Episode 267 - How Your Feelings Hold the Key to Breaking Free from Pornography

Episode 267
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[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host, Zach Spafford. Zach Spafford. Today I want to talk about feelings and I'm not gonna sing to you. I'm not gonna sing the song Feelings nothing but feelings. I'm not gonna ask you to get dressed up like a hippie I am just gonna talk about what feelings are and how they're helpful And how, in reality, feelings are something that is very, very important for us to understand when it comes to dealing with our unwanted pornography use.

Now,

I am not a touchy feely guy. I have never been a touchy feely guy. I'm not that kind of guy who's like Let's just sit here and cry together, right? That's not who I am. If you want to cry, I don't have a problem with that. That's totally fine with me but I've never been somebody who is, was deeply in tune with his own feelings.

Let's just say that.

When it comes to dealing with pornography and unwanted pornography use, feelings are one of the key, one of the most important key indicators that tell us what's going on. Feelings are a lot like the check engine light in your car. When that light comes on, this is not, it's not a good idea to put a little electrical tape over that and be like, no, nothing's wrong. I don't have any problems here.

Just like when that light comes on in your car, one of the first things you're going to do is you're going to go and get it checked out. And you're going to say, Hey, what is going on with my car? And that's the same thing that you want to be doing with. They are a sign that something deeper needs some attention, and our emotions are serving as indicators of what the underlying issues might be.

So, unwanted pornography use is often not the problem. Unwanted feelings are not the problem. They are both symptoms of something deeper that isn't being addressed. The real issues might be stress or loneliness, shame, even unmet emotional desires. You can't find out unless you're willing to, you know, in, in the car world, it's called an OBD2 scanner.

You go, you plug that into your car and it says, Hey, these are all the things that are going on in your engine. But in the emotional world, you're going to need to look at what's going on by using tools like the detour cycle. And it's important to understand why feelings matter.

Feelings are indicators. They are there to signal that something in your life, relationships, or your inner world need a little bit of attention. And ignoring the check engine light, isn't going to solve the problem. If you ignore the car check engine light, that's going to lead to breakdowns.

Ignoring your feelings can lead to escalating issues like deeper emotional pain or does, or engaging in destructive habits, like viewing pornography, escapism from reality. And. A lot of times, what is going on for people who are viewing pornography, or overeating, or excessively shopping, or doomscrolling, is they are, they're working to escape from uncomfortable or unwanted feelings, instead of addressing the root cause that is being covered up, or that is being avoided or circumvented when we engage in those activities.

So if you think about the detour cycle, the start of the detour cycle, you know, it's a five step cycle, right? Uh, is the start is the narrative onset. Here's the story, right? Here's the story that my mind is giving.

It's often driven by a difficult or unpleasant event or belief structure in your life, and you aren't addressing it. And that's how we get to the emotional catalyst that we feel terrible. The emotional state that follows the narrative onset fuels that desire for escape.

That's what creates the escape offer is these negative feelings that we're not addressing. Feelings of guilt, shame, frustration, those build up and they push you to seek relief. And what you want to start to do in this process is get to a place where when you feel the emotional catalyst. And it's, the detour cycle is a bit funny because you have to work backwards from these moments that are more likely to grab your attention until you get really good at it.

Most people start noticing the detour cycle when they get to the Escape Offer. But what you're going to do is when you see that escape offer, or when you feel uncomfortable, feel that emotion, you're going to start looking backward to the narrative onset.

And you're going to look for those feelings of inadequacy or, or loneliness that have been triggered by thoughts like, "I'm not enough," or "I can never truly be loved" or whatever it is that you're feeling. Are the thoughts that lead you to that emotional discomfort, which sets up the detour to the unwanted behavior, whether it's porn or something else.

When you get good at seeing Your emotions in the detour cycle, you'll start to understand how helpful they are.

And one of the ways to get good at seeing those emotions is by getting good at identifying what emotions there are in your life. When you notice, say, the urge to use pornography, [00:05:00] pause and check in with your feelings.

What are you feeling right now? Is it stress? Is it boredom? Is it loneliness? Is it frustration? What is it that your brain is offering you and start to see it for what it is.

It's a 90 second discomfort that you can move through. And as you see those emotions, you're going to start to ask yourself, what's the underlying problem? Why am I feeling this way?

Once you've identified what you're feeling, identifying why you're feeling that helps you look at it directly and deal with it, that Narrative Onset. Which can help you take values based action instead of opting for temporary escape.

Once you've identified the feeling, you can take values based action instead of opting for a temporary escape.

So what does that look like?:

"I feel lonely. Why do I feel lonely? Because my brain is offering me this idea that I'm not loved. Why, why do I feel like I'm not loved? What, what is it that my brain is offering me that says I'm not loved?

Well, it's that my wife didn't hug me immediately when I got home from a long trip. She was busy feeding the kids, right? And now here we have this belief structure that we can address. Well, why did, why did that happen? What was going on there? Was there something that I could do differently that aligns with my values irrespective of what she does?"

In starting to dig backwards towards the beginning of the problem, we start to have more control and more opportunity to take action in a direction that fuels and feeds goodness in our lives, which In the long run, and this is really the most important part, in the long run, then our brain doesn't have to offer us an escape, because it knows we're dealing with it.

Emotional awareness is empowerment, and being able to identify and name these emotions, that gives you the power to deal with the underlying problem.

Instead of being controlled by the urge to escape, you regain the ability to make choices that align with your values.

And what we want to do is connect feelings to our values. When we use pornography, it often conflicts with our deeper values, leading to additional guilt and shame. But feelings can help guide us back to our values.

For example, if you value intimacy in your relationship, feelings of loneliness might be telling you to seek connection with a loved one instead of escaping into pornography.

And another component of this has to be reframing these negative emotions. Instead of seeing feelings like stress or loneliness as things to avoid, as things that just are unpleasant and that we have to run from, we want to view these as opportunities to make choices that align with our values, to see ourselves more clearly, to understand what's going on with ourselves.

Negative emotions, all emotions, are indicators. If we think about our negative emotions as indicators then we get the opportunity to do something about it rather than trying to avoid it, trying to run from it.

Your emotions are trying to communicate something to you that matters to you.

So being aware that these are not bad things, negative emotions aren't even bad, they just don't feel very good. Gives us an opportunity to do something different that helps us align ourselves more closely with the things that do matter to us.

So what are some practical things that you can do to tune into your emotions? Practice emotional check ins throughout the day. Ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? This does not have to be, you know, you sitting in a yoga pose or, you sitting in the middle of your office, cross legged with your hands on your, on your knees saying om.

This really is just you catching up with your brain, catching up with what's going on internally, being self aware of what's moving On the inside. And when you catch up and understand your emotions, you can deal with them before they escalate that regular check in is essential.

The other thing you want to do is cultivate mindfulness. You want to stay present with your emotions rather than trying to escape them. I know that seems a little bit strange because a lot of us have been taught to escape our emotions, especially men. It's like, "Hey, You know, get up, rub some dirt on it, get back out there. You don't need to be crying or you don't, you don't get the opportunity to be upset here. You have to go back and do what needs to be done."

But I want you to understand, escaping those feelings has been the process that you've been using, and it's not been working in, in the arena of dealing with your pornography use.

Accepting difficult feelings and dealing with them up front for 90 seconds or so, gives you this opportunity to be present with yourself, but also so that your actions aren't controlled simply by your emotions. The other thing you want to do is connect to values based actions. When you notice an emotion, ask yourself, "what can I do that aligns with my values to address this [00:10:00] particular feeling?"

Being aware, being in tune with your emotions and practicing that regularly is going to yield enormous dividends in helping you deal with the underlying causes and also help you in training your mind to not offer you Escapes from Reality by choosing pornography.

And also help you deal with things so that your brain doesn't need to offer you pornography in order to manage your sense of self and manage your emotions.

Feelings matter because they are trying to help you understand what's really going on beneath the surface and by tuning into them you can address the root causes of your behavior and break that detour cycle that's been taking you towards pornography throughout your life, which in turn is going to help you make choices that align with your values.

I want you to use your feelings as a guide instead of viewing them as an enemy or as something to avoid.

In doing that, you are going to find that everything in your life can shift.

You're going to find that dealing with your pornography struggle is so much easier. Alright, my friends. I hope this has been helpful.

Please feel free to go back and listen to the Detour Cycle, which is episode 238. I did it, uh, in March of this year. And, I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But, make sure that you're utilizing all the tools available to you.

And if you're ready to take the next step and get some more help with this, feel free to go to gettothrive. com slash work with Zach. And I would love to meet with you. All right, my friends, we'll talk to you next week.