Nurturing Support: Thriving Beyond the Challenges of Pornography

Episode 200

===

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 everybody and welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host, Zack Spafford. This is episode number 200, and I don't usually say the episode number cause I think, do people care? Do people really care what episode number it is? As long as they get the information, the content, and the stuff that they want out of it 200.

That's cool. That's neat. I'm super excited that this is number 200. That means that we've been doing this for almost four years, so we've had some bonus episodes in there, but that's cool. The, this is episode number 200 and I, I just want to say thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast.

Do me a favor. Write me a review, that would be immensely helpful to me. That would be immensely powerful to help others find this podcast. And if you would write me a review that would I will personally thank you. You email me and say, Hey, I wrote you a review. I will send you an email back and say thank you.

Cuz I really do appreciate anybody who takes the time to sit down and just, Even just give it stars. I don't care if you write the review, but just give it some stars and let people know that you find this content helpful. So today, on today's episode I love this conversation that we've been having over the last couple of episodes.

We're gonna talk today about lack of support and understanding. We started this series on why it's so difficult for many people to. Leave pornography behind with temptations and triggers. We also talked about emotional and psychological dependencies, so the reasons why pornography has been valuable to you in your life, and I know that seems like a weird idea, but the truth is pornography has helped you do something and otherwise you wouldn't keep going back to it.

Then we also talked about loss of coping mechanisms and why that can make it difficult to quit. Last episode, we talked about shame and guilt and how so much of the underlying difficulty with quitting pornography has to do with our inability to. Process the negative feelings that we have around this, partly because of the environment that we're in.

But this week I wanna talk about the lack of support and understanding that we often have, and really often individuals trying to quit porn face a lack of support or understanding from their immediate social circle. In part, this can make the journey even more challenging and isolating. And the goal in.

The work that you're going to be doing or that you're doing already or that you have been doing is to find a supportive community, a coach, or a support group that can provide the necessary encouragement and guidance needed to overcome your pornography struggle. And then finally, the. Next week we're gonna talk about lapses and discouragement, so I'll leave that one for that.

But I want you to start by realizing and understanding that thriving beyond pornography requires resilience, determination, and it does require support. Unfortunately, too many individuals find themselves lacking the understanding and encouragement that they need from the closest people to them. Those people around them who are their friends, their family, their neighbors, I.

Just had a conversation today on my open coaching call with my friend Andy, and she was telling me about how her friend had told their family, told her sister in particular about their struggle, and her this friend's sister's response was, why do you have to say that stuff? Why don't you just keep that to yourself?

And I just, I feel. So bad for so many people who they reach out, they tell their story, they try to make themselves known in the world. A lot of people say that the opposite of addiction is. Connection. And while I don't usually talk about pornography in terms of addiction, I do feel like there is some value in understanding that connection is a huge component of how we become better as people.

And unfortunately, for that person telling their story meant not only that they didn't get connection, but they got rejected in the process. And that is unfortunate And here at Thrive Beyond Pornography, we recognize the importance of a supportive environment when it comes to overcoming the challenges posed by pornography.

Having people who understand and empathize with your struggle can make all the difference. Those people, the ones that are around you, they can provide the necessary encouragement. They might have some valuable guidance, most importantly, Non-judgment that they can provide for you on your journey to heal and grow.

What are some of the challenges that arise from this lack of support and understanding? Firstly, individuals who don't have somebody that they can talk to. My friend Andy, she said, I was just thinking about this and I decided to reach out today, and she said, I knew that I could come and talk to you in a place of non-judgment.

This was on the open coaching call today, and I was so pleased that she did that because she knew that this was a space, this open coaching call was gonna be a space where she could just tell her story, tell what was going on for her, and it didn't have anything to do with porn as much as it had to do with other things that were going on in her life.

But being able to confide in and share her experience was. Valuable to her and without someone to lean on, it can be really challenging to stay motivated and maintain that belief structure that you can move beyond pornography. Secondly, a lack of understanding from family and friends or just the people around you.

Church leaders can lead to feelings of shame and guilt. So we talked about shame and guilt last week. This is a lot of these things that we talk about. They're su, they're, they reinforce each other when individuals are met. When you're going to your bishop or you're going to a friend, or you're going to your wife and you're met with judgment instead of support.

It reinforces negative self-perceptions that can actually drag you back down rather than build you up and help you move forward. I think it's important to remember that support and understanding can be found outside of that immediate social circle that you probably would like to rely on, but maybe they're just not ready to be reliable and finding a supportive community.

Or a coach or even a support group can really provide a lifeline for you as you seek to thrive beyond pornography and the challenges that come because of it, a supportive community can offer a place where you can share what's actually real for you. What's going on internally? I've talked about on the podcast before, how we have what's called a presented self.

It's a person that we present to the outside world in order for us to get the person that we want reflected back to us. So when we go to church, we present a certain person. When we go to work, we present a certain person and. The right kind of supportive community doesn't need a presented person. They know you for who you are, and you can share your challenges.

You can share your victories. You can even share your insights on what's been going on for you with those people, and the sense of belonging connection really helps combat the isolation that often accompanies. A struggle with pornography and it should provide you and it can provide you with a network of support that understands the unique struggles of overcoming porn, especially if the people that you're working with, whether it's a professional or just a friend.

Has already done this work. Those people can provide a serious amount of professional guidance that's tailored to this particular issue. Too often people go to somebody and that somebody says, oh, yeah, yeah. I generally know about the topic that you're talking about, and I generally understand the concepts of how that works, and I generally have a.

An idea of how we might resolve this, but they've never done the work. That's a different kind of person and a different kind of process. And the truth is they may be helpful, especially if they are willing to be open and listen and hear what's really going on for you. But I can tell you from personal experience that I would go to ARP meetings that my church put on, and in those meetings there was a guy who was in charge and that guy had never had a.

Pornography struggle. It was usually a couple and they would be like a called, especially for that group, and they would say, okay, you're now in charge. And you would sit in those meetings and they had no idea what was going on for you. So they would offer platitudes, like, just pray more or read your scriptures more.

And those things can be helpful. I'm not saying don't do that. Those are useful things to do, but if you were trying to lose 10 pounds, Nobody would say to you, just pray more, they would say. Let's learn about some scientific ways, some techniques, some capacities that help people quit porn. And by the way, I lost 10 pounds this last year.

Let me tell you about my experience. And I think we, every single one of us would find that experience more valuable than an empty platitude. And this is a complex conversation. I sit down with, I. Individuals every single day, and each of them have a journey of their own. And in that journey, they are talking about particulars.

Tiny little differences, little nuances that I can see and I can understand because I've sat in their chair. But that may be lost on someone who's never done the work. And through coaching and through working with someone who knows what you've, what you're going through, you can gain a deeper understanding of the underlying factors that are contributing to this experience and then learn how to develop.

Better mechanisms of dealing with those things that are coming up. And of course, as a coach, my job is to guide you. My job is to show you what you can't see yourself. That I have learned is a reality because I've, one, I've been through the process, and two, I had to learn these things myself. And I can see those things because it's easier for me to see what's happening for you than it is for you to see what's happening for you.

It's easy to read the label when you're not inside the bottle and you're inside the bottle. That's why even Tiger Woods, who is arguably the best golfer of all time, I. Had a coach because he couldn't see what he couldn't see, and that's a big difference. Whether you meet with a support person online, whether you meet with them in person, those are invaluable resources for anybody who's seeking understanding and encouragement.

These kinds of people, the people that you can trust, the people who are willing and able to hear your story are much, much more valuable than I think that we. Can then I can even convey, and I think anybody, everybody deserves a support person, support system, a support group that understands and uplifts them on this journey to healing and surrounding yourself with people who genuinely care about your wellbeing and can.

Hear your truth without making it mean anything about them. That is a really meaningful and helpful process. I'm reminded of my friend Steve Baris, who is in a state presidency in Southern California and Austin Ba Bailo and their wives, who when we were in the thick of struggling with pornography, when I was deep into it and Darcy was struggling to understand what to do, we opened up to them.

We told them our story. Really, Darcy did because I was afraid I was genuinely scared. And at that time I traveled a lot. Darcy would go visit her mom on occasion, and there were lots of times when I was alone without her at home and they reached out to me. They. Grabbed me by the hand and invited me to their homes and made it so that I was welcome and it was just such a kindness that they gave me that I.

I never forgot, and I want everybody to have that experience, whether you are doing it with somebody who is just in your ward or in your church community. If you're doing it with somebody that you know, you find online. If you do it through a coach, it doesn't really matter. But having somebody who can hear your experience and not judge you and love you and reach out to you and draw you in.

That's the experience that I hope everybody has, and if you can seek that out, I promise you it will be worth it. I never would've told anybody what was going on with me emotionally, mentally, around my pornography struggle because I was embarrassed. I was so ashamed, and when people started to show me that I was lovable, that I was worth it, I started to see that not only in their eyes, but in my own mind about myself, and I was so grateful for that.

I was so grateful for their love. I was so grateful for their willingness to know me and. See me for who I was and not judge me. And I think that that is huge. And I think that anybody who can do that, you know, if you know somebody who's struggling with pornography, reach out to them. Because if you can do that for them, just know that it will mean the world.

All right, my friends, that wraps up today's episode. I hope you find this discussion enlightening. I hope that. You are, you know that you're not alone, and I hope that you understand that there are people out there who are ready to support you and are ready to offer you the necessary encouragement and guidance that you need to actually begin thriving beyond pornography.

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