Divine Self Mastery - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB7YVAoSgPA

Transcript:

(00:00) [Music] because I mean it's uh I'm excited to do this there are two talks that I absolutely uh love to talk on marriage and this topic kind of weird right I found it very fascinating and I want to thank this opportunity to be here and also my wife who's serious here right now she has been through this dream of Discovery with people over the last 10 years in an amazing sounding board and giving me not only a woman's perspective but a mother at a grandmother's perspective on these topics and pushing you back pushing me

(00:43) in areas that you know maybe manually theme and that's really the journey I want to take you on today is how I got to where I am working with clients that I do this is a prolific issue that we deal with pornography and today I'm going to be speaking boldly I hope that's okay with most people I will give you a heads up I think it's very important to use correct terminology and to engage the topic bravely and confidently without fear or shame and we're going to hear that a lot and that's kind of my objectives here is

(01:14) focusing on it's kind of I've taken 10 years of experience and I want to be clear here nothing here is controlled science even though I'm a data scientist a lot of this is just clinical uh I want to be very clear about that sitting any expectations higher than they should be um and so some people qualifying bias there's a possibility that I'm just seeing a certain type of clientele and so I want you to consider that these are just some observations I'm not necessarily saying this is the way it

(01:43) has to be done but I want to share this journey with you and some of the things I've noticed over the last 10 years is some things that we're not addressing very well a long-term unintended consequences of the way we're traditionally and I refer to traditional approaches I'm often referred to as their feared process or something um where it didn't work well for some people but we're not actually considering long-term effects it's this there's an All or Nothing mentality black and white thinking at all cost I

(02:15) don't give uh and the goal here is to really read the Kindle if you hadn't had it before to at least find joy of Hope and bold confidence in this pursuit of opportunity we talk a lot about avoidance shame if you're I'm going to dive into that we talk a lot about not doing it but I want to show you what that looks like and so I'm not just going to be throwing up data up here and sharing a lot of my cool fun experiences but I'm going to bring in a couple of clients and he let him hear their

(02:47) experiences here so you're going to get to actually hear from a female who's actually who had struggled with this for quite a few years and how she's never returned back to her the long-term sustainable change is exciting but we don't see it alone valued over objectifying this is an important one I discovered it actually really uh work to the surface of my understanding more recently than not is we talk about you know the form user objectifying things and that is often a lot of attention to relationships I'm

(03:24) going to bring in a different perspective while that's a valid perspective we often objectify the porn user by the way we respond and treat them treat them and I think that is very crucial to understand and embrace and address appropriately [Music] uh and then we're going to get into some data driven a lot of the charts on the show I removed you're going to see I measured time over over like usage I wanted to remove the values the reason why I remove the values is there's this tendency to compare and I don't want to

(03:58) do Compares I want you to see that for a second so you're going to see a lot of charts in here where I've removed time spent in pornography and other activities for that purpose I don't want you to get caught up in it well it's only this map of a boy I'm way worse I don't want that thought here um I want you just to see the pattern that is the goal there's I'm going to go through a lot here I've broken some Cardinal rules with with presentation using PowerPoint I know I feel bad I'm going to repent

(04:26) but take pictures if you want we are going to go through this quickly I put a lot of words on the screen because I don't want to miss represent anything special on these sensitive topics so feel free to take pictures and also that's the Facebook group I want a caution if this is a very bold group it's a private group of privates you can get on social media but we talk very quickly in there so if you're not ready for something like that but we will continue the conversation in that group if you want to have any additional

(04:55) questions that you can't need to do that there's that phrase I want this to be called I absolutely love this talk I can't tell you how many times have I read it perfect love cast it up all over the door this whole talk is absolutely amazing like Julie my wife will testify when I heard you give this talk he's back in 2017 27 I believe um I jump because it runs true exactly to what I was Finding in the office we're going to dive into a little bit more of what his talk was but I want you to embrace that set aside your fears

(05:32) when we're talking about this our fears are about they inform us but let's set them aside momentarily unless a new insights to come up and embrace the joy of Hope in this bold confidence is being engaged in this discussion I want to introduce an appropriately named her her hope because when she came to me it was a Saturday afternoon I remember we were just done working out I got a phone call she found me on LDS counselors and I was pretty you know I was still had a lot of experience with couples but

(06:01) not a lot with addiction recovery uh sexual health issues but she was out of Westwood he came to me we were in a political because when she came to me she didn't have she was at the end it was a very humbling conversation because I could feel the weight of the call she had wanted to make sure are you married she was trying to make sure everything was appropriate are you LPS she put me through a garage with questions uh but hope [Music] um essentially said either I don't have enough Faith or God doesn't

(06:39) exist because I have done everything to conquer my desire for pornography and I just felt that way am I tell me more what did you by the way you're gonna hear me use a lot of language I'm bodily as I'm presenting so there's many questions like how do I address this with my partner my kid um my spouse what does that look like tell me more is such a powerful phrase that I've learned with couples when it gets scary and it gets big learn that phrase tell me more we're going to discuss a little bit more

(07:12) why that's so powerful why that's so important especially on this Top Line she was scared she thought she was either the church wasn't true or she didn't have faith and she had Faith a temple worker she would do everything precisely correct I Tuesday I don't think I've met somebody we're gonna come back to her one of the things I wanted to point out is this reality one of the things I talk about to help immediately celebrate those who come to me with their burdens it's not your fault

(07:46) let's look at the data unfortunately we don't have a lot of data and I boy that would be a great research project if people can go study ARP people can study 12-step programs we don't keep records that blows my mind why don't we keep track of what works and what doesn't work if we find the process sometimes do nothing has a higher success rate so that's sometimes what I what I was telling home let's lift that burden let's celebrate you're still coming don't beat yourself up yes you've been

(08:15) to all these programs they didn't necessarily you didn't necessarily fill and we're going to talk about why this is my sin I am sorry I wanted you to have the words but you're going to hear from Hope right now you're going to hear a journey in the first paragraph Hope is talking you're going to hear the classic traditional fears and then in the second paragraph you're going to see something different I want you to hear her voice every single anything related to sex for being with shrouded in cheating

(08:47) and whether it was a feeling I had well whatever listening to a song that whatever like if it brought up it was she which I think then was actually driving more backwards pornography right and and I was I was in this cycle and I had achieved and suppressed my sexuality not all that's pretty much right I never allowed myself to experience that and um and so starting to to dive in there and to to start learning or to start being open to the fact that oh like I have sexual desires oh and maybe that's not a bad thing

(09:37) um what are they I don't know like and and a lot of this was was breaking the Sheep of separating myself into shame of my sexuality or the fact that we as humans are sexual beings right like it's part of our divine nature that's what was it like to actually verbalize it for you to verbalize use your desires you do your your sexuality um it was a kind of Liberty a little bit of you know to be able to it's self-validating it's like oh I actually this is who I am and I can say that that feels good it didn't make your behavior

(10:24) worse um absolutely not and I think that's another good point is is I was living my life in feared been a lot worse right I was afraid that if I heard an inappropriate song that it was going to leave a different Army that if I watched an inappropriate movie there was no language of pornography if I was at a bridal shower and they got laundry and started talking about sex it was like anything sex people through like feared that that's where it would be um and exploring my own sexuality and coming to terms and starting to love

(11:11) myself as a sexual human being allowed me to take those that cause me fear and then no longer I was not afraid of them it turns out they didn't need to perform this is what I call stop language we use it a lot stop this remove it don't go there eventually everything becomes fun you just turn Ed so much power and allowed him to take us over did you hear that in her voice everything and I see this a lot in couples relationships where some spouses won't let the other go to the gym because they're afraid they're

(11:57) going to see somebody half naked or the the beach or I I'm fairly confident I've done this for a while that somebody knows somebody like that if not you're in that situation modest is hottest this type of language is a form of what I refer to as sexual silence it silence the topic and actually makes it bigger don't talk about this as a parent of five kids to blend family I've had this experience as I've discovered this in in our lives and our relationship how I treat this with my youngest Now versus

(12:31) my oldest when when one of our kids came to us last year and said he was struggling I didn't use any stoppage tell me more I bet that was exciting a sudden this this very droopy scared kid lightened up there's a big difference in how he responded so this is where I repeat the numbers I want you to look at this pattern let me come back to it this is Hope and as you can see this is periods because again I don't want to get caught up on whether it's weeks or days or months but in this case this is about 10 years and this

(13:10) hope is a religious uh documenting person one of the best and she's very helpful in providing a lot of this insight after the first 25 periods there she hasn't returned we don't see that what happened what was different and this pattern that you're seeing here I think is interesting I'm going to talk to that a little bit more what about you I don't do anything really different uh and the best way I classify this other thing I often say stop confessing and start being curious we confess a lot we bring that weight in

(13:51) um and we don't get anywhere it just gets scarier and scary when we when I talk about fantastic I'm not necessarily speaking about your leaders but to your partner your wife your future partner we come into the conversation when do I tell them how do I tell them that really puts a stop to the conversation it feels heavy and scary and so what I do is I have people do this assessment and I've kind of done this so whether you're a clinician or not a parent or or yourself or starving you can follow this pattern

(14:21) assessment is so critical we evaluate their schema their perspectives their schemas what we use to kind of make sense of the world quickly it's kind of how we frame structure our perspectives we create baselines it's so crucial I can't tell you how many people hundreds now maybe um who've spent thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars on treatments ever been assessed how frequent are these pornography did you really need that 30-day impatient 30 000 program you know whenever no one has ever

(14:59) actually got details Baseline I'll show you why that's important in a minute and then coming up with strategies that help prevent unintended long-term consequences and I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute but I want to give you an overview I call this Divine self-mastery not because I think this is from God but I'm combining data-driven results [Music] um with how we use prayer or your faith in that process we're changing the language of prayer please stop this desire we need to get away from that and

(15:32) start having a conversation with the Lord as opposed to Stockland so I'll give you an example of here helping to stop these are instead now we can rephrase it when you're in prayer talk to the world there's this thing going on in your body that's very important we talk about trauma mental health disorders and how important is to understand what's happening in our bodies as somebody who is and kind of anxious subtly anxious I have to evaluate all the time what is my environment what's my body telling me

(16:06) but we don't do that well with this treatment so having this conversation with whomever especially the Lord these are challenging feelings how does it fit within my values instruction in the language of Prayer help me to understand my unique desires and sexual experiences as opposed to judging them oh my goodness what does that mean about me that's all stop language it's very scary ask the question let me to that that's interesting that kind of put on your scientist hat or your code whatever um and Sport

(16:41) I love Carl Young I I don't think there's a better way to phrase this what he resist not only persists but will grow in size and I have seen this over and over and over we'll go into a new program the Melba team will wear out you're back where you were and there's another reason for that we'll talk about homeostasis here homeostasis is an interesting thing we thrive on predictability and tell you how many people I've worked with who were single and conquered their pornography now I want to tell you this

(17:13) if you're planning on getting married to somebody who's had a history of pornography use be prepared it will come up again I will predict that with holes 100 certainty why is that because you're entering into a new stressor that's unfamiliar when we engage into a stressor that we're unfamiliar with with little experience we as humans don't like that lack of predictability to build balance our life correctly so sometimes we revert to unhealthy undesired behaviors to increase predictability I want you to remember

(17:47) that so that you have a little bit more empathy when you engage in people who are struggling it's not because they're weak but maybe they're just trying to create balance and this could be good stress maybe you're having a kid or getting married these things are you've never done in your life so it creates this unbalancing and then it freaks people out because we regressed we'll come up with a plan on how we address that so let's get back here in this section we're going to talk about assessment why

(18:15) this is so important celebrate this is the first thing I try to do because the burdens of their history are coming into the room you need to meet it with a smile I encourage you to meet him smile and identify successes as soon as you can if you can create um others out of order um if you can create some sort of positive reinforcement uh let me use a different word there that means different things to different people so we'll just stick with that to celebrate find something you're here this is awesome oh you're struggling great tell

(18:50) me more get into it Alder oats wonderful talk he emphasized this we need to do better with assessing situations I have worked with people who've literally in in their entire adult life had maybe a couple of instances of looking at a variety of pornography we're talking maybe an hour's worth in their entire adult life but they're being treated as though they're full-blown porn addicts that's a problem and there's a reason here I'm going to come back to the sorry I want to say that a lot because a lot of this

(19:25) is very tied up together how do we create that celebration we want to create an absence of fear now you can experience fear that's okay if you're a partner or somebody who's struggling it's okay to have fear one of the things that we learn in our marriage is this is to be able to have this courage to say yeah this is difficult for me to hear but it's important for me to hear from you this is a part of you I'm really intimate so what we do is we create an absence of judgment as best as you can

(19:56) when you do that we can replace the I usually use the slide for for married couples but that's where we start to feel this real connection which means to a feeling of illness even when you're struggling you'll notice that I'm making this number up of course but like 90 of the problem is the fear it's also okay to not understand this is a very topic I could go on for about an hour as I have sometimes we feel like we have to understand put aside the understanding there's no way I can understand my

(20:30) wife's experiences as much as she wants to tell me the place the purpose here is to create safety and no judgment and to welcome a discussion um something else we don't consider when we talk and work with people is pre-existing conditions they've done some studies out there so these are legitimate studies not just my my experience that there was a a serious pre-existing condition for for what we've called sex addicts and 90 to 80 of the cases before they were even using porn question and the problem with most

(21:07) studies that you may need today that you get your information from is they don't control for this variable and so very different things to treat by the way it may sound like I'm going to ask some really weird questions I can make it like why would you ever do that it doesn't matter this is one of them this is a problem I've met individuals who have no problems with porn until they got married not because they engaged in porn because they're why or their spouse had a different definition of what porn

(21:37) was it became problematic it's important to meet with people what is their definition not yours theirs and this is a big problem I've worked with return missionaries who've been [Music] who haven't engaged in pornography for six months then they go off to BYU Idaho and this happened a couple years ago and because the bishop that he met with said well our our my my heart line is you can't have a different Army for a year guess what happened you regressed so right back into the old tablet even

(22:19) though he'd gone longer than he had ever gone before without the use of Bernard so the problem is you start making some definitions there is no clear definition and that's as you're hearing pope say at the beginning was everything became pornography and so that's part of this assessment process is how do we take that power away from even going to a bridal shower or whatever it may be going to the gym this is not a weird question I wouldn't know what your definition of success is not mine one of the questions I asked usually

(22:54) married couples or somebody who's married is if this wasn't a problem with your bishop or your spouse would it be a problem for you almost all the time they would say no I feel like I'm okay not because they're minimizing but because they're trying to succeed based on somebody else's definition that put yourself in any other situation I've learned we do a lot of Fitness it's like okay you're not successful because you're not lifting the same way to somebody else oh my goodness well you can't set that

(23:28) that goal for me and that becomes problematic another question is is it sustainable some people get into these very elaborate plans while they work for a date a week month so forth it burns out because it's not a very uh sustainable at what cost with couple uh years ago and he was telling me that they're having problems in their relationship older married couple kids might be mostly kids were out of the house so they're in their later years I guess that's where we're at too um he started talking about the troubles he

(24:08) had in his marriage and long story short had nothing to do with Bernard well it kind of did but the troubles was because of he was taking the at all cost approach he had been at an airplane and one of the council the council had got there one time was do everything to avoid your triggers and he discovered his wife was his trigger so we would get up out of bed before she did and you can go to bed after she did sober for five years they didn't have any intimate interaction but he didn't even see it because that

(24:44) was his boundary that was his avoiding at all cost a trigger to get you know back into pornography so they're on the verge of divorce very interesting situation that we need to reevaluate that so whenever we're engaging people important to keep those two things at hand is what is their definition what is your measurement for success so we're on a schema here so I'm going to come back here and I want to point out what Elder roads are saying here down the Bold on the bottom this is a very interesting come but I have I've

(25:21) tried to articulate it I want to take you through a first uh an individual's actual experience and I want you to see how this flushes out this is so so critical it's so we're a church that teaches the atonement the atonement saves all so why didn't do people sometimes think they're outside the reach at least um if behavior is incorrectly classified as an addiction and we don't even use the word Addiction the user may need may think he or she has lost agency and capacity to overcome the problem most of us may be thinking

(25:54) how is that even possible I mean we talk about this infinite atonement so how does somebody get there let me take you through that this cycle here we're going to talk about Jada um he has this experience with human pornography creates isolation anger all these fear emotions he goes with the horses as we hope our kids will do to parent a spouse or leader fill in the blank they stand as a result of the pornography maybe it is maybe he isn't but the way they respond is reinforce the economy do this do that temper well the problem is

(26:31) is that it's unsuccessful because he still has these thoughts he's trying to pass the sacrament imagine a 14 year old who's out of control of his uh hormones still passing the sacraments struggling with these thoughts and feelings this is the thing I think we adults forget what it was like to hit puberty and experience what it's like in the most random moments you get these sudden urges but he's now Associated campuses evil and the atonement's not working so the cycle plays out the sneaky through it

(27:00) I'm ready to get rid of this notice the language get rid of what my curiosity is up I don't know I'm not going to make any assumptions you know my struggles he doesn't want to say it see this in adults a lot a lot what are your struggles very generally come on you're safe here I want I want to know tell me more are you really going to make me say them I don't want to I don't want to think about it at all I'm not supposed to think about it at all we know there's some not truths there but think about a

(27:35) young kid I'm scared I'm scared where are the thoughts these thoughts going to lead me to more and more scare your home usage so forth I'm out of control I wouldn't be able to marry in the temple I mean it starts to snowball we call that catastrophizing and think of a 14 year old thinking they've learned lost their Eternal salvation because they think they can't escape this it becomes a vicious cycle I'm wondering if it's embarrassing to talk about your struggles again I'm not assuming

(28:04) emotions I want him to tease it out no he doesn't even know watch what's happening I hate to talk about it how it makes me feel would you be willing to share how it makes you feel you notice how I shifted from what I think it was so let's talk about you just mentioned some emotions these are important things to explore not to be scared of them would you be willing to share how it makes you feel evil it makes me feel dark ah talk about a 14 year old telling you this I can't imagine how scared that must

(28:38) feel would you be willing to share that what your experiences what you're experiencing why why are we doing this at all it's pointless this is really upsetting you I'm not sure if I'm understanding last session you express itself and hope with the progress that you're making over the last few centuries what what is it uh see what is it that you can use points why doesn't let me see what he's going stop playing stop holding him that's what he's taught he's so scared of his own thoughts and

(29:08) thinking how have you he's not a call up but what do you think you think the stock language come out as a as a as a sibling a partner um someone who's trying to support others we do it unintentionally a lot and they pick that up this sexual silence shuts down conversation and understand that's an important question why does it matter it feels like you're experiencing hopelessness and despair am I understanding you correctly it's not going away all he's focused on is getting away you're going to see this

(29:40) pattern always the goal get it away I'm tired of fighting the thoughts I don't blame you what do you mean what are you talking about the atonement isn't for me is it your belief that the atonement isn't for everyone no that's not what I'm saying the atonement is for everyone it's just not working for me you don't feel the atonement is working because you keep having these thoughts we're discovering a lot here this is so important yes maybe well when you put it that way I guess not he's not sugar

(30:14) but that's not what I'm talking about what do you mean so you see how the cycle he's punching himself more than any one of us in convention so when we come into conversations you've got to stop this we're going to check you into another program you're not helping it's not happening it's just reinforcing this this is why sometimes a classic I'm going to make that distinction classic CBT cognitive behavioral therapy sometimes reinforces it so we've got to be careful how we use

(30:43) those thought log patterns because sometimes we we're trying to change the thought but we're actually reinforcing it so I'm not saying it's a wrong leader approach it just be mindful on how you're potentially reinforcing uh undesirable thoughts no you're not understanding I like the thoughts the truth is coming out and I was excited because usually people don't admit this because it's very scary thing it feels good I enjoy seeing the poor and it feels good to masturbate [Music] a temptation is to stop while we don't

(31:22) stop that we gotta figure out no you're right it does feel good respond that way show a welcome we're so afraid that's going to make it worse that we've stopped seeing the individual we start objectifying them no no no we got to prevent this if you knew the thoughts I had that's his scariest thought is he can't even be himself Brian will be BYU here did some great research on this I'm not going to cover it all I just want to throw that reference up here but you share an experience in an article about an

(32:07) individual by the age of 16 when I looked at myself in the mirror I saw someone no good Mormon girl would ever marry I regret that I had an effort the people weren't these are the burdens we're carrying people are fighting this so using stock language you're gonna hear me say it's over and over is not helping you need to invite that uh Dave blade another therapist says referring to that in white study by Brian Willoughby and that seeing oneself as an adequate porn is far more damaging than actually using pornography I've

(32:41) seen this over and over and over our response needs to change let's come back to this talk I absolutely love you're going to see this over and over and you're going to feel it's deception and I'm going to challenge you there's always exceptions here I'm not speaking absolutely but for the most part when you feel like people it makes me cringe hear people you know who slipped up in pornography and then they're called Liars or gaslighters or terminology that's like that very scary because

(33:09) they're not considering What's Happening Here I have disappointed myself my God my family everyone there's no we call that double button you can't win and so sometimes you do all the right things but you're not feeling the right things you know Wonder we feel confused and conflicted you know I'd love to use the analogy of the tree of life we don't have a lot of time but I want to get into that here real quick there's two groups of people who go to the Tree of Life those who clean those

(33:40) who press forward those who clean get to the tree but don't experience what they should be experiencing cleaning is an act of fear my interpretation what happened okay um some things that we don't have a lot of time to get into this but I want to point you to this Jason Staples breaks down some myths around uh our perceptions of things one that I hear often is lust this word lust we gotta stop lusting well that's not actually what that scripture means and he brings us down really well anyway he's not LDS

(34:12) but look at the language this happens outside of our faith also why is it important to understand he does a correct translation of Matthew and saying that lust actually means in that scripture cup but in most places where it means lust in the Scriptures it actually means to desire and why is this important to know because of how we're responding to these types of interpretations a great deal of self-defeating guilt about sexual desire is a problem with much of the church he says that's why we've got to address

(34:43) this correctly how they try not to lust for their wives you just heard a story about them continued many young men simply give up the fight I'm sure you've seen this if they are already guilty of the sexual sin because of their thoughts they might as well go ahead and enjoy the real thing again Relief Society president 1927 can you believe she's coming out in the Release Society magazine and talking about the dangers of our rigidity and our approach to things like masturbation she said both so is this the case study

(35:17) about two girls and she's sharing this in the Relief Society magazine and they use the word unintelligent parent it's probably a different culture back then but I wouldn't use that language but they're saying that both of these girls suffer from serious emotional upset because the lack of sexual education guidance by telling the children that they're reading the bull by telling the children that they should that she would go crazy and she didn't stop the practice of masturbation for other Home guidance was also harmful

(35:47) her mother was most rigid and severe in her regulations concerning friends and social life the shame and self-reference continued for at no time was their given Frank sound sex information and the danger of suicidality is going back here we know this in 1927 this is not new again sexual silence if you want to take a picture of that this just reinforces the message what I'm talking about Baseline president Watson says when performances and Azure performance improves when performance is measured and reported the

(36:23) rate of government accelerates why we don't take accurate measurements of what's going on I don't know we're missing something very critical here see things as they really are something I can usually do how I start this off here's a schedule for a spreadsheet I want you to track your daily the date pornography usually in minutes I want kind of accurate measurements occurrences in prayer or minutes in prayer scripture study gospel so forth sometimes people fill this out I want a baseline what does it look like you're

(36:56) going to notice something here in week one I gave the challenge I want you to track your poor Usage Now this individual is coming in with some pretty significant poor music in the minutes of it here it all of a sudden it goes to zeros I find that fascinating I want you to track your Baseline nothing happens that was my first Insight I thought was interesting so we see a significantly go down then it goes up I wish we had time to interact with the school anymore because I'm curious to see what your thoughts

(37:33) are What's Happening Here what I discovered once I gave him permission to track it the desire went away you felt weird wait you're just telling me you're out of control you can't stop looking at it then I give you permission to track you I'm not saying go indulge I'm just saying as though you were living your daily life it disappears that was an interesting insight and then skyrockets as he says okay okay I can do this all right all right I'll go ahead and track it and then it shoots down and

(38:04) there's a reason why this is what happens we'll talk a little bit more here but I want you to see something happen and then it tapered off and then hope never returned something very critical I want to show some other patterns of success this is what I call kind of over the decade I've been doing this this is the general pattern I see blue is the poor and you weren't just some other Behavior often it's still so we'll talk a little bit more about schedule here and then how positive that's how nice All or

(38:38) Nothing approach you can giggle at this if you've had any experience I'm okay with you like uh porn usage what's happening here oh man I wish I didn't wish I had time you're going to notice there's scripture stuff then occurrence then nothing this is a very very free I'm not worthy to even pray anymore and then finally when you start to feel like you can you engage in your religious activities and then the porn happens I can't do this you see that vicious cycle gospel is a prevention this was a

(39:12) fascinating one when I discovered it when we use the gospel in any of its forms as a prevention tool for pornography we've just created a Pavlov situation the more I'm reading I've had individuals coming if I had just read for 15 more minutes I wouldn't have slipped into pornography so the other I think some some people I've worked with have studied more than even it's it's it's it's fascinating and then they start to get triggered anything scriptures because that's where they're

(39:42) trying to deflect their desires confession treatment brand so I'll have Vision say oh no he's doing great occasional now I'm just so tired of confessing I'm so tired of confessing if it gets really out of control I'll confess otherwise I you know I'm tired of disappointing everyone and no assessment so that's treatment okay I'm going to talk about scheduling yeah meeting with Dr Daniel Burgess I'm not a doctor or a compulsive Behavior but look at this around more research supported

(40:26) perspective let's not make the problem bigger than it has to be and devot our lives through it let's learn about living our life how we want to and um overcoming this problem he's talking about canceling their values and that really that really opened up so much to me I remember the first the first requirement I have in the doctor previous I just felt so much hope so much joy and like this weight was loaded off my shoulders I feel like finally I felt like this thing might work like I've tried all these different things

(40:53) I've tried just reading my scriptures why not playing it you're on my own several different programs addiction recovery program I'm not sure to do this guys I've tried so many things and didn't work for me and meeting with Dr Burgess it was like this one will work like I'm excited I have hope again I think there's a lot of things you said they're actually shopping I was like whoa it was like what that's the thing like it's like you it's not addiction I was like one before sensation I gotta

(41:19) show you with this for so long like how are you gonna tell me that like you've actually explain them it just made sense he talked a lot about how these sexual areas are natural they're even divinely given to us we will learn how to you know to control those urges or to experience those urges and understand them rather than to suppress them or fix like expand on them and kind of make them bigger than they are to kind of dwell on them we can just experience them and that's okay like that's not a

(41:48) thing when it's done correctly and of the right spirit and I know I remember one of the things that that really helped is Dr Bridges kind of borrowed a skill from couples therapy where for couples having a lot of arguments what they do is we're going to say schedule a time argument it could be like really heated at the moment they're like okay let's not talk about this right now let's let's talk about it it's important to talk about but let's talk about it later talk about it at five o'clock

(42:17) today when it comes time to five o'clock I feel like oftentimes you're like well this is just silly why are we arguing let's just figure out a problem let's figure out a solution come together the application of that was you have a sexual urge less schedule um and this is one of the things like decreasing decreasing frequency was kind of like this thing of let's make progress It's All About progress one of the things that's increasing frequency so he's like what's your goal like right

(42:43) now like what do you want to be well ultimately of course ask to overcome this like I don't want to I don't want my wife to worry about this I don't want to worry about this myself I don't want to speak something that controls my life but the application of that was okay let's schedule a time to look at pornography I was like okay like I'm scheduling in time to do something I don't want to do over it came time before that I had scheduled like all right finally like all this I have to

(43:10) emotion that I'm holding up on this and I remember like going to the bathroom locking the door I remember just feeling like it's just like my decision I don't know if I really want to do this but because I had scheduled that I'm like Oh my little dude that's good and uh I remember it was the weirdest feeling because I felt in that moment while I was watching pornography and masturbating I felt that the Lord was pleased with me and that was such a unique experience because I've never felt that when I was never an argument

(43:44) masturbating I had never felt the Lord's pleased with me in that moment the reason that I felt that the word space with me wasn't because of what I was doing is because of the progress I was making is because of the good parts that I had the desire that I had to improve and that was such a powerful to me and I finally felt for first time in 10 years or however long that I was in control again I was the one making decisions it wasn't controlled for me it wasn't my mind making the decision of and even though

(44:15) like I chose to still like you pornography and Ms but it was my decision I was in control and I was so empowering to me for the first time so long I feel like I was in control again that was a huge thing that helped me with Dr Burgess and going into this I feel like this is like the peak of like all these things that I've learned and come together I'm able to understand and really begin like true healing rather than just about getting to the process is is a Mormon end to the process or more of a an active process in some ways

(44:52) what did you hear different we don't usually hear people talk about it this way with hope of Freedom sustainability this is why I tell Bishops whenever I do trainings with them stop giving the two-week or whatever it is go two weeks what are you telling them on day 15 they could do whatever no it's the same thing it's saying for eternity right because they already know but when you actually take control back by scheduling that's what you mean by scheduling so you'll see a spike because it falls controlling never learn how to

(45:23) master their own body but that's the importance of the schedule is you're out of control before and by the the spikes are including like education around it too not just viewing the pornography in fact we're finding what I found is that when you schedule it you're you're done you like go into it and by the way when you track minutes versus episodes of wins and losses you feel like you're in this Ground Zero all the time right but when you track minutes you can say old asked week month

(45:55) year on average I've had x amount of minutes of usage my goal is to reduce that now I have a win celebrate celebrate no more pain I want to I want to end on this um Lots we could talk about here but I hope I'm opening your mind to some other options here this is Hope's response we're going to finish on Hope I love that let's finish on hope I found more of who I am than who I was afraid I was the pornography and so you sort of discover actually you weren't even in touch with your body yes

(46:45) um I was not in touch with no body at work at all and um so so learning that and and starting to discover um what I liked what I didn't like um once I once I really started going down that path and started really learning about this god-given desire that we have all been blessed with um and understanding that in a much different way Daniel he was like he was like involve the Lord in this process right pray before and after you masturbate and I was like this is so weird but again like this is so weird but God cares about our sexuality he

(47:31) absolutely cares about our sexuality and um I had to really spiritual experiences while masturbating and it seems so it's it seems strange but when you really think about it it's not that strange because it's such a it's such a sacred thing that we haven't given um that has been turned into this very shameful thing and and when we can like Daniel I think reclaim that for ourselves and be okay with ourselves as a sexual being and and you know I started exploring some of my desires and like Anna said

(48:17) some of these different types of pornography that I was thinking out really exploring that Within Myself and for a while it's what I was Desiring but after I allowed myself to desire that and to not shame myself because I was Desiring that um it's totally falling off and and I've I think I've found more um who I am rather than who I was afraid I was success along the entire path for sustainability now she has the skill of marriage how many long-term unintended consequences people have from traditional approaches they can't even

(49:01) talk about Sexual Health in a positive way in the relationship without stop languages she can now we set up long-term success so when these new stressors come in she knows how to handle them she knows how to go back to it and as she got good at knowing her body the need for it went down I'll end on that hopefully that was helpful