What it Takes To Overcome Pornography - 9 Items
Hey, this month we are doing a webinar for those who want help overcoming pornography
If you’re listening to this podcast and like what you hear, take the next step and come to our webinar on april 20th at 730 mt, there’s a link in the show notes or you can go to zachspafford.com/freecall
The seed for today’s podcast came from a post by a guy named Kris Heap. in that he equated success to the way that an auction happens.
Everything we do has a price. In order to achieve desired results in our lives we have to be willing to cover the cost.
We pay those costs in a variety of different ways.
Money
Time
Energy
Effort
Discomfort
Commitment
Willingness
Some of those seem synonymous and some of them have varied connotations, but whatever you want to call it, doesn’t really matter. You and everyone you know, pays for what we get.
Darcy’s family comes from an amazing history of auctioneers.
What are some of the cool things your grandpa and dad and uncles were part of auctioning off?
Darcy- I sent my dad a text and asked him about the most interesting things that he had auctioned.
Hellen Keller - we still have some of her pieces at my parents house, including this Giant Tiger scroll that is in a japanese style
Revson Estate - which was the owner of Revlon
In their work as auctioneers they saw this happen so many times.
As the price of the item goes up, fewer people will seek to put forth the cost of getting the thing they are bidding on.
The true value of the item is revealed based on the amount the people who are bidding are willing to pay for the item.
In our work, people have come to us and tell us that they have a pornography addiction.
Last week I talked about why I don’t like using the term pornography addiction, but that is what people tell us, and we are happy to meet them where they are.
In fact, last week we did a poll and about 80% of the people that responded said they felt like they were addicted to pornography or they believed their spouse is.
In a way, that person who is talking to us is placing an opening bid on overcoming their pornography struggle.
When we talk to people they want to know, what is it actually going to take. That first conversation is the opening bid, and it is a pretty low one.
What’s the cost of the conversation? Basically, nothing. A little time.
Darcy and I love speaking to people and we love sharing our story, we do it for free in fifth Sunday lessons, zoom meetings like the one that I mentioned earlier, firesides, and in everyday conversations with random people who are impacted by pornography use in their lives.
Each of those conversations is amazing and I think it elevates awareness and possibilities for each person to a new level.
Every time Darcy does a fireside, or speaks to a Sunday school class, she just lights up and is happy for days.
We get an immense amount of joy out of the work we do.
We want you to get an immense amount of joy out of the work we do as well. So, we would like to talk about the transactional cost of overcoming pornography.
If you think back to the auctioneer, only those who are willing to pay the price receive the prize. That is as true in commerce as it is in our mental and emotional lives.
A contractor, like an auctioneer, often puts out bids to see what people are willing to pay to get their place remodeled.
Remodeling pornogrpahy out of your life is like remodeling your home. Looking at what is there, deciding you don’t like it, and figuring out, what will it take to make my life look the way I want it to.
So, we’ve put together a cost sheet. An itemized bid, if you will, of what it will cost to remodel pornography out of your life.
The Cost of Removing Pornography From Your Life
- Become aware of problematic patterns
- Learn how to intervene in those patterns
- Build new patterns
- Losing the unwavering validation pornography provides
- Something that has occured to me in the last couple of months, is that pornography never says no. it always says yes and there is some validation in that. Letting go of that good feeling which is something subtle and a little beyond the arousal is an important key to this process.
- Enduring the real emotions we feel
- Openness about who we really are
- Willingness to be uncomfortable - loneliness, inadaquacy, feeling unloved, wanting to feel loved/not just needed,
- Letting go of covert contracts - if you haven’t read the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover, he goes into this in depth and we deep dive into this with many of our clients that use these, not everyone does. A covert contract is essentially when we do something for our partner in an effort to obligate them to do something for us, especially when that has not been agreed to by the other party.
- Learning new methods of emotional management - dealing with urges, uncomfortable feelings, and sensations
