How to Deal with Shame Productively to Overcome Porn For Good

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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.

Hello again everybody. This is Zach, your host of Thrive Beyond Pornography, the podcast dedicated to helping individuals break free from the grip of pornography and create thriving lives. And today we're gonna be exploring the topic that we've been leading up to. We've been talking over the last couple of weeks about a variety of reasons why it's difficult.

To quit porn. And some of you, some of these things that you are hearing, they, they may be obvious to you, but they may not be obvious to everyone. So I wanted to go over them because I think it's important to talk about each of these and just create some perspective. Perspective is one of the number one things that can help us actually achieve.

The freedom that we want in li in eliminating a pornography struggle and a pornography habit. So I want to talk about, today, I wanna talk about the number four reason on our list. So the number one reason is temptations and triggers. We talked about that about three weeks ago. Number two is emotional and psychological dependency.

And then last week we talked about loss of coping mechanisms, but the number four reason is shame and guilt and how. So many of us struggle to leave pornography behind because of this particular issue and what to do about it. And then next week we're gonna talk about lack of support and understanding and what to do there, and then of course lapses and discouragement and how to make those work for you and work on your side.

So this week we're gonna talk about shame and guilt and how powerful they are. And that often accompanies the process of breaking free pornography. Dealing with those accompanies the process of breaking free from pornography. Many factors contribute to these intense feelings. First, there is our sci societal stigma surrounding pornography and with a lot of us, a lot of people who live in religious communities who have a faith that tradition that is important to them.

There's often an attached shame and judgment to choosing to view pornography, and this cultural perception can reinforce negativity and then negative self-perception and make it harder to actually thrive beyond pornography. Additionally, personal moral values often play a significant role. So many of us have.

Raised moral or ethical beliefs that lead to guilt when engaging with pornography. And that guilt is not necessarily a problem, but shame, which is a problem, is created as this inner conflict intensifies in the struggle to quit. And as that becomes intertwined with questions of personal integrity and values, we start to have this.

Shame that we are never gonna be enough. We're never gonna be able to resolve this. Another source of shame and guilt often arises from a sense of self betrayal. This is, a lot of the women who are listening to this who have a spouse who struggle often they feel a sense of shame and betrayal on their end.

But I think it's important to recognize that as we're trying to solve for this, we have to recognize that there is self betrayal one. Often feels disappointed. I know I felt disappointed in myself for repeatedly engaging with pornography despite my desire to break free, despite my desire to end that habit in my life.

And this self-blame can lead to a destructive cycle of negative self-talk, and it really erodes self-esteem. It erodes our sense of self making it more challenging to quit. And truly thrive. In fact, one of the things that I've talked about on the podcast before is that to have a positive and manageable sense of self, you have to have three things.

You have to have the capacity to feel any feeling and know that you'll survive. So what this means is that you have to be. Capable and know that you're capable of feeling bad or struggling with frustration or dealing with stress, and know not only that you can feel those, but that you can move through them and succeed beyond them.

That's what it means. And then the number two thing is that you have to believe what you want to believe about yourself. Now, this isn't to say that you should be a. Person who thinks that they can be a rocket scientist when they don't have that actual capacity. What it is to say is that you are capable of believing in your capacity as a good person.

Like most of us want to believe that I'm a good person. And being able to believe what you want to believe about yourself is essentially that it's being able to believe I'm a good human. I do what I am supposed to do. I am growing, I'm thriving, I'm succeeding. Those kinds of things are the things that we want to believe about ourselves, but when we believe these things, it has to be in a self-reflective capacity.

It has to be able, we have to be able to see what it is that we're. Thinking and feeling and doing. And we have to be able to reflect on that and make that meaningful rather than just believe what we want to and tell everybody else that they're wrong. That's so what it is, is being able to believe in yourself more than anything.

And then the third thing is to be able to trust yourself to do what you say you will do. And this is really where this shame comes in, because when we don't do what we say we'll do, because how many times have you said to yourself, this is the last time. I'm never gonna do this again. This is the last time I know I said that to myself a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, sometimes it feels like. And when we don't trust ourself to do what we say we will do, there's this negative self-talk, this sense of betrayal, like I can't even be the person that I tell myself I'm supposed to be. And that makes it more challenging to quit and thrive. It's. Important in this process to remember that overcoming shame and guilt is crucial for long-term success in your journey toward thriving beyond pornography.

And here are a few strategies that can help you navigate these emotions. First, seek support. Reach out to a trusted friend, a family member, work with a coach, somebody who can provide a safe, non-judgmental space for you to express what's going on, for you to be able to. Approach and analyze what you've been choosing and learn from that situation.

Sharing your struggles, working with someone who has the understanding of what to do instead and how to approach this is in it's enormous. And it can help alleviate the burden of shame and guilt and really pave the way for thriving. I know so many people when they come into my conversations, into my coaching calls, into the open coaching calls in the membership, they are looking for someone to just help them look this problem in the eye and deal with it in a meaningful way, rather than to tell them, well, you know, you shouldn't do that.

I'm not here to tell you that. If that's how you feel, if that's what you want in your life to just eliminate this, then you don't need anybody to be like, Hey, don't do that. That's already there. That's built in. You don't need that. What you need is someone who can stand in there and help you deal with this in a meaningful, open and objective way.

That's what it means to seek support. The next thing you should do is, Practice self-compassion. I've talked about this on the podcast. I have a technique that I help people use. It's called nab. Notice a name, allow and ask, breathe and be kind. That be kind is not in there just because I needed another be thing that be kind is in there because you need to be kind to yourself.

You need to see yourself as someone who is lovable and. W as you practice self-compassion, recognize that everyone faces challenges and it's okay to make these mistakes. It's okay to deal with these mistakes. It's okay for your brain to offer you porn. I. That's what it does. It's going to continue to do that until you learn how to do deal with it in a meaningful and a scientifically proven way, and that's what we do within the program.

And treat yourself with kindness and understanding. As you embark on this journey of thriving beyond pornography. Embrace the idea that you are not defined by your past actions, but. By your commitment to growth and really positive change, and as you start to create a life after pornography, you will start to see that you didn't need beating yourself up to make it happen.

Nobody punches themself in the face hard enough to make porn go away. And I think that that's really a lot of what we try to do. We try to beat up on ourselves and say, I'm not enough, or we try to beat up on the people around us and we say, Hey, you're not enough because you're looking at porn.

And that's not helpful. And I don't think that that is a very good way of approaching people in general. The lastly, challenge negative beliefs. You have these thoughts they come, they automatically pop into your head. They tell you who you are, and a lot of them can be negative. What you want to be able to do is to address those, I like to call that the Karen in the back of your mind.

Everybody knows what a Karen is. She wants to see your manager, and our brain is often offering us these ideas because it's trying to find what's wrong. There is a, there's a reason why your brain offers you negative thoughts because it is one of the survival mechanisms that has helped us live our lives up to this point throughout humanity.

Cuz when we see what's wrong, we can fix it or address it upfront. The problem with this particular Karen, as I like to call it, is that in this world that we live in, there's very little that's actually going to kill us. And that's what she's designed to look for. She's designed to look for the things that are gonna kill you.

Hey, look out. There might be a lion there. Hey, look out. That's a cliff. You don't wanna fall off that. So there's very little in today's environment that's likely to kill us in the way that a wildebeest stampede might have for our ancestors, for the people who came before us, because they lived in a world where they had to constantly have their head on a swivel saying, what's gonna kill me?

What's wrong? What's out here that isn't right so I can survive? Now, that mechanism has turned on us in a pretty sad way, honestly, because it's like, Hey, all these people, they don't love you. Hey, you should go look at porn because no girl will want to be with you, or whatever it is that your brain is telling you, and it's these negative beliefs that come in that you want to.

Address appropriately and engage in a positive conversation with yourself. And don't forget, you are worth loving. You are the person that beyond pornography likes to do the awesome things that you like to do. If my life was just, Hey, you're bad, cuz you look at porn.

that would negate everything that was good that I did in my life. That would negate all the awesomeness that I brought into the world. And that's not helpful. That's not useful to you. So what you can do instead, and I just love this technique, it's really simple, is just talk to Karen. Talk to Karen nicely. Talk to Karen like the, like you're being the best version of yourself at all times. When Karen shows up and she's like, you are a horrible person, and you're unworthy because you looked at porn. Just be like I'm okay, Karen, and I hear what you're saying, and it's okay.

And there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just learning new ways to resolve this struggle. And I'm not a bad person, but thank you for showing up. Thank you for letting me know what you think. Why don't you go back to your desk and look for something dangerous? And this is a, this is tough, right?

Because we want to argue with Karen. We want to be mad at Karen. We want to fight with Karen, but don't. It is simple as just being present with Karen, noticing what she's saying and just allowing her to talk, being willing to address those things. Yep. Karen, I feel unworthy sometimes when I choose pornography.

That doesn't make me a bad person. Or I'm not unlovable simply because I have this struggle. Because if everybody who had a struggle was unlovable, no one would be lovable. Cuz everyone has struggles. It's okay. Karen, thank you for your advice. Please go back to your chair, right? And don't let Karen fight with you.

Don't fight with Karen either, by the way. So those are some of the ways that we can address these issues of shame and. Discomfort, the guilt and the frustration that we suffer through oftentimes because all we want to do is quit porn. And if all you want to do is quit porn, go set up a call with me.

You can go to ax baffert.com/work with Thrive. I would love to meet with you. It takes five seconds to sign up. It takes 30 minutes to have a conversation, and once we're through that conversation, you can decide, hey, Am I ready to actually solve this? Am I ready to go through this process or am I gonna wait?

Am I gonna keep listening to the podcast, keep going, keep trying, and keep going on my own? Or am I gonna ask for help? It's up to you. You don't have to do any of it, but if you want to make something different happen, you probably have to take a different step. That's the truth of it. Remember, thriving beyond pornography is not just about quitting porn, it's about creating a life of purpose and fulfillment and true, thriving, living up to the person that you want to be.

And in this particular conversation, it's really about addressing the shame and guilt head on and developing. A process for going through that and not letting it bog you down and hold you down and keep you from being the long, being the person that you want to and having long lasting freedom and a renewed sense of purpose.

All right, my friends. I will talk to you next week.