So you’ve got this monkey on your back. It keeps interrupting your life. You’ve been taught some mental habits to quit porn, but none of them seem to help.
You’re tired of being addicted to porn. It increases your anxiety, it decreases your ability to connect with others, you feel more depressed, you don’t feel as motivated or driven. It’s sucking your potential away from you.
You keep thinking all you need to do is try harder. Be determined to stop. Be more dedicated. Think more positively. BELIEVE in yourself. Think about your family. You just need more willpower!
Or, maybe, you think that you just have a high libido (high sex drive) and so all of these sexual thoughts and urges are normal and you just need to learn how to say “no” and finally stop watching porn.
I’ve got news for you, my friend. The world’s lying to you. None of these things are the answer.
Instead of beating your head against a brick wall, and continuing to hurt yourself and your loved ones through your addictive behavior, it’s time to learn how to actually get rid of porn addiction.
Developing a Recovery Mindset to Quit Porn
There’s one thing you need to develop for that to happen: A Recovery Mindset.
That’s it. You have the right mindset, and you’ll break free of porn.
Now, am I saying just think positively? Absolutely not. Don’t listen to people who tell you that.
I’m talking about a mindset of acceptance. And that doesn’t mean simply accepting your addiction - that it’s a part of you and always will be. I mean approaching your life, yourself, and others with acceptance. In other words, with understanding, compassion, and empowerment.
Now, before you think that’s hokey, read on, because I’ve got some stuff to tell you that you’ve never heard before.
First, stop all of the resisting and the fighting. Stop judging and hating yourself for having this problem - and being so dang hard on yourself not just for that, but for all of the mistakes in your life.
The resistance, fighting, willpower, being hard on yourself, feeling bad about yourself and your addiction, all of this…is just fanning the flames of pornography addiction. It’s filling you with negative emotion, and that negative emotion is driving you back to your porn addiction as a way to cope with all of the shame, fear, and self-judgment.
Does that sound familiar?
So what can you do instead? Again, to overcome porn addiction we need to develop a Recovery Mindset; in other words, a mindset of acceptance. Acceptance of self, of others, and of life. Acceptance of the hard crap in life and the stuff that hurts. To get real about it, feel it, work through it, and break free of it.
Today, we’re going to talk about 3 mental habits to quit porn. Buckle in and get ready.
Mental Habit 1: Processing Thoughts and Emotions
When my clients first start with me, processing through challenging thoughts and emotions is foreign to them. I have clients that will literally say, “I didn't know it was okay for me to feel my feelings. I didn't know that was something I could do.”
I’ve also had many clients whose porn cravings just seem to pop up out of nowhere. Maybe you can relate to that.
Many of us were never taught to process through our thoughts and emotions. We were taught that our thoughts and emotions weren't important when compared to the other things happening in the home. Perhaps our parents or our siblings were so caught up in their own negative emotions - their own pain, their own trauma - that they couldn't be there for us, or at least they felt they couldn't be there for us.
Or perhaps our parents or our siblings were so busy with work that either they were burned out at the end of every day or they were so busy pursuing building a business or pursuing their career or their financial goals that they just didn't have the mental bandwidth for us. And that hurts, man. It hurts to go through that.
Or maybe our parents or our siblings spent a lot of time out in the community helping other people, but not a whole lot of time helping their family. And one of the biggest reasons for that is because it's a lot easier to go help people out in the community; people with which you don't have to deal with daily issues, bad habits and the things that are hard. You see all the mistakes and flaws of your family members under a microscope. And you have to be determined to empower rather than try to control, to love and understand rather than judge.
You can change your mental habits, but it requires you to strengthen these parts of you that you may not have much practice with yet. Or, it requires you to work through the hurt and the betrayal that you've experienced. It may be your parents fault in part that you carry all this trauma, but now it is your responsibility to overcome it.
So what does this mean? How does that work exactly? When you experience negative emotions such as anger, sadness, impatience, fear, etc., instead of escaping or judging yourself, you process through those thoughts and emotions.
What are the root causes behind your negative emotions? Express understanding for yourself. Look at what's happened in your childhood, or in the previous months, weeks, or that day that has led to the emotions. What's going on that has caused this anger or hurt? Take time out to find those root causes and talk yourself through them.
Mental Habit 2: Seeing Failures as Learning Experiences
This requires a lot of practice undoing shame habits. In other words, habits of believing my mistakes define you.
So, I'm not just talking about failure as far as relapses or slips with addiction here. I'm talking about all failures in all parts of life. Remember, we're not just talking about stopping the behavior of addiction, we're talking about developing a recovery mindset, and a recovery mindset means changing the way you think and process every single aspect of my life. I teach people to do this step by step by step through daily practices and exercises within the program.
What does the addict part of the brain want to do with failure? It wants you to bludgeon and beat yourself down with it. It wants you to destroy yourself with it.
Why? Well, one of the reasons is because it's an excuse to numb out and seek out addiction, which is what that part of the brain wants.
You might notice I'm saying “the addict part of the brain”, because I'm not defining you by that addiction or by those impulses or cravings. Just see it as a part of your brain, the addict part - not who you are.
It takes a lot of practice to begin seeing failures as learning experiences, but it is crucial for recovery, because feeling ashamed of failure is one of the biggest things that drives our addiction cravings and leads to relapses.
When you fail, ask, “Okay, what am I going to do differently in the future? How am I going to change?” And that's all it needs to be.
Mental Habit 3: Focusing on Others
I know it can sound cliche in ways, but this is big. This is really, really big.
So I want you to listen to this. Addiction is a self-centered act. It's hard to admit that, right? But it is self-centered.
It's selfish. It's all about us getting our fix, feeling better, escaping the pain, and it hurts the people around us. Again, it’s the addict part of the brain that pushes you to do this. It's not who you are. It's just that you've built habits of giving into that, escaping, numbing out, turning to this addiction.
So, instead of turning to addiction to feel good, we build habits of doing things that actually uplift us, bring us peace, and bring us joy. And by focusing on others, by actually connecting in relationships, loving others, showing them care, showing them kindness, making plans on a daily basis to serve the people around us, making it a point to spend time listening to our wife or our children, taking time out for quality time and to love others the way that they need to be loved…These things fill us with that meaning and purpose we need to replace the desire for addiction.
The more that we build that habit of focusing on other people, the more that we are training our mind psychologically out of addiction and training ourselves behaviorally as we do things that are opposite to addiction.
If we choose things that are “others-centered”, or selfless, rather that “self-centered”, or selfish, we're undoing addiction. It doesn't mean we're never going to experience cravings or never have thoughts of addiction pop up again. It just means the more we act in selfless ways and focus our time and attention on others rather than ourselves, the more we'll come out of the habit of addiction.
You Can Build Mental Habits to Quit Porn
Remember, my friend, you're not alone in this battle. With the right mindset and a commitment to growth, you can build the mental habits to quit porn for good. So, take that first step, and let's embark on this journey together. God bless, and much love to you.
Want to join my Porn Addiction Recovery Program to overcome porn addiction for good?
My clients don’t just learn to stop their addiction. They develop a Recovery Mindset and Lifestyle using hands-on, practical, daily exercises that they use to stay sober for the rest of their lives. No More Desire is a shame-free program that allies psychological and behavioral solutions with spiritual principles. Click Here to Learn More About the Recovery Program and build mental habits to quit porn for good.
Transcription of Episode 50: 3 Mental Habits to Quit Porn: The Recovery Mindset