you will succeed. All right. My friends. I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening. Please share this with somebody who needs it. I will talk to you next week.

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