Pornography and Your Sense of Self

One of the most challenging things that happens to pornography users when they choose pornography contrary to their own moral values is the destruction of their sense of self. 

This is probably the number one driver of shame among those who struggle with pornography.   You’ve probably experienced this too, if you view pornography and are also opposed to viewing pornography. 

Today I’d like to break down what this looks like so you can really get a handle on what is happening and offer you one thing that you can do to appropriately address your brain when it offers you porn. 

When I struggled with porn, I found that two internal conversations were pretty typical as I tried to quit.  The first was a conversation with Heavenly Father that centered around Him taking away this problem, and I would be so much better at everything.  The second was around how this would be the last time, and I would use all my willpower and motivation to make that happen.  Essentially, each time I wanted to quit porn, I would have a talk with myself about how I was going to be strong and not let it happen again. Meanwhile, I was asking God to take over my agency so I never wanted to choose porn again. 

Here’s what that did to me.   First, I didn’t understand or recognize that God would not interfere with my agency, so I was, in effect, asking Him to do something that I don’t believe He was or is willing to do, based on my current understanding of agency.  Basically, I believe agency requires that we are able to make choices for ourselves and that means that when we ask God to take away our choice to view pornography, I don’t think that’s in line with His commitment to our independence of agency. 

When he didn’t stop me from having feelings, desires, or choosing porn that would in turn, impact my faith in God and whether he would answer my prayers, and whether I felt worthy to be loved by Him or to receive His blessings.  

You may not feel this way, I know I did, so I thought it would be important to share it with you in the hopes that if you have felt this way at all or haven’t quite been able to articulate this issue, that now you might be able to.  

The second conversation, the one I was having with myself about how much effort and willpower and motivation I would put into this time being the last time really left me with a lowered sense of self.  My self-confidence would start to diminish.  

To understand how this conversation I was having with myself about how this would be the last time started to break my self-confidence, we have to understand what self-confidence is.  

Self-confidence is three things: 1. Our capacity to know that we can deal with difficulty, including difficult emotions, thoughts, feelings, and urges.  2. Our capacity to believe what we want to believe about ourselves, including that we are good and worthy and that God loves us, and that we are lovable. 3. Lastly, our ability to believe ourselves, that we are going to do what we say we will do, including stopping or starting a behavior or completing a task or goal like quitting a porn habit.

Let me break this down for you, and hopefully, this will clarify what may be happening for you around pornography and self-confidence in your own life. 

Like I teach my clients in the membership and in individual coaching, awareness is key and the greater your awareness the more likely you are to be able to see the issues as they arise so you can make adjustments.  

Capacity to handle difficult thoughts feelings, and urges

To break down self-confidence, let’s start with our capacity to know that we can deal with difficulty.  

So many of my clients tell me that when the urge to view pornography starts, they get this sense of inevitably, like no matter what they do, they will eventually give in.  That this will be too difficult and it will eventually overpower them.  

The most difficult things that most of us interact with are our unwanted thoughts, feelings, and urges.  They are part of us, so we can’t outrun them.  We can’t just shove them off the stage. We can’t just think different thoughts.  

We have to engage them in an appropriate way that doesn’t turn our internal dialogue into a battle between what feels good right now and who I want to be. When my clients learn the skills they need to approach this internal dialogue differently, they can practice them and their capacity to know they can deal with difficulty goes up.  We deep dive into this in our live coaching calls so you can see what is working for you and what is not. 

For instance, this last week Darcy and I went canyoneering with a group.  For Darcy, this would have been impossible 5 years ago.  If you sign up for a consult, I’ll show you a video of Darcy’s rappelling experience.  For her, this was a huge hurdle, because her mind tells her she’s going to die.  The entire time, she was making loud noises and closing her eyes, all while asking if the person at the bottom was going to be able to save her if something went wrong.  

In her mind, this was something really difficult and she did not have a belief that she could do this difficult thing.  After doing it, even though it wasn’t pleasant or fun the way it was for me, she now knows that she can do it, even if she doesn’t want to.  Now, imagine how much more confidence she would have if we did this every week?  

When we learn how to deal with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and urges properly and do it repeatedly, not only does our self-confidence increase, it becomes more of a habit, and habits run themselves, so we don’t have to muster up willpower and motivation each time.  

Believe what we want to believe about ourselves

Next, let’s talk about our capacity to believe what we want to believe about ourselves. Now, this isn’t narcissism, where we believe that we never do anything wrong and we are always right.  This is more like a healthy sense of who we are and our inner dialogue isn’t beating us up all the time. Think of it as believing in yourself and being able to acknowledge that you aren’t perfect. 

What this looks like is being able to see both the good and bad things that you are choosing without making them mean you are bad, while simultaneously being willing to continue growth and change toward being the person you desire to be.  

When we struggle with pornography habits in our lives, it becomes really difficult to believe in ourselves.  We often think about pornography and think, I’m an addict, or I’ll never be able to overcome this, or I’ve quit so many times and can’t see how this time will be different.  Believing in ourselves feels futile and even discouraging because we don’t have a track record of being able to overcome pornography for good. We just keep going back to the same old habits when things get difficult.  

We’ve talked about this on other podcasts, but the truth is, you have a skills gap, not a desire gap.  If you want to learn the skills that you actually need, feel free to set up an appointment with me at zachspafford.com/workwithzach and I’d love to help you out. 

The most important thing to realize here is, you are looking at your past and seeing that you aren’t the person you want to be, so you might find it difficult to believe in yourself without feeling like you’re trying to be fake about your reality.  This, then impacts your self-confidence.  

Trusting ourselves to do what we say we will.

Let’s talk about the last thing in our self-image, and I think this is probably one of the hardest on us, our ability to trust ourselves to do what we say we will.  

You might be able to see this one right away, and if not, that’s ok.  For me, no matter how many times I told myself that this was the last time, I knew it wouldn’t be.  In fact, I remember very clearly as a 13 year old, living in Chugiak, Alaska, sitting in my bedroom thinking, “this will be the last time I masturbate, then I’m going to give it up.”  This was pre-internet in my home and before I had regular access to any sort of pornography, so this was just my hormone-driven exploration of self, but, I felt like I had to put this behind me.  

That was probably the start of a regular cycle of telling myself this was the last time, going a period of time, maybe only an hour, sometimes it was a year, then going back to it and starting the whole thing over.  

When we don’t do what we say we will, it becomes really difficult to trust ourselves.  You probably know someone who just says, “I’m going to do X” and then they do that at all cost.  

My dad is a really good example of that for me.  Back to Alaska, my dad was suffering from a condition called gout, where there is a buildup of uric acid in your feet from eating meat and your body not being able to process the uric acid in the meat.  

It’s really painful and one day my dad decided that he was going to become a vegetarian.  That day was the last day he ate meat.  It was as simple as making a choice and doing it, at least from the outside.  

Some of us find this impossible when it comes to pornography.  As a result, our confidence and sense of self plummet whenever we’ve promised to ourselves or to others that we would give up our undesirable habit and we don’t.  

What can we do instead?

The first thing that you or anyone who is struggling with an unwanted or diminished sense of self can do is start to become aware of the ways your mind is interacting with these three standards of self-confidence.  

Just being aware is half the battle in being able to resolve issues in our mind and surrounding out behavior.  

Your mind is a powerful tool, and as you start to observe it, you’ll see how it can be helpful and hurtful.  Being aware, for instance, that your mind is telling you that choosing porn is inevitable and you might as well give in now can be a cue to take a step back and utilize a mindfulness technique. 

Taking that step back and observing your mind is a huge advantage that you can use to see what discomfort your mind is working to avoid.

Getting good at being able to step back is most effectively assisted by being kind to yourself.