Smart V Safe

Last night, me and Mari ran a workshop for a group of guys.

It went well and we ended up covering a range of questions.

Right after the workshop, I received an awesome testimonial which I'm proud to share here

In this short blog, I'll share one of the most interesting questions we received from one of the workshop participants, and how I answered it.

The question was along the lines of "Do I use my script when I am scrolling and see something sexual?".

A common thing that I am witnessing working with guys is that many of them have used social media to view sexually provocative content.

This was my personal path for around 2 years. So, I know just how much sexual content there is on social media nowadays. The best thing to do is become aware of the junkie thought of "It's not really porn" and accept that if it's on a screen and it's exciting you sexually - count it as porn. The subjective opinion on whether something is porn or not is much less important than the reality of doing something you know is not right for you.

And so it comes down to your intentions and whether you are attacking or defending. Are you playing it smart, or are you playing it safe?

A critical mindset shift is required to answer this question about social media. 99.9% of people trying to overcome porn addiction are playing it safe.

They are avoiding their desires.

They are substituting porn for other things, instead of facing withdrawal head on.

They are distracting themselves in an attempt to ignore their urges.

And a lot of people may even try to artificially deprive themselves of the possibility of watching porn. They try to do this by doing things like: installing blockers, removing their access to a range of sites, and cutting out on taking their phone into certain areas of their home.

These sort of strategies are based in helplessness. They are all founded on the belief that you do not have the ability to deal with your compulsive desires. And as such, people using these strategies go on a streak and then inevitably relapse. They haven't made the right changes in their neural pathways. They haven't learned how to deal with the addicted part of their mind. So, back to the question. "Do I use my script when I am scrolling and see something sexual?".

Our guys inside our program have scripts which they use to deal with compulsive desire.

And the way we teach things is to be proactive. Attack. Face the addicted part of the mind head on. As our clients have a script, they can choose to actively rewire their brain whenever they want. They don't need to wait around. Choosing to scroll on social media, not knowing whether you'll see something sexual or not, and thinking about the possibility of something sexual coming up is completely consenting to helplessness. This is engaging in compulsivity. And it is the thought about seeing something sexual which reveals that this is a compulsive behaviour. Now, if someone were to engage with a behaviour and they had no extra thoughts around it - it would not be compulsive. You will always know if you are being compulsive or not. And the moment you have a compulsive thought, you have an opportunity to attack and change your neural pathways. And when you shift from playing it safe in your intentions, to going after the addicted part of the mind from a place of "I know what you're going to try on me, but I now know how to deal with you" you'll experience a level of freedom that you did not know was possible.

If you're wondering about whether you should use social media or not whilst overcoming porn addiction, I have a podcast covering that exact topic. It is episode 68 on Spotify etc or you can watch the YouTube video.

Our workshop last night sold out, sign up to the waiting list to get a ticket for the next one.