The Anger Beneath Porn Addiction: How Resentment Fuels Cravings, and Forgiveness Helps You Break Free

For a long time, anger was my baseline.

I felt irritated, resentful, tense, and internally charged much of the time. Porn cravings were also a regular part of my life. At the time, I did not understand that these two experiences were deeply connected. I thought anger was one problem and pornography addiction was another. One was emotional, the other was sexual.

What I eventually learned was that they were often growing from the same internal fire.

Anger and porn addiction frequently overlap because both can be connected to emotional dysregulation, resistance, shame, fear, disconnection, and the desire to escape. A man may spend an entire day feeling frustrated with his wife, disrespected at work, disappointed in himself, or overwhelmed by life. Later that evening, he experiences an intense urge to watch porn.

He assumes the craving is sexual.

But often, it is not primarily about sex. It is about relief.

The craving is offering him a temporary exit from the pressure he does not know how to process. Until we understand this connection between resentment and porn addiction, we may keep fighting the behavior without addressing the deeper system that is producing it.

In my conversation with author and radio host Brant Hansen, we explored how anger functions, why resentment is so difficult to release, and how forgiveness, humility, gratitude, and prayer can help us build a healthier recovery mindset and lifestyle.

Anger and Porn Cravings Often Hide Deeper Emotions

One of the most important lessons I have learned in pornography addiction recovery is that the emotion we notice first is not always the deepest emotion.

Anger often sits on the surface because it feels powerful. Beneath it, however, there may be fear, sadness, guilt, rejection, loneliness, inadequacy, helplessness, or shame.

The same can be true of porn cravings.

A man may say, “I am feeling sexually triggered,” but if he slows down and examines what is happening, he may discover that he feels rejected by his wife, anxious about money, disappointed in his performance at work, ashamed of a mistake, or deeply unsure of his direction in life.

Porn promises to move him away from those emotions. It gives his mind something intense to focus on so he does not have to remain present with what hurts.

Anger can serve a similar purpose. If I can focus on what everyone else is doing wrong, I may not have to look at the guilt, insecurity, grief, or responsibility inside me.

This does not mean anger is fake. It does not mean the offense was imaginary or that another person did nothing wrong. It means there may be more happening beneath the surface than we first realize.

What I want you to notice is that anger and cravings are often protector responses. They are attempts to create safety, relief, control, distance, or power.

Their methods may be unhealthy, but their presence is trying to tell us something.

Anger Is a Warning Light, Not a Driver

Brant describes anger as a warning light on the dashboard of a car.

A warning light tells you that something may be wrong. It may signal that you feel threatened, blocked, disrespected, rejected, or treated unfairly. It deserves your attention.

But the warning light is not supposed to take control of the steering wheel.

This distinction is crucial for both anger management and porn addiction recovery. An emotion can give us information without becoming our leader.

Anger can alert me to a crossed boundary, but it does not give me permission to attack someone. A craving can alert me to stress, loneliness, or nervous system dysregulation, but it does not command me to watch porn.

A mature man learns to listen to his emotions without being ruled by them.

When anger or a porn urge appears, try asking:

• What feels threatened right now?

• What am I afraid of?

• Do I feel rejected, powerless, overlooked, or inadequate?

• Is a boundary actually being crossed?

• Am I reacting to the present situation, or is this touching an older wound?

• What would a response rooted in my values look like?

These questions move us out of reaction and into Self-leadership.

The goal is not to eliminate the warning light by force. The goal is to understand what it is signaling and respond with clarity.

Suppressing Anger Can Make Porn Addiction Worse

Many men, especially men raised in religious environments, learned that anger was bad and sexual desire was dangerous. They may not have been told this explicitly, but they absorbed the message nonetheless.

I experienced this myself.

I came to believe, at least unconsciously, that a good Christian should not feel angry and should not experience strong sexual attraction. When those emotions appeared, I did not know how to work with them. I tried to deny them, control them, or shame myself for having them.

This only made the problem worse.

The cycle often looks like this: a difficult emotion appears, a man believes he should not feel it, he resists or suppresses it, the internal pressure grows, shame is added to the original feeling, and porn becomes the quickest available form of relief.

Now he is no longer dealing with one emotion. He is dealing with anger, anxiety, shame, self-judgment, and a powerful craving to escape all of it.

This is why emotional regulation matters so much in porn addiction recovery. We cannot heal emotions by condemning ourselves for having them.

Anger is not the same thing as hatred. Attraction is not the same thing as betrayal. A craving is not the same thing as relapse.

A feeling is an experience. An action is a choice.

Learning to separate those two can change everything.

Why Resentment Fuels Porn Cravings

Resentment is anger that has been held, rehearsed, and reinforced over time.

We replay what someone said. We imagine what we should have said back. We build an internal case proving that we were right and they were wrong. We think about the injustice while driving, working, showering, or lying in bed.

The original event may have lasted five minutes, but our body continues responding to it for days, months, or even years.

This ongoing mental rehearsal can keep the nervous system in a state of activation. The body remains tense. The mind remains defensive. The emotional pressure continues building.

Eventually, the brain looks for relief.

For a man who has trained his brain to use pornography as a coping mechanism, resentment creates the perfect environment for a craving. Porn offers a temporary interruption to the repetitive thoughts, bodily stress, and emotional intensity.

This is one reason stress and porn relapse are so closely connected. The brain has learned that sexual stimulation can provide a rapid shift in state.

The problem is that the relief does not last. Afterward, the resentment is still there, and now shame, secrecy, and discouragement have been added to it.

Porn does not resolve anger. It pauses our awareness of it.

Sometimes We Blame Others Because We Feel Guilty

One of the more uncomfortable discoveries in my own life has been that resentment is not always created solely by what another person has done.

Sometimes I am angry because I do not feel good about how I am showing up.

This can happen especially in marriage. If I know I have been distracted, emotionally unavailable, passive, dishonest, or disconnected, I may carry guilt that I have not fully acknowledged. Instead of facing that discomfort, I begin noticing everything my wife is doing wrong.

Blame protects me from responsibility.

Again, this does not mean the other person is perfect or that all conflict is my fault. It means I need to be honest about my side of the relationship.

When I feel grounded in how I am showing up—when I am present, responsible, honest, engaged, and acting according to my values—I tend to have far less need to point the finger.

If you are carrying resentment, ask yourself:

“Is there anything I need to take ownership of?”

Perhaps there is an apology to make, a responsibility you have avoided, a boundary you need to communicate, or a pattern of withdrawal you need to change.

Taking responsibility without shame restores power. Blame keeps us stuck.

Porn Addiction Can Keep Life Small

Pornography is not only a pleasure-seeking behavior. It can also become a strategy for avoiding the full weight of life.

Addiction allows us to procrastinate emotionally. It gives us something to obsess over, resist, hide, and recover from. This can keep us from confronting deeper responsibilities, meaningful goals, relational intimacy, spiritual growth, or the fear of failure.

In other words, addiction can become the great distraction.

As long as I remain consumed by porn, I never have to fully answer questions like:

Who am I called to become?

Where am I avoiding courage?

What responsibility have I neglected?

What relationship needs my presence?

What dream am I afraid to pursue?

What grief have I not allowed myself to feel?

This does not mean a man consciously chooses addiction because he wants to remain small. These patterns often develop beneath awareness. But recovery eventually requires us to see how porn has helped us sidestep life.

Quitting porn means becoming available again—to God, to our relationships, to responsibility, to purpose, and to the emotional realities we have avoided.

Recovery Is Not About Fighting Every Emotion

Many men approach porn cravings with a warfare mentality. They tighten their bodies, grit their teeth, distract themselves, and try to force the urge away.

There is certainly a place for firm boundaries and decisive action. You may need to leave the room, put away your phone, contact an accountability partner, or change your environment.

But internal resistance alone is not emotional regulation.

The more desperately we tell ourselves, “I cannot feel this,” the more threatening the feeling becomes.

A healthier form of surrender sounds like this:

“I am willing to feel what is here, but I will not hand it control of my behavior.”

That is not giving in. It is becoming present.

Surrender means allowing yourself to notice the anger, craving, fear, or shame without immediately escaping it. It means bringing awareness and compassion to your inner world while still choosing the higher road.

You can feel angry without attacking.

You can feel a craving without acting on it.

You can feel ashamed without condemning yourself.

You can feel afraid without abandoning your responsibilities.

This is what emotional maturity looks like. Not the absence of feeling, but the ability to lead yourself through it.

Forgiveness Is Not the Removal of Boundaries

Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood practices in emotional healing and Christian porn addiction recovery.

Many men hear “forgive” and assume it means pretending nothing happened, immediately trusting someone again, removing consequences, or remaining in a harmful relationship.

That is not what forgiveness requires.

You can forgive someone and still set boundaries. You can release resentment and still acknowledge that a person is unsafe. You can pray for someone and still decide that they should not have access to your life.

Forgiveness is not calling evil good.

It is releasing your commitment to revenge, repeated mental prosecution, and the ongoing emotional debt you believe the person must pay before you can find peace.

Brant made a powerful observation in our conversation: if we refuse to forgive someone, we may remain in relationship with them inside our minds for the rest of our lives.

We replay what they did. We rehearse what we would say. We imagine their punishment. We allow them to occupy our thoughts long after they have left the room.

Forgiveness allows us to stop carrying that weight.

How to Forgive Someone Who Has Not Apologized

One of the most practical tools Brant recommends is praying for the person who drives you crazy.

This can feel extremely unnatural at first. That is because it is unnatural. Human beings are inclined toward retaliation, defensiveness, contempt, and revenge.

Jesus presents another way.

He teaches us to pray for our enemies and bless those who mistreat us. This is not sentimental spirituality. It is a demanding practice that changes the orientation of the heart.

You might begin with a simple prayer:

“God, bring peace into this person’s life. Help them heal from what drives their behavior. Bless their family. Lead them toward truth, repentance, and wholeness.

Help me release my need to punish them inside my mind.”

Notice that this prayer does not deny the harm. You can pray for someone’s transformation while still wanting justice and accountability.

Forgiveness is not always a one-time emotional event. It can be a practice we return to every time the resentment rises.

Use Everyday Irritations as Forgiveness Practice

We often imagine forgiveness only in relation to our deepest wounds. But Brant recommends practicing with ordinary offenses.

Traffic can become forgiveness practice.

A coworker’s irritating habit can become forgiveness practice.

A rude comment, a delayed appointment, an inconsiderate family member, or a frustrating email can all become opportunities to retrain our response.

When someone cuts you off in traffic, you can immediately rehearse outrage—or you can pray, “God, bless that person. Give them peace today.”

This may sound simple, but repeated practice matters.

A basketball player does not wait until the final seconds of a championship game to learn how to shoot a free throw. He practices the movement thousands of times until it becomes more natural under pressure.

In the same way, we practice forgiveness in small moments so that mercy, patience, and prayer become more available when the offense is greater.

Forgive People in Advance

Another practical idea from Brant is to forgive people in advance.

People will be imperfect today. Your wife may misunderstand you. Your children may interrupt you. Someone at work may be dismissive. A driver may cut you off.

A friend may forget to respond.

You will also be imperfect.

Why are we continually shocked by human nature?

Forgiving in advance does not mean expecting the worst from everyone. It means releasing the fantasy that the day must go exactly as we want in order for us to remain peaceful.

At the beginning of the day, you might pray:

“God, people will be imperfect today, including me. Help me tell the truth, set healthy boundaries, extend grace, and refuse resentment.”

This posture helps us become less reactive when life behaves like life.

Gratitude Cultivates Humility

During our conversation, I asked Brant how a man can cultivate humility.

His answer was that humility cannot be pursued directly. The moment we become proud of how humble we are, we have defeated the purpose.

Instead, humility grows through gratitude.

When I remember that my life, abilities, recovery, relationships, opportunities, and strength are gifts from God, I have less room for entitlement and superiority.

Even the good I do is made possible by capacities I first received.

This does not remove personal effort. We are still responsible for stewarding our lives, developing our gifts, practicing discipline, and taking action. But gratitude reminds us that we are not self-created.

A grateful man becomes less easily offended because he is less consumed with what he believes he is owed.

Gratitude also supports porn addiction recovery because it shifts the heart away from deprivation. Instead of obsessing over what I cannot have, I begin noticing what I have been given and what I can build with it.

A Practical Method for Anger and Porn Cravings

When anger or a craving appears, I recommend moving through the following process slowly. You do not need to do it perfectly. The purpose is to interrupt the automatic movement from emotional discomfort to escape.

First, pause before you react. Do not immediately reach for your phone, begin an argument, scroll social media, or isolate yourself.

Second, name what you feel. Move beyond “bad” or “triggered.” Are you angry, embarrassed, lonely, afraid, guilty, rejected, tired, or overwhelmed?

Third, notice where the emotion is showing up in your body. You may feel tension in your jaw, pressure in your chest, heat in your face, tightness in your stomach, or restlessness in your hands.

Fourth, identify the story running through your mind. Are you telling yourself that nobody respects you, nothing ever works, your wife does not care, you are a failure, or you deserve relief?

Fifth, ask what the emotion is trying to accomplish. Is it seeking safety, control, comfort, justice, connection, distance, or escape?

Finally, choose one value-based action. Pray, breathe slowly, take a walk, write in a journal, call another man, speak honestly with your wife, set a boundary, apologize, complete a responsibility, or simply remain present until the emotional wave begins to pass.

This is how we strengthen Self-leadership. We learn to hear the emotion, understand the emotion, and then choose what happens next.

Build a Life That Produces Less Resentment

Recovery cannot depend only on what you do in moments of crisis. Your lifestyle either supports emotional regulation or continually works against it.

If you are exhausted, overworked, isolated, constantly consuming news, carrying unresolved relationship tension, sleeping poorly, spending hours on your phone, and avoiding meaningful responsibilities, your nervous system will remain overloaded.

In that condition, anger and porn cravings become more likely.

Take an honest look at your week.

Where are you overextended? What conversations are you avoiding? Where are you consuming too much noise? Are you spending meaningful time in prayer?

Are you exercising? Are you connected to other men? Are you creating, serving, building, and pursuing noble pleasure—or primarily consuming?

Porn addiction recovery is not only about closing the door to pornography. It is about building a life you no longer need to escape.

The Goal Is Not to Never Feel Angry

A healthy man will still experience anger.

Anger can alert us to injustice, mistreatment, danger, or a violated boundary. It can give us energy to protect, speak, act, and make necessary changes.

The goal is not emotional numbness.

The goal is mature anger—anger that communicates without attacking, protects without controlling, tells the truth without contempt, and motivates action without revenge.

In the same way, the goal is not to become a man who never experiences sexual desire or a momentary craving. The goal is to become a man who can lead his desires rather than being ruled by them.

My friend, your triggers are trailheads.

When anger rises, it can lead you toward blame, fantasy, isolation, and relapse. Or it can lead you toward self-awareness, prayer, responsibility, boundaries, forgiveness, and deeper healing.

You do not overcome porn addiction merely by becoming better at resisting porn. You become free by learning how to face life, emotion, conflict, imperfection, and pain without needing pornography to carry you away.

That is the deeper work.

And it is also the path toward peace.

To learn more about Brant Hansen, including his books, podcast, and speaking, go to: branthansen.com

Include all of the following promos at the bottom of the show notes and blog article.

Visit No More Desire Tools for Recovery for recovery tools and training, including my free eBook, Workshop, The RAIL Method ™ and more to help you break free from porn.

If you’re tired of trying to quit porn on your own, the No More Desire Academy gives you a structured path to recovery through coaching, brotherhood, practical tools, and step-by-step training. Learn more about the Academy.

If you want deeper, more personalized support, I also offer 1-on-1 porn addiction recovery coaching. We’ll work directly on your patterns, emotional triggers, recovery plan, and long-term growth. Learn more about working 1-on-1 with Jake Kastleman.

God bless, my friend.

Recommended Episodes:

Anger, Porn Addiction & One Simple Mental Technique to Overcome Both

Prevent Porn Cravings & Relapse Through Emotional Awareness Techniques

Porn Addiction Recovery Without Shame: Stop Hating Yourself and Start Healing

Full Transcript of Episode 155: The Anger Beneath Porn Addiction: How Resentment Fuels Cravings, and Forgiveness Helps You Break Free

Jake Kastleman (00:00.182)

Welcome to No More Desire, where we build a mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from porn. My name's Jake Castleman and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.

Jake Kastleman (00:14.626)

In today's episode, we focus on something that is crucial for quitting porn, and that is our relationship to anger. You might think, how does anger relate to overcoming pornography addiction? I get that question. Let me explain. I'm someone who felt anger all of the time. I felt cravings also all of the time. Simmering resentment were my baseline, and the constant draw to porn and masturbation.

were my baseline. I did not know how to respond in a healthy way to any of these feelings. I grew up believing that anger was bad and that I shouldn't feel it. I also received the implicit message within my Christian upbringing that sexual attraction was dangerous and that I should not feel that either. Christ would not approve of these emotions as what I seem to believe, at least unconsciously.

This was never shared consciously, never shared explicitly around me, but it was definitely shared implicitly. It was only later in my life that I came to understand how this approach of resistance and judgment and control towards anger and sexual desire were fueling my addiction. These were the coals that heated my obsession that drove these feelings of anger and cravings constantly.

Because I felt that anger and cravings were unacceptable emotions, I unconsciously told myself that I didn't experience them, or that they weren't a problem. Then when I could no longer deny that the feelings were there, I would shame myself and feel deep guilt about them. This would only pour gasoline on the internal fire and cause me to also feel things like anxiety and depression and social anxiety, which were

In part the result of suppressed emotion. Emotions that I didn't know how to relate to and respond to in a healthy way. It would be years before I understood that anger is not inherently an evil emotion, but simply an emotion. Cravings, I would also say are not inherently evil, and that's a hard one for a lot of us. Instead, it is my response to these feelings that determines whether they are used for good or

Jake Kastleman (02:42.848)

Or evil, for self-growth or self-destruction. Both anger and cravings can lead to good in the long run. They can be tor mentors for me. My tormentors that are mentors, right? They can be trailheads for my growth. Triggers are trailheads. For a deeper relationship with God or a growing

dependency on him, a growing relationship with him for his help, or they can lead to my distance from him. They can lead to, again, my growth or my destruction. Judging resistance or attempting to control these emotions only strengthens them, my friends. That is the paradoxical thing of the emotional world. Anger and cravings are driven by internal judgment.

Resistance and control. Therefore, anger and cravings will never be solved by judgment, resistance, and control. We cannot solve them through the cause of them. Sexual desire itself is manageable and normal. Craving is not about sexual desire, though. It is the result of deeper emotion and emotional dysregulation. It also has other causes, but for the sake of this episode,

We will focus on that. Anger is also this way. Both anger and cravings hide deeper emotions that we need to regulate. These are not inherently negative or bad emotions, but opportunities for us to see something underneath that calls for our attention. They are signaling us that something underneath needs our help. Both anger and craving hide deeper emotions like fear.

Guilt, sadness, loneliness, lack of purpose or direction, betrayal. These things could have happened early in life, they could be happening currently in life, we could still be carrying them from childhood or from many experiences we had over years of time. We find a part of us that is afraid of being seen as weak underneath craving or anger, or part of us that is afraid to be vulnerable or to get close to others.

Jake Kastleman (05:09.442)

Beneath anger and craving. Anger keeps people at arm's length, my friend, keeping us safe, quote unquote. Cravings keep us fixated on a behavior or substance so that we can escape life, avoid life, sidestep responsibilities and pressures, or have a reason not to pursue higher goals. It keeps us stuck.

And it keeps us from pursuing deeper closeness in our relationships or coming outside ourselves. It is our continuous excuse for why we cannot be better. That is not a judgment call of hate, that is a call out to the pattern that is inside of us behind the addiction, one that we can overcome step by step. Addiction is the great procrastination strategy, ever keeping us stuck so that life never gets too big.

I speak from personal experience on that, that's how I lived a lot of my life. I just didn't realize that until much later, even years after quitting. These emotions serve deeper purposes. Those purposes can certainly be evil, but the answer to anger or cravings is not to condemn them, push them away, simply drop them, or pretend that they aren't there. Instead, the way to

Bring these into a good purpose that they can have is to release these emotions paradoxically through embracing them first. The same way that we would embrace a scared child or show respect to a well-meaning protector in our lives. If we want to get sober or we want to release anger or become better with anger, we must approach every emotion with acceptance.

Understanding, and even appreciation for how that emotion is attempting to help us. It may not be working, but it's trying. Cravings try to bring us into a fantasy world to get us away from discomfort, help us avoid pressure or suffering. Anger attempts to set a boundary, get a need met, seek justice, or to try to change something that's hurting us. Again, these

Jake Kastleman (07:35.47)

Emotions may not be truthful or inherently good. But if we let the anger or craving lead, they make the problem worse. If we instead show understanding for these emotions, we investigate the reasons behind them, we find self-acceptance and compassion, and we seek to solve these things in healthy ways rather than fighting or resisting them, then we can calm our nervous system and lead ourselves to a better

Outcome. Staying sober is not about resistance, brother. It is about surrender. I know so many of us hate that word and have a hard time with it. I want to posit that surrendering or surrender is to surrender to every emotion that we feel with awareness, mindfulness, acceptance, compassion, and a conscious choice to take a higher road. Notice that is a Buddhist principle.

An Eastern principle, a Taoist principle. We are converging the Christian Western philosophy with the Eastern philosophy. These things are not contradictory. They fit very, very nicely together. Not giving into the emotions, notice I didn't say that. That's not what surrender is. But giving way to total presence so we can transform darkness into light. This, I believe, is the truly Christian.

approach to emotion, both within ourselves and others. This is the paradox of the emotional world, one that does not function according to logic. When Ryan's wife found out about his infidelity, all hell broke loose. They had a son together and he was about to lose him and her. Ryan had been hiding his pornos for years since his childhood, but sexting other people went way beyond that.

When she found out Ryan knew that divorce was more than likely and he was devastated, he wondered how he could let it go this far. How could he betray her this way? She was everything to him, yet he'd betrayed her so severely and now he was going to lose everything. That's when he contacted me and entered the program. Together, Ryan and I discovered the deeper reasons behind his behavior, the lack of emotional safety that he felt in his life, the technology habits that he had.

Jake Kastleman (10:02.55)

His inability to stay present, his feelings of shame and not being good enough. I taught Ryan emotional mindfulness strategies like the rail method, and he had massive changes to his lifestyle through small steps taught in the program. He even came to understand the link between ADHD and his porn addiction and was able to make improvements in both. Here's what he had to say about his experience with the coaching program. I've been sober for seven months now.

Not only does the program help you with your addiction, but it does something even better. It helps you become a better version of yourself. Jake has been in our shoes and is truly walking the walk. The program is going to take a lot. You only get as much as you put into it. That being said, if you feel like you truly do want to change your life, contact Jake and get a consultation. With the material and exercises from the program, I feel confident I have a map.

Better roads ahead. I've kept up with Ryan here and there, and he continues to be sober after over a year. His wife and he are building trust and continuing to raise their son together, and I'm so, so happy for them. If you are struggling with a porn addiction, head to nomordesire.com slash coaching. Learn more and create your own success story. All right, back to the show, my friend. I want to move into the next section of today's episode.

Which is a short conversation with my guest, Brant Hansen. Brandt and I had a nice conversation about this topic of anger and resentment and how these can relate to our recovery as well. Brant is a best-selling author and award-winning nationally syndicated radio host whose show airs on more than 200 stations. He has appeared on Good Morning America, focused on the family and family life today.

His podcast, the Brant and Sherry Odcast, which has quite a funny name and he is very humorous, has surpassed nineteen million downloads. He also uses his platform to support Cure International's life changing surgical care for children around the world. Brandt and I discuss the Christian approach to the challenge of anger and resentment and how forgiveness, gratitude, humility, and prayer.

Jake Kastleman (12:25.752)

Can be great solutions to these challenges. I believe that deep mindfulness and presence with emotion is critical for overcoming addiction. Anger is a toxic emotion that brings us into suffering unless we learn how to relate and respond to it in a healthy way, like I've discussed, through self-awareness, mindfulness, and forgiveness for ourselves or others. Both really.

Finding forgiveness for others and ourselves is not a straightforward or simple process. It often involves a great deal of wrestling and introspection. Christ shares simple and profound truths that have they've continued throughout the ages. And these simple and profound truths in Scripture about forgiveness and praying for our enemies do not give us every single answer for us personally, I think, because it is up to us to walk our own journey of personal inspiration.

And intros introspection and helping each other and offering each other advice or insights, assisting one another in finding those deeper answers or finding the hows for the what that Christ often shares. And sometimes he does give us the how, of course. So we can learn how to live according to his teachings. Brandt and I discuss some of these insights today. Before we dive in.

Please like, rate, and follow this podcast. It's a huge help to my team and the growth of this show. And it helps us bring you the latest in porn addiction recovery and personal growth. And if you want deeper, more hands-on practices, I have an academy with courses, a private community, weekly group coaching, all online in an easy-to-use platform and online portal where you can connect, get help, and get a step-by-step process.

To long-lasting recovery. With that, let's get started in the next part of the episode with my conversation with Brand Hansen.

Brant Hansen (14:29.112)

So anger is like this warning light on a dashboard. It tells you something's wrong. Or you're perceiving something to be wrong. Like there's a threat somehow. You're being threatened, you don't know why, or it you feel like your will is being thwarted. It's totally natural. I I keep quoting this this guy from Stanford who's a neuroendocrinologist and he's brilliant. He talks about this. He wrote a book why called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. And it's about like all the animals.

We're the only creatures on the planet that can get like stress related ulcers. Right. Why? He says, like, what's the deal? So he's an endocrinologist. He's saying because everybody has a fight or flight response. That's just normal for survival, right? But a zebra gets this fight or flight response and all of this stuff happens to your body really quickly when you like here, there's a lion, I need to run for it.

Like your the heart rate changes, the blood pressure changes, the adrenaline spikes, you know, all of this stuff happens. The cortisol spikes, all of these things happen, there's systems that shut down. It's a massive response, the stress response. And it's natural. But the thing is, for the zebra, it's over in 30 seconds. But humans, he says, are the only creatures that can hold on to it for 10 years. Or borrow threats that haven't even happened.

From next year or next week or tomorrow. And so you get all of that response in your body and you hold it. And the heighten just to heighten cortisol, you may know, because you're pretty obviously pretty understanding of this stuff, but like, that'll kill you. It causes heart disease, it causes weight gain around the midsection. It causes you to look older. It breaks down the collagen in your skin. It shortens your lifespan. Like

Holding on to that, you're not designed to hold on to anger. The biblical wisdom, and I come at this as a Christian, but the biblical wisdom is to get rid of it. But Christians are taught, unfortunately, I was taught growing up, like, no, you have righteous anger. Hold on to your righteous anger. The key that the Bible is saying that we're given in terms of like the way of Jesus is forgiveness. We actually drop your right to anger, not because people deserve it, because they don't deserve it. Most people are not going to apologize.

Brant Hansen (16:49.678)

But you drop it because you didn't deserve it.

Jake Kastleman (16:53.192)

Mm. So you you

Brant Hansen (16:53.912)

You extend that forgiveness to other people. It turns out it's a much healthier way to live. And it is actually doable. Even people who've gone through extreme victimhood, like their family's been killed or something, you'll see they find freedom by forgiving the perks. It doesn't mean there's no jail time. It doesn't mean there's no com consequences. It's like but your own baggage, you now don't have to carry that for the rest of your life.

Jake Kastleman (17:20.718)

So this getting rid of anger, let's talk more about kind of the nuts and bolts of that or what you've seen that works for people. Cause you also definitely address in your book that it's not about ignoring pain, right? It's not about that pain is real. So let's let's talk about, yeah, that process.

Brant Hansen (17:40.696)

Jesus even tells a story about a man who's forgiven. He owes his master like three billion dollars and he's forgiven for everything. And he turns around and won't forgive somebody else. And the master, the king, is very upset about that. And it's clear what the message is. Like you have been forgiven for so much. If you don't turn around, if you think that somebody else is unforgivable and you should hold on to your anger, well, that's on you. That's on me. So the

The resource that I have that we have to draw on is the fact that God has done this for us. So you have to not you don't pretend that nothing happened. That's that's the thing. A lot of people will be like, so you're saying we should just hold it in and repress the anger. No, no, no. You have to forgive people because you've been forgiven. That's the whole point. It's out of humility. Okay.

People will sometimes say, and this is a totally fair thing to say, honestly, they'll sometimes say, Well, does that mean I have to stay in a relationship with somebody that's abusive or horrible, like, I forgive you, whatever you do, I guess I have to put up with it. No, that's not what forgiveness is. You can still have boundaries. The irony is if you don't forgive them, you are staying in relationship with them for the rest of your life in your head.

My dad was a he just recently passed away. He was an awful dad. And he was a he was a Christian pastor and abusive and philandering and a f a fraud. So my brother and I both had to go, okay, so we could live in reaction to that for the rest of our lives. It was trauma and it was religious trauma. It's like

We we feared for our lives growing up. I don't want to though. So we both had to decide, like, you know what? As an act of worship to God, I'm going to forgive my dad. I'm not going to hold on to anger against him. I'm going to pray for blessings for him. And that's in fact what Jesus tells us to do. If you if you actually pray for blessings for the people who drive you crazy, you will.

Brant Hansen (20:00.696)

Feel a lightness of being that will come into your life very quickly. This person drives me crazy, or this person has hurt me. Lord, bless them and their families. Give them peace somehow. You will feel your own heart rate slowing down. You will feel a release. And then he says that his way is actually lighter and easier. And he says, Come to me, you'll find rest. Yoke yourself to me.

At first you think it's harder. It's like it's really hard to forgive somebody. Yes, yeah, at first you but you know what? It becomes a way of life.

Jake Kastleman (20:37.15)

Right. Yeah. And and for me, I think one of the struggles that I had with what you're s what you're saying earlier in my life was people would say, just forgive and just let go. And I would always ask inside myself, but how? How is that done? How do I just forgive and let go? What does that look like? What's what's the process that I need to go through?

Right. And they just say, Well, just just forgive. That really, really frustrated me a lot and it made me feel like a like a bad person actually. Like, okay. Yeah, totally. You must just not have this ability that other people have to just, you know, forgive and let go. I I I guess I'm just I'm just a really resentful person apparently.

Brant Hansen (21:22.658)

So in terms of the how, I've gotta get to work praying for blessings on this person.

At first, it seems incredibly unnatural. The reason it seems unnatural is because it's unnatural. Right. Humans don't operate that way. We kill each other, we go to war, we get revenge, we get revenge for the revenge. We get revenge for it's it's a circle. That's what humans do. What Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount is a way out of this. But when you do pray for somebody, again, like I'm saying, you will change, you will start to root for that person.

Not that there are no consequences for what they've done, but you start, you'll you'll feel yourself polling for the person. I've done I've done this, and I it starts with people in traffic. I call traffic forgiveness practice. But like, try it in practice. Somebody cuts you off. It's very unnatural instead of flipping them off or getting mad in your car to say, Lord, please bless that guy. Seems like he's toxic.

Please let there be peace in his home, in his family, in his life. As you practice it, you get better at it. You don't even think about it, it becomes second nature after a while. That's why you shoot 10,000 free throws or whatever, because at first it's like, okay, where does my elbow go? Where does my left hand go? How do I where's how do I do my knees? After the 10,000th, when you're not in a game with two seconds left going, okay, now where does my elbow go? Right?

It's second nature because you've been doing this.

Jake Kastleman (23:01.678)

For me, one of the things that really drove home and helped me understand how to forgive was that I really needed to come to a deep understanding for myself and for the other person, my own emotions, right? And this surrender process. To forgive means to give away, right? And I feel that God has taught me you

When I'm angry, when I'm resentful, when I'm holding things against someone, there's a deeper fear in me. There's a deeper, maybe a feeling of shame that I carry, like a feeling of guilt or like I did something wrong, or you know, I didn't show up well or whatever it is, or I should have done something, I should have acted, I should have stood up for myself, I should have this, I should have that. And so getting in touch within myself, like, what are those feelings and why are they there and what's going on for me?

And bringing those before God and saying, Help me understand, like help me understand myself.

Brant Hansen (24:01.166)

Being able to speak to that, how you feel, being able to speak truth to yourself is so important. I wrote about this in the in the book, the Living Unoffended book, but it dawned on me while I was writing the book that I'd never thought about this. If you ever do one of those pay it forward things, like in a fast food place, have you ever seen one of those? You don't talk about

Jake Kastleman (24:25.327)

Yes. Is it the is it the vending machine thing where they buy a thing out of it and it's like you're you're purchasing like a gift or like something for someone else? Or is this

Brant Hansen (24:34.99)

It's usually like through the drive thru. Like somebody buys your thing ahead of time and then you pay for the person's mind to

Jake Kastleman (24:40.86)

Okay. Yes. Okay.

Brant Hansen (24:42.696)

I I learned that it in Brainerd, Minnesota, this actually went on for over two and a half days. And so that's like the world record of people just buying until some guy like, you know, I'm done. I'm done with it. But

Jake Kastleman (24:54.816)

And that guy, who's that guy. Could have kept going forever.

Brant Hansen (24:59.01)

He's like, I just want my dilly bar. Everybody out of the way. So but literally, like so the Lord forgave me first while I was yet a sinner. I extend that to other people in advance. For give, forward giving. I do it not because the person behind me deserves it. I do it because my thing has already been taken care of.

Jake Kastleman (25:18.498)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brant Hansen (25:28.556)

I tell people to forgive people in advance at the beginning of the day. Because you know what? People are gonna be messed up today. Why? Because they were messed up yesterday and every day since the dawn of time. So maybe at some point it's on us to like go, you know what? My boss does that stuff because my boss does that stuff. Or my mom says that kind of stuff because she says it. That's what she does. Like, when am I gonna stop being shocked by human nature?

On the freeway. I can't believe somebody cut me off. You can't believe it? Maybe go ahead and believe it because this is the world.

Jake Kastleman (26:06.606)

Being unsurprised when things go wrong, people say things that hurt, you know, people get angry or they're flawed or they have weaknesses. Cause I think that plays right into addiction and recovery, in that if I always have this victim mentality, if I always have this sense of why is this happening to me? Why am I experiencing this suffering or this other hard thing? How could this be happening yet again?

I just want my problems to go away. If that's my attitude, then I will be seeking out escape, right? And so that's not as simple as just saying, okay, starting today, I no longer think that way. But it's a practice, like you said, right? Of just noticing what's going on in my head, what's coming up for me. Okay, I'm putting myself in a victim mentality, or I'm expecting that, you know, this person will act perfectly or won't offend me today. Well,

They have. That's the reality. You so here it

Brant Hansen (27:06.946)

There's your chance. So I actually think that that's my big chance now. Mm.

Jake Kastleman (27:11.788)

Because it is I like that. I s so Eckhart Tole, I don't if you've ever heard of him. He says yeah, I love him. Every s every challenge we face is an opportunity for spiritual practice. Every time we suffer, it's an opportunity for spiritual practice. That's true.

Brant Hansen (27:25.742)

I hadn't thought about it that way. I like that a lot. Like Jesus is so clear about we forgive as we've been forgiven. I and the standards we use will be used on us.

Jake Kastleman (27:37.59)

And I think that's so interesting from a psychological perspective too, because I think that's how it works in our brains, where if I'm consistently judging everybody around me, I'm gonna be feeling that same sense of jorge judgment towards myself, the things I

Brant Hansen (27:52.768)

100%. You're projecting that to question, like, okay, why am I angry right now? Because I apparently I feel threatened by something. Maybe it's not legit. Why do I feel threatened by this person? Maybe I'm jealous. Asking yourself what's going on, because again, it's like a warning light on a dashboard. I'm not saying anger itself is like sinful or or horrible, but that's the job for anger is just a warning light. I will tell you.

Jake Kastleman (28:03.138)

Yes. Right.

Brant Hansen (28:22.36)

That the more insecure and immature you are, the more that warning light's gonna go off because you're easily threatened. It's like having a, I mentioned in the book, like having an elbow that's inflamed. You don't notice your elbow until it hurts, and then you start whacking it on stuff. Now you're aware of it all the time because it's inflamed. Well, the same thing goes with your ego. If it's inflamed, no matter no matter what anybody does, it's some kind some kind of threat. Like, what do you mean by that? Like we're we're very defensive.

Because our ego's inflamed. We're constantly so the more we grow up, the less the warning light will go off because we're not gonna be feeling threatened every time we turn around.

Jake Kastleman (29:02.008)

You know, I think one of one of the major themes that you talked about is humility. How do we cultivate humility? Kind of going beyond, well, I know there's I know there's the aspect of God's given me everything, Christ has already forgiven me. What do you think are some of the key tenets or key characteristics of humility?

Brant Hansen (29:26.22)

Well, I'll I'll tell you how to how to cultivate it and that is you can't directly. Right. You can't you can't go, how do I learn a million? I'm gonna be okay.

Jake Kastleman (29:35.438)

Here we go. I'm gonna be so humble.

Brant Hansen (29:38.24)

Start one, two, three, humble. I'm constantly interfacing with gratitude. I'm doing it because I'm grateful for what God has done for me. Constantly. Well, that builds humility.

Jake Kastleman (29:53.238)

Along with that, something that's been a huge blessing to me is realizing that the good that I can do in my life, the impact that I can make, the strengths that I have, all of that's only there as a gift from God in the first place. I wouldn't have the capacity or the ability to do any of the good that I do without the original gift, right? Right. I may be working to cultivate it. He's there working alongside me, so he's helping me the whole time.

And he's the one who gave it to me originally. Right. So there's really no space for me to be like, Man, like look what I've done, man. I'm so I'm so awesome. It's like, thanks, God, for blessing me to be able to do something good today, you know?

Brant Hansen (30:35.34)

the way to go. That is i I mean, you know this, like gratitude. Like you don't have to be a every secular psychologist knows that gratitude is like this elixir that's magic practically about everything.

Jake Kastleman (30:46.668)

It is so true. And I think I'm curious what you have to say about this. One of the other things that I've I've really noticed in my own life. So to give it to to give you and others an idea, a anger is one of the primary things that I've struggled with in my life and resentment, right? And so I've done a lot of work, especially over the last several years, to understand why, right? And one of the things that I've noticed is

If I feel that I'm showing up, so specifically marriage, right? I think so much resentment and anger can show up in our relationships, right? If I feel guilty unconsciously, or like I'm not showing up fully, I'm not fully present or not giving my whole self, anger and resentment can easily come up in blaming and pointing the finger. But if I feel inside myself like, man, you know.

Brant Hansen (31:25.454)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake Kastleman (31:45.812)

happy about how I'm showing up. I'm happy about who I am. I'm I I I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job. Then there's just not space for that blame and that judgment and that anger, which is so curious because it's I feel like it's completely like completely counterintuitive. You wouldn't think, Okay, I feel angry because inside I actually feel guilty or I feel not showing up well.

For somebody who's looking to release resentment, release anger, what would you advise them to begin doing kind of even today or in their daily life?

Brant Hansen (32:21.09)

Just what I was saying. Think of peop s think of people who drive you crazy. They can be politicians, they can be people you don't know, they can be news media people, they can be next door neighbor, they can be in your own home.

And ask God to bless them. Praying for the people who drive you crazy, people in traffic, people at work, you will become a different sort of person.

Jake Kastleman (32:43.822)

Well well Brant, if people want to learn more about you or your book or your work, get connected with you, where should they go?

Brant Hansen (32:51.288)

They can go to branhson dot com. it's actually enhanson dot com. Funny thing that you'll connect with is there's there is an O N dot com.

Jake Kastleman (33:03.404)

Brent Hanson. Okay.

Brant Hansen (33:05.41)

And that guy is now a a friend of mine. He is he's in Utah. He's a city manager and he's an awesome guy. We constantly get each other's emails. so he'll he'll send me I'll get his like city budget stuff and I'll send it on to here you go, Brant. He's like, Well, here you go, Brant. He'll send me like my speaking contract or something that he got or whatever. He's like Well, hey, I'll pray it for you. Hopefully it's going.

Jake Kastleman (33:33.762)

So yeah, that's

Brant Hansen (33:34.67)

That that's my website and the book Unoffendable or Living Unaffended. You can pick it up at Amazon and that'd be wonderful.

Jake Kastleman (33:42.274)

Love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Brandt. Thanks for sharing this with everybody.

Brant Hansen (33:47.31)

It was awesome. Thanks for what you do.

Jake Kastleman (33:49.56)

Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do, and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell, and shoot me a rating. The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. If you want to take your sobriety to the next level,

Check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn, or my free ebook, The Ten Tools to Conquer Cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome porn addiction. And you can find them at NomorDesire dot com. As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of porn to live more impactful, meaningful,

Selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.

Jake Kastleman (35:10.348)

Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants, and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others,

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