Emotional Drivers of Porn Addiction, Healing Trauma, Saving Your Marriage & Improving Your Sex Life
- Jake Kastleman
- Dec 18, 2024
- 58 min read
Updated: Dec 18, 2024
Every man or woman who struggles with porn addiction carries trauma and emotional struggles.
In my own personal porn addiction recovery journey, I’ve come to understand many things about the emotional pain that I carry. And by understanding it, I’ve been able to release much of it, and I continue to after a decade of sobriety from porn.
In my professional work with clients, I’ve come to see many of the same patterns - the same burdens, insecurities, and coping mechanisms.
If you or a loved one is suffering from porn addiction, you must understand that the addiction goes much deeper than a desire for sexual pleasure, and today we talk about these deep psychological dynamics.
In this episode, I am privileged to be with HollyKem and Dean Sunseri, authors of A Roadmap to the Soul and incredible coaches that have been helping people across the world for over 30 years.
Dean is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a Doctorate in Ministry, and HollyKem has experience as a Substance Abuse Counselor. Their approach is powerful and compassionate.
In today's episode we dig deep into the mental and emotional drivers of pornography addiction, We talk about why people can’t get sober, and we discuss bad advice we get that actually makes pornography addiction worse.
We also talk about healing past trauma, how to forgive yourself and others, how to quit porn, and how to save your marriage AND improve your sex life.
Understanding Why Porn Feels So Dissatisfying
For those who battle pornography addiction, there's a pattern that's all too familiar: you go back again and again, only to feel emptier each time. This is because porn, like any addiction, provides a short-lived fix while leaving the deeper issues unaddressed.
"I go back to porn again and again, and it feels so dissatisfying because I’m chasing something else. I’m trying to fill a hole with this thing that’s cheap and weak and lasts a very short time."
Porn doesn't fulfill us because it isn't real. It lacks the true, deep connection we are looking for, offering only a cheap fabrication of physical pleasure in its stead. We keep trying to fill a hole that porn simply can't fill - the need for genuine love and intimacy.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, addiction is often a response to trauma or unresolved pain. To truly stop porn and heal, we must acknowledge the wounds underneath. As we do so, we begin opening up and can start forming stronger bonds of love and affection. Not just in our romantic relationships, but all relationships.
The Power of Giving vs. Taking
A breakthrough in overcoming porn addiction comes when we understand the difference between taking and giving. Addiction—and even self-serving sexual relationships—only take from us. It’s about seeking pleasure, escaping pain, and trying to satisfy ourselves without considering our deeper emotional and spiritual needs.
As we shift our perspective to giving, things change.
No doubt this is easier said than done. But over time, we can practice. True intimacy in a relationship comes not from seeking to satisfy ourselves but from giving love.
"If I’m trying to give to you as best I can, and you’re trying to give to me as best you can, it creates an ecstatic experience… whether there’s orgasm involved or not."
When you approach your partner with the intention of giving rather than taking, you move away from addiction and toward healing. This shift not only transforms your sexual relationship but also begins to restore the emotional bond that addiction has damaged.
Healing Yourself & Breaking Free of Porn
Pornography addiction is often rooted in wounds from the past—painful experiences, traumas, or unmet emotional needs. It can often be hard for us to perceive these deeper needs when we are caught up in pornography addiction. A part of our mind is doing a good job covering up those needs using the addiction.
For many, addictive behaviors become coping mechanisms to avoid facing wounds. But true healing requires something more: reclaiming the parts of yourself that have been lost.
"We’re just replaying a trauma. When that starts to get cleared out and I reclaim the parts of myself that have been lost, things start to look much different. Then I move into a place of restoration."
To quit porn, you must step into this place of restoration. It involves:
Recognizing your wounds: Identify the traumas or triggers that fuel the addiction. Some of these could be sexual, and others will be mental, emotional, and relational.
Choosing to heal: Seek help, whether through counseling, prayer, or personal growth practices.
Embracing your True Self: Move beyond the patterns of coping and start living authentically, and with a deep sense of meaning and purpose.
Reclaiming Intimacy: Why Sex Can Heal or Hurt
One of the most important realizations for anyone overcoming porn addiction is this: sex can either feed your porn addiction or heal it.
When sex is approached with a focus on physical pleasure alone, it can mimic the same addictive patterns as porn. It becomes about taking—getting that “fix”. But when approached from a place of giving and connectedness, intimacy becomes transformative.
True intimacy—whether in marriage or relationships—requires vulnerability, love, and partnership. It’s not about being alone in your experience but about inviting love, connection, and even God into that space.
By shifting from selfishness to selflessness, intimacy becomes a pathway to deep emotional and spiritual healing.
Keys to Overcoming Porn Addiction and Building a Stronger Marriage
Whether you are single, dating, or married, breaking free of pornography addiction requires intentional effort and personal growth. Here are some key takeaways to stop watching porn and restore both yourself and your relationships:
1. Do Your Own Work
The most significant gift you can give your partner is to prioritize your emotional, psychological, and spiritual growth. Overcoming porn addiction starts with the courageous decision to confront your struggles and heal from the inside out.
"The greatest gift you can give your partner is to do your own work… that will make the relationship thrive and continue to grow."
2. Learn to Love Yourself
Healing begins with self-acceptance. Love yourself—flaws, wounds, and all—so that you can fully love your partner. When you embrace who you are, it becomes easier to offer forgiveness, grace, and unconditional love to others.
"I’ve learned to forgive myself… and that allows me to love and forgive my [spouse] very easily."
3. Shift from Taking to Giving
Overcoming porn addiction and rebuilding intimacy requires a mindset shift.
Practice approaching your relationships with the intention of giving rather than taking, and start focusing on how you can support and bring joy to your partner.
This can be very challenging at first, especially when your capacity feels so drained from addiction and other struggles, or there have been severe emotional wounds. So take it in baby steps, making small, incremental shifts over time.
A Path to Restoration and Freedom from Porn Addiction
Pornography addiction doesn’t have to define you. By choosing to heal, reclaim your True Self, and approach intimacy with love and selflessness, you can break free of porn and discover a life that is deeply fulfilling.
As a human being, you deserve more than fleeting fixes. You deserve true love and connection. You can experience this as you break free from your addictions.
As you take steps to stop watching porn and embrace your healing journey, practice compassion for yourself. With courage and a willingness to grow, you can overcome porn addiction and experience the rich, meaningful life you and your spouse desire.
To learn more about Dean and HollyKem go to ihaveavoice.com where you can learn more about their book A Roadmap to the Soul and their 4-month intensive coaching program. You can also check out their YouTube Channel: I Have a Voice for hundreds of free videos.
Ready to Take the Next Step to quit porn for good and reclaim your life? Join me in my Free Workshop: The 8 Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn. This workshop provides practical tools and insights to help you build a recovery mindset and lifestyle.
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Transcription of Episode 79: Emotional Drivers of Porn Addiction, Bad Advice that Makes Porn Addiction Worse, and How to Heal Past Trauma, Save Your Marriage & Improve Your Sex Life | Dean & HollyKem Sunseri
Okay, we're recording. Well, Dean, Holly Kem, welcome, guys. It is so fantastic to have you on the show.
I really enjoyed our conversation a couple weeks ago, getting to know you guys and have been excited about this episode ever since, because I know you guys have a lot of value to give people, and a pleasure to have a couple together, really approaching this and bringing this amazing message to the world. So first off, tell me, tell people who you guys are and what you do. It's a massive question, but I guess you're up for it.
Well, we're both from the soil of South Louisiana, right? From New Orleans, and Holly Kem's from a small town actually south of New Orleans called Thibodeau. We both grew up here and, you know, we met at a pretty interesting time. I was coming out of the seminary, Holly Kem was coming out of the streets.
And so we came from very different worlds, but what we had in common were, in a lot of ways, we were broken, you know, emotionally and in a lot of different ways. And so we were both very, very hungry to learn how to heal or work through the brokenness. And it was on that journey that we actually met through a mutual friend, and fast became friends and eventually became lovers.
And our life's work has been really to help people with some of the things that we've learned in our own journey. And so, and I came from high academia, you know, I was in school and college and master's and doctorate. And then Holly Kem was from, she's brilliantly dyslexic.
So she's not really the academic type, but she's brilliant. And she also has a great heart and was making tremendous progress with the clients that she worked with. And I was sort of fascinated because I was learning all the right theories, but she was doing the work.
And so in trying to see how she works with people and how she sees it was how we developed our concept that we work with and has helped literally thousands of people over the last 30, 35 years. Yeah, that would be us. How's that introduction? That's nice.
Thank you for that. Well, yes. And this reminds me actually, Holly Kem, you talk a bit about how you do see things, because I know it has to do with pictures, images, that's kind of how your mind works in a lot of ways.
Talk a little bit about that unique way of thinking that's helped people. Yeah. Well, as Dean said, I'm dyslexic.
So I didn't know I was dyslexic until I was 25 years old. I just thought I had that big S word, stupid, because I don't see in words and words don't really mean a lot to me. So I only can read from memory.
So if I've never seen a word, I have no idea what it is. I cannot sound it out. I do not have that ability.
So when I read, a sentence becomes a painting. And so if there's a word I don't know, it's like I have to draw, I have to start the painting over. So that becomes very difficult.
So reading is not something I enjoy at all. However, when people speak, I see pictures. So in my own life, when I was working on myself, I've been sober since January 10th, 1983, which is 41 years, soon to be 42, is that when I was learning about how to love myself, be kind to myself, treat myself with dignity and respect, when they would speak, I would see pictures.
And I knew that the way I was portrayed to the world, or I was portraying myself to the world, and the way I felt was not who I really was. So seeing the slotting of my emotions, slotting my pain, slotting my behaviors into different slots, and then when I start to work with others, it was the same thing. Like, you know, a part of me wants to get drunk, you know, a part of me wants to act out, a part of me wants to get a divorce.
Well, you know, I'm listening to that. And then they say, well, I really love my husband. You know, I really want to live a sober life.
Well, who's who? Well, if it's, you know, if I want to get drunk, a part of me wants to get drunk, and a part of me wants to stay sober, I know what to empower, right? But if someone is saying, I want, part of me wants to get a divorce, and part of me doesn't, I better know who's speaking. Because if I empower the wrong part, that could be devastating for a whole bunch of people. So in that, helping them slot which part was what, and giving that a voice became the concept of The Voices Within, A Roadmap to the Soul, on how to really see your own self without blind spots, and then to be able to hear and see your behaviors, and be able to pull yourself back and become who you really, really, really are internally.
And be vulnerable with yourself first, then you can be vulnerable with the world. That's so good. What, and it was interesting when we talked previously, and I mentioned how that what you just said, and the things that you are teaching people is so reminiscent of parts work, right, within the psychology field.
And I, I do parts work with my clientele. And it's an incredibly empowering way of seeing your mind, when you can step back, I think, as you're saying, and be a witness for these different parts, and say, okay, these are all part, this isn't me, right? It's just different parts of me, parts of my personality, sub personalities, we could perhaps call them, that make up who I am. And one of the things that I teach my clients to do is to empower them to get into self leadership, which you guys have probably heard about the big S, right? So we could call that Christ consciousness, or other religions might call Atman or Buddha nature, or it's this, this inner wisdom, this our soul, right? Or this light of God, I think of it as the light of God within.
Yeah, that's there. And if I can get that in the lead, now I can listen to all these parts, I can help them feel understood, help them feel compassion. And that's mostly what we need in a lot of ways.
And if I, if I can do that, now I can make some better decisions with my life, right? Exactly. Yeah. Well, it brings up the question of how does that voice get covered up? Right? Yes.
We call it the true self, right? It needs to be our guide, big S. And that part, that part is connected with God, God's spirit in a way. So, so how does that get lost? Well, what we have found is that, that internalized pain and our coping behaviors to internalize pain is what covers it up. So if, for example, if I'm carrying, we all experienced difficult events.
And when we experienced those events, our response, we either externalize the emotions that we have connected to that, or we internalize it. And if we internalize it, then we have to find a way to sedate that internalized pain. And that's where our addictions come in, our coping behaviors come in.
So if I'm carrying a hundred pounds of emotional pain on the inside, then my coping behavior will be a hundred pounds strong. If things happen and it goes up to a thousand pounds, then my coping behavior becomes a thousand pounds strong. And that's when the big S gets lost behind those two.
So in any recovery process, you have to put a, stop the behavior. If it's drinking, put a cork in a bottle, if it's pornography to stop the behavior. But then the next set is I need to do the work with that, which is driving the behavior.
And that's the emotional pain. And I started managing that. Well, then both of them start decreasing and the true self begins to emerge just spontaneously.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's true.
And I, I often will say that addiction is just a symptom, which is very much what you guys are saying. We have the coping mechanism and we can, I like to split it kind of how parts work does is split it into managers and firefighters. Where the manager parts of us use these offensive strategies of judging and controlling both on ourselves and other people of, I'm going to judge and control myself into changing.
I'm going to, I'm going to beat the heck out of myself to get myself motivated to overcome whatever it is, but in this case addiction. And then in direct response to that, the firefighting, in other words, this is so much pressure. I got to spray this out.
I'm going to be a firefighter and spray out these emotions. That's the addiction response, right? It's, it's a defensive strategy. It's escape.
There's all this judge control. And then I've got to escape resist in response to that. And we'll just go around and around and around in that cycle.
And meanwhile, underneath really what's driving those mechanisms, those protective mechanisms that they, they really are act. Those parts of us are acting in our lives altruistically, like they're like little four-year-olds, right? They don't really know that they're not helping, that they're actually causing the issue, but underneath you got this kid inside of you, right? Or these little kid parts that are just hurt. They feel grief, loneliness.
They feel pain. They feel, you know, they're carrying trauma. They're carrying maybe really intense anger about things that happened in the past.
And we, if we can address those underlying insecurities and those burdens, now we don't have to have this over time. These protective mechanisms don't have to come up so much, right? That's right. Is that kind of what you, do you guys have thoughts on that? Yeah.
Well, that's exactly it is, you know, it's when people believe they are the controller and the firefighter is when we get into cover up, cover up, cover up, more cover up because the shame of it all. And so we try to put lipstick on it or, you know, a successful business or something and the shame gets bigger because now it's a false false, right? So in that being able to have a way to see myself as this part of me is only trying to do good, but it's causing more damage. So if when I can get people to see it with a loving eye instead of a shameful judgmental eye is that this is the part of you that has helped you survive.
But survival is not enough. That's why you're here. That's why you came here.
Survival is not enough. In the 1980s, which, you know, you were not even born then, but in the eighties is everything was about survival, you know, and that's when I got sober, you know, we're going to survive. I'm a substance, I'm a substance abuse survivor.
I'm a sexual abuse survivor. I'm a child of a alcoholic survivor. It's like, okay, I get it, but I don't want to live in survival mode.
You know, that is stressful and I've already been in enough stress. So being able to see that that part is just trying to do good. It's just not who I really, really am.
And I have better, even if I don't know the skill, I can learn a skill. So sometimes people come in, it's a skill that they need. Okay.
Well, I can teach you the skill and we're going to use those skills on how to love the part of you that is trying to do good, but it's not working. And we're going to love the part of you that didn't get the love it deserved. Does it mean people didn't try to love you? Maybe they didn't have enough love to go around for that particular situation.
If a grandmother dies, everybody in the family, and it's like the cherished person in the family, right? Everybody's grieving. Nobody has enough love to give anybody at that point because everybody's in pain. So that part of you gets, it gets kind of like a rock in a bucket and it doesn't receive all the love it deserves to be able to heal.
So you get 30 of those rocks. Maybe some people did do something on purpose, but the most of the rocks are just because they just didn't get enough love for whatever reason. Well, then now that's my job as an adult to love those rocks and give it the love it deserves.
So then all of a sudden I start to become the person that I need it. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. I think one of the ways I've heard it put when it comes to overcoming addiction is you need to become your own parent. Yes.
The parent that you needed, right? And ultimately I think that's the journey of most of us. I think there are the lucky few that really grow up in a very stable home with some deeply loving parents and they, and they learn through that role modeling and through that relationship to, to be that for themselves in adulthood. But I think that pretty fairly few and far between of parents who really show up to that degree.
And so becoming that parent for yourself. And one way that I heard it put on another podcast, if you guys have heard of CC Sykes, I don't know if you have or not, but she's one of the lead practitioners in the field of IFS, internal family systems. And I loved the way that she put this when it comes to this pain, as you were saying, Dean, we can, what do we do with pain, right? We internalize or externalize it.
She said that pain, fear, shame, grief, loneliness, these different difficult feelings, anger. If we, as a child, cause we were not capable of really processing through things. When I'm five years old, I have, I literally have the emotion, the emotional capacity of an adult, which is so unfair that I, because I don't have the logical processing of an adult at all, not for another 20 years.
Right. And so she said that essentially when you're a little child, if you were able to have someone show up for you in a really painful moment, as a space of unconditional love and listening and understanding you and able to help you process through the pain, you can release it and then you can move on. It hurts, it's hard, but you can release it.
And so, because none of us have that perfectly, because as you said, Holly Kim, all these well-meaning people in our lives doing their best, they aren't, none of us are able to show up perfectly. And so at some point we're going to face some kind of a pain that essentially a part of us is going to store away for later, right? It stores it and it's like, we'll process that later, I guess, because not sure what to do with that. And then we have protective mechanisms that pop up.
They're like, I'm going to use, I'm going to control stuff or I'm going to use judgment or I'm going to escape. I'm going to resist. That's how I'm going to deal with this.
And so essentially we just, we store that pain away. Right. And so then we need to become that for ourselves on a daily basis, ongoing.
On a daily basis. Yeah. Yeah.
That's such a beautiful way of putting it, because what I've found is that the events that happen to us are not the problem. Right. It's what happens after those events that becomes the problem, right? And so it's saying the same thing you're saying is that it's not what I experience here, but it's how I process what I've experienced that either becomes internalized and may become a trauma that I'm carrying, or it becomes a healing event to where I'm scarred, but I'm, I've become a better person and I'm processing through it.
And for most of us, it's kind of an in-between both of those. And so what we've noticed too, is that, you know, you're going to have a chance to deal with the things that you've internalized as an adult, because the part of us that carries our wounds, it has no sense of time. Right.
Which means it doesn't know the difference between 10 years ago, five years ago, yesterday, today. And it thinks symbolically. So certain symbols will trigger what we've internalized and bring it all to the surface.
And the one institution that's been designed to trigger us more than any other institution is marriage. If you want a chance to heal from your past, get married and you'll have plenty of opportunity. Yes, you will.
Yes. And so, but the skill of a couple is how do you learn to be partners in healing as opposed to partners in replaying those wounds with each other. Right.
That's the primary skill that's needed. Right. Is that when I get triggered about something that's been very painful to me, I need to realize that probably a lot of what I'm feeling is not about her.
Right. And how do I work it out with her in a way that she can hear me and she can become a partner. Right.
Because one of the most baffling things to me is how can this person who I've dedicated my life to and has been my lover for 33 years, who's my best friend, in 3.2 seconds, suddenly become my enemy. Right. She just suddenly is, I'm seeing her as an adversary, as someone that's really against me.
And that happens to us all when we get triggered or what we'd say get triggered by our protective behavior and we get into defensive mode that we actually see our spouse as an enemy. This person that loves me is my enemy. And she sees and it happens back and forth and it becomes a very different interaction than a loving interaction.
But why does that happen? And understand that that does happen. Right. And how to manage that is the most important thing.
Yeah. Two things. If it's not happening, your spouse is lying.
And so now you're living with a liar. Okay. And that is really unhealthy because they're just walking on, you know, eggshells.
So you never get triggered. And that way you don't have to deal with anything. And you have just created in your children so much emotional neglect that God knows what will happen.
So you're doing the most disservice thing to yourself, to your spouse, and to your family. And the other thing is a trigger. If we, you know, this would be one message.
Maybe it's a book. I don't know. But the trigger is an opportunity to love yourself.
Come on, girl. Come on, baby. And people don't see it like that.
It's like, stop doing that. You keep trying to aggravate me. No, no, no, no, no, no.
That aggravation is mine. It ain't yours. It's my pain.
It's not yours. You happen to do something that's reminding me of something that was not okay in my life somewhere that got stored away in one of my buckets, in one of the rocks, and it's trying to get out. That rock is like, okay, I've been in here so long I smell.
Can you help me get out? And you're picking up that rock and throwing it at me. Yeah. And then, right.
Then what happens is you pick up the rock and you throw it at your spouse because they're reminding you of the rock. And you're not even aware of the rock, which is the truth. I mean, I have mercy on both sides.
Okay. Is that the person that the rock is, you know, aggravating you, you don't know it. You know, I mean, you know, I get it.
Believe me, I was a complete nightmare. I wasn't even a mess. I was a, I was a nightmare, you know, not just at nighttime, all times.
So I get, I get needing to go in there and finding the rocks and, and, and realizing that these are my rocks. And they deserve love. And they deserve to be seen and heard and gently.
And if I choose to go in there and invest in myself and find my rocks, my life becomes everything. And things that I think, I mean, I remember when I got sober, people said, if you stay sober, you'll never believe what your life will look like in And I was like, if I just don't feel pain every frickin day, I'll be happy. That's all I'm not asking for happiness.
I don't deserve happiness. I've caused too much pain in the world. If I could just not feel pain every frickin day.
And I can tell you at 41 years sober, I couldn't have written this. I could not have written this because there was so much unworthlessness in me. Those rocks were painted with worthlessness on top of them.
And it's not because the people that hurt me said I was worthless. Some of their behaviors I took on, like you said, as a child, that I am worthless. And that's what was coming out.
Like if you triggered one of those rocks, all I could feel was worthlessness. And so I needed you to stop doing that. And if I couldn't get you to stop doing that, I either had to leave you or I had to sedate myself.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think one of the things I was thinking of, as you said that Holly Kim is how as kids, as little kids, we very easily and I, I think this is fairly universal. We see things that our parents do as our fault. Exactly.
We don't have a choice. Yeah. Because we're little.
Yeah. And what's the alternative? Oh, it's my dad is the one who screwed up. And so if that's the case, oh my gosh, I'm going to die because I rely on him for, for survival, for everything.
And then you only, and if you have two parents, right, only one can be bad. Somebody's got to be good. Wow.
Even if you have two bad parents, that only one can be bad. And so I always tell people when you, when you actually have real maturity and you're able to say they're both got bad stuff, they both have protectors and they both have good stuff. But when you're, as long as you're still, you know, in that you'll know, like I always tell her, you know, they're like, you know, my dad was the best, my mom, you know, and then as we continue to work, they go, you know what? I could see some stuff for my dad.
And then they get to say, and you know what? My mom had this really good stuff too. So it's like, that's the maturity is that they're human beings and they suffer as well. And they have protectors as well.
Like you said, none of us are going to be perfect as parents. You know, the goal is to become our very best. And when we become our very best emotionally, we leave that to our children.
And when we make a mistake that we go back in and correct it, even if it's 50 years later, that, you know what, when I handled that situation, it was wrong. And today I would have handled it this way. And the kid's probably going to say, you know, at such an older age, Oh, that's no big deal, mom.
It's yes, it is a big deal. I need to say it because now I'm correcting it for seven generations out. Yeah.
Yes. And, and so essentially as kids, when we internalize that, I think one of the things that I've come to understand in my own mental and emotional work is essentially we, and, and this is talked about by psychologists as well, but we, we carry that into our adulthood. And so I think a lot of the things I personally experienced where I become triggered, I become angry.
And it's like, why am I so sensitive underneath the surface? Many times what I've seen is the shame, right? I'm not enough. And this feeling of it's my fault that this is happening. It must mean I'm bad.
And just as a little kid who can think, you know, I'm bad, I'm bad. We can carry those messages. Pretty much all of us carry those messages and to one degree or another into our lives.
And so if I have an extreme reaction, look at that. And like you said, practice some love and listening for yourself and look at that little kid inside that and think, how am I internalizing this? Or what, what is the shame underneath the surface? What am I blaming myself for? We can often point the finger, right? And be like, it's their fault. It's them when really that's just a cover up for you.
You're, you're blaming yourself internally. You can process through that. Listen to yourself, understand yourself, show yourself some compassion, and maybe you can find some peace and not go off and drink or do drugs or go watch porn or whatever it might be to deal with that.
There's the distorted view when as children, as you said, it's, it's an emotional reality that we experience, but our intellectual processing is often distorted, right? And it's, it's only when we become adults and that resurfaces that we can challenge that distortion. And that's why if you process it in a, in a loving community, either with a spouse or in a loving community, then those distortions can be challenged. And part of that has to do with dethroning our primary caretakers.
Because out of protection, like you said, for ourselves, we need to see them as, as kind of God's small G, and we need to make it about us. But then as we become adults, we can see their part and our part and how it interplays and see it in a more realistic way and not take it on ourselves and challenge some of those distorted points of view. So I think that the, the processing of it is so important because at first we just feel the shame or we feel the emotion or we feel this.
And then it's only in talking about it that we get a clearer perspective that moves it into a place of healing. Now, along that whole process, I always say that, that in a couple, in any relationship, the two principles that are so important to work are actually spiritual principles that have psychological application. Both of them are repentance and forgiveness.
Repentance is when I have a heartfelt sorrow for the things that I have done to hurt you. And I, I take full responsibility for those behaviors and I make a commitment to learn to do it differently. Oftentimes repentance is seen of expressing sorrow towards God, but I'm talking about the repentance that goes on on a vertical level.
And when I practice that, it, it changes the spiritual climate of a situation. You know, Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Well, basically what he was saying is heaven's all around us, but the way you activate it in a situation is you practice this principle of repentance.
And I've found that that's true. When I'm humbly, I'm sorry for not letting you know that the podcast was at 10 o'clock and I was wrong and it's my fault and you had to hurry up and get this and, and please forgive me. You know, that ushers in like a whole different atmosphere than if I said, you know, you should have known it's not my fault.
Why didn't you put it in your blog? You know, like unrepentance ushers in the other side, right?
If you want hell in your relationship, never say you're sorry. No matter what you do, never say you're sorry. You want heaven in your relationship, own your stuff and repent for it.
The other principle is forgiveness. And forgiveness is to recognize, I've been hurt by my caretakers. I've been hurt by people that love me.
I've been hurt by people that don't love me. And to recognize that that hurt has found a place inside of me, and I'm willing to lay that down on the altar and ask it to be removed. And when it starts to be removed, then my heart becomes clear and it becomes soft and it starts to heal.
And that those two principles are so important in a relationship, in our work, in business relationships. And often it's misunderstood. They say, well, when you forgive, are you saying what was done to you was okay? No, no, you're not.
That's a whole another issue is setting boundaries and so forth. I'm not going to let this offense live in my heart and make my heart harden. I'm going to do what I have to do to have my heart softened and begin to let it go.
As I do that, as my wounded stuff starts to get healed, so does my coping behaviors. My addiction starts to get less powerful. It starts to lose its power.
And so those two principles are what we really teach about. And we recommend that we need to activate in our lives. You forgive me, honey? I think some of those really simple principles, like you're saying of repentance, forgiveness, I think for quite a few people, they can feel pretty loaded.
But I also think to a lot of people, it can feel like, well, that's too simple. That could never work. There's a reason that these principles have been around since who knows when, right? Long, long, long time, they work.
And I think for me, when it comes to forgiveness, one of the things I've been reflecting on, especially about the last six months of my life, is that to forgive, I need to understand. I can forgive my mother, my father, my siblings, my wife, whoever in my life, right, a co-worker, etc. If I can seek to deeply understand at the most, at the deepest, the deeper my understanding is, the more I can just give that forgiveness, because I get it.
It's like, yeah, it wasn't okay. Yes, it hurt me. But I understand, I think in one way, you were doing your best.
You were doing what you could with what you had, even if what you gave sucked, and it was the worst. You were doing what you could with what you had. That's one of the things.
And I think we need to do that for ourselves as well. You know, I have a mother that is not well. Okay.
She's mentally ill. And the way I see mental illness in a lot of ways, I know there's different levels, but in my simple mind is that, let's just say you're born, okay, like you're not born with a mental issue, is that when you have to stuff a lot of emotions long enough, and fear in your body that it can cause mental anguish and mental issues. Okay.
That's just how I see it. So, you know, anybody can have their own view. So, yeah.
So far, I have a mother that has mental illness because she has stuffed much pain. And through our life, you know, she was not the I deserved. All right.
And I had to, what God showed me, so, I mean, I forgave her, but what he showed me was that no matter who her child was, she would be the same mother. So, that took it away from it being my fault. Then what God showed me was that, if you, Holly Kim, if you had a mother with no legs, and what you're asking your mother to do is walk, that's cruel.
And so, I had to start seeing her with no legs. And then I had no expectations of her being the mother I deserved. Yes, that's so good.
And I was able to forgive her for being the mother that she could not be. And I could forgive her for being the mother that she was, because she has no legs. Now, she, you know, I deserve the mother that would do the work to take care of herself, you know, so I could have that, but it didn't work out that way.
Okay. So, in that, I'm going to become the mother to myself that I deserve, instead of becoming her with no legs. And that's what I became.
I became the mother to myself that she was. She beat me physically, I gave myself to people that hit me. She said ugly things to me, I said ugly things to me.
She, you know, wanted me to be perfect, I wanted me to be perfect. So, I became the mother with no legs. And it's like, okay, do I want to be, do I, you know, and my biggest fear of my whole life was I never wanted children because I didn't want to be that mother, right? But I was already being that mother to myself, which would have definitely been the mother to a child, right? So, in that, you know, doing the work, you know, I would say invest in yourself, doing the work, and I still have that mother in me.
That, you know, if I, like today, I would have, you know, Dean says, can you get ready? Well, can you come be on the podcast? Are you crazy? I'm not going on that podcast, you know, looking like a crazy woman, you know, because my mom looked like a crazy woman at times, you know, she'd go outside looking like a crazy woman. Oh, absolutely not. So, you know, I have to be able to be presentable.
But the, you know, I didn't allow her to like yell at me, because I had to get ready. You see, where the old days, she would have yelled at me, as I was getting ready, and I would have came on this podcast, internally, emotional mess. Because of the internal yelling, you wouldn't have known it, you wouldn't have seen it.
But I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have been open in my heart, because of the trauma I was giving myself. So by knowing I have that part of me that can do it, you know, she's like, you're not going on there. You know, you're not putting your hat on and going on there, you're going to get ready.
So it's like, you're right, I'm going to get ready. If y'all can wait, I'll get ready. And so instead of an hour, I did it in 30, praise God.
But in that, it's like, I don't have to listen to that, you know, and it's like, you're not going to talk to me that way. I understand where that comes from. Because see, when I go one step deeper, is where we all need to go, is that my wounded part of me says no one's going to love me unless I'm perfect.
So you see, so it's like, that's always the goal is to go one step deeper. And that's what and that's the compassion we're looking for for our families. Like for my mother, that's what her wounded self believes.
If I am not perfect, you will not love me. There's there's another level to that. That's very important to point out, which Holly Kim, really, she's miraculous in a lot of ways, in a sense that, given her experience with her mom, and the mom that she's become to herself and to her son, is nothing short of miraculous.
And it's, it's really her story is one that should inspire hope in all listeners, that things can be different. Because she is, she's, she's really one, she's the most loving person I've ever been around. And she's should not be.
And how did that happen? Well, it's about doing this, this particular work. And so, so I really need to give a credit. But there's a parallel between her forgiveness towards her mom, and her ability to be gentle to herself.
Like those were intimately connected. Her unforgiveness towards her mom would not enable her to be gentle with herself. Like her forgiveness towards her mom actually was a gift to herself, because it opened up the door for her to treat herself differently.
And I think that's what most people sometimes misunderstand about forgiveness, that it has nothing to do with the other person. It has to do with taking away the power of that other person over you. Right.
And, and is it not kind of, you know, and I'd love to hear how you guys think about this and see it. But a part of you, as you were saying, Holly Kim really took on that voice of your mother. Yeah.
And those expectations of your mother. And so when we forgive someone else, we're simultaneous, I think it's just a mirror, it happens at the exact same time, we're forgiving that part of us. Yes.
And, and, and, and, and to go with that, let's just add to that. Okay. And put an and, and keep going is that when I forgive myself, I'm also helping to forgive them because I can go deeper into my mother's very wounded.
And she didn't just wake up one day and say, I'm going to have children and destroy their lives. That was, you know, I'm going to beat them. I'm going to do all these awful things to them.
My mother actually said in 1958, when she got married, I don't want children. I won't be a good mom. But because in 1958, she's Catholic, it's a different world.
And she had two children, me at 60 and at 60, 1960, 1963, my sister. And, you know, my mother will say today and has said since we all got into recovery, she'll say, I'm so sorry for what I've done to you. And she's said, you know, when you were a kid, I could have killed you.
I said, yeah, ma, I know I was there. You're like, that makes it better. Yeah, you didn't kill me.
Way to go, I guess. Like, she's so, and she's so serious. You know, like, she's like, you know, I could have killed you when you were a kid, like the horror that she sees, you know, what she did.
And, you know, today I just laugh. I'm like, yeah, ma, I know I was there, you know, and then she giggles. And I said, ma, forgive you.
It's all right. You know, now that doesn't make her where she can still be the mother I deserve. And see, that's the fallacy of it all that people believe because my mother can say that and be very, very honest about our life for what she can remember, because she's multiple.
But in that also is that she still can't be the mother I deserve. I mean, she didn't even call me for my birthday this year, you know, and it's like, that is real. And the truth is, I didn't even notice it.
I didn't notice it until after. You're your own mom, right? You told yourself happy birthday. Exactly.
Well, you know, it also another level that Holly Kim was saying is that, you know, the three most important relationships that Jesus taught was to love God, to love neighbor, and love self. Like, that's the summation of Christianity. So, anything that helps improve any one of those relationships has a rippling effect in the other two.
So, if I do something to improve and let go and help me have a greater, deeper love of myself, it'll have an impact on how I treat my neighbor and my understanding of God. If I let go of a hurt that was done and improve my relationship with another, it'll have an impact on how I feel about myself and my relationship with God. And third, any shifts that I make in terms of spiritual encounters, a deeper truth and understanding of my relationship with God, that has an impact on how I see myself and how I treat others.
So, when you look at it that way, anything that destroys any of those three relationships is what would be unhealthy in our language today or evil in past language. Or anything that helps improve those three relationships is good, is healthy. And that needs to be the focus.
And that's why the work that we do, if we're helping anything grow on one of those levels, we can have hope and take joy in the fact that it's affecting the other two. I think that often, I know for me growing up religious and just other friends I have and things like that, conversations I've had with people, I think we'll often separate our relationship with God from the relationship that we have with others, and especially the relationship we have with ourselves. I think that's not emphasized hardly at all in a lot of circles.
And it is directly intertwined. I remember a while back, somebody taught me, I forgot where I learned it, but they said, your relationship with God is a reflection of your relationship with your father, like your earthly father. And when I learned that years ago, I began reflecting on how I saw God and the conditions I put on his love and how he might feel disappointed in me or things like that.
And just realizing, oh my goodness, that's how I feel about how other people see me, how my parents see me. And whatever the reality is of how my parents see me or others see me, that's not really the point. It's this is inside of me, how I'm processing this and how I see God.
And I think one of the questions I kind of wanted to ask down a bit of a different path is, what do we often advise people to do about addiction that is totally unhelpful? That does not lead to success. What are some of the biggest misgivings or some of the mistakes that we make and how we try to overcome it ourselves or teach other people to overcome addiction? Well, I think, I mean, I was a certified substance abuse counselor forever. And I always tell people, even though I'm a recovering addict, I had to go to school for three years to learn how to communicate this.
So it's not like something you're supposed to know, okay? Because we're not supposed to have it, right? Your child's not supposed to have it, okay? So it's not like you're going to go to school for this and then figure out, oh, just in case, you know? So it's, you know, it's not easy to explain because it appears that you're just doing it to yourself, right? And, you know, one of the things about alcoholism and addiction is that people say, well, you know, you're only that if you can't control it. Well, that's not true because the people that can try to control it are the people that have it. Other people don't, you know, do it.
I mean, somebody like, we had, we were on a podcast yesterday and he said, like, he's never really smoked or did anything, you know? And so he was, he was talking about, like, when he smoked a cigarette, he didn't even inhale it, you know? He was just trying to be cool, right? And all his friends were like, that doesn't work on you, Dan. Get rid of it. So, but it's like, you know, in that, when you have it, you're going to say, well, I'm only going to have, you know, one pack of cigarettes or I'm only going to drink two drinks or, like, you're already internally telling yourself not to do it.
So you're already on the path, you know, if it's porn, I'm only going to watch this kind at this time after this, you know? And then you, you end up breaking that, but then you, you make an excuse why, right? So what happens, and then the switching of addictions, that's why, one of the reasons why I came up with the concept, because, you know, it's very discouraging to go, hi, I'm Holly Kamm, I'm a drug addict, an alcoholic, a nicotine addict, an anorexic, a workaholic. I mean, you know, come on. So it's like, you just get, I have, I have problems.
I have problems. Can we just say that? Hi, I'm a human and I have problems. I've suffered from many things that were trying to kill me.
Yes, exactly. That's internal. So it's like, I just, you know, I mean, if I'm at a meeting, of course, I say the appropriate thing, but when I get to work with somebody on that level, it's like the hopelessness that we, we have because of where my addictive modalities have brought me.
So what I try to say is that there's a part of us that can be very addictive, and some of us can be very, you know, really have addictions where it's killing us and taking everything we love away from ourselves. So in that, we know it. Like, don't come to me, like, you know, somebody comes to me and they say, well, you know, my wife thinks I'm an alcoholic.
No, you know, you're an alcoholic. Okay. This room is confidential.
I can't say anything. Okay. So you know, you're an alcoholic.
All right. You know, that's not who you really are. And who you really are is good and loving and real and kind and care about your children.
You want your marriage to work. That is who you are. And they begin to cry.
So the truth is, is who am I really in the what have I become? And if I've become something because of something, and that became more important than what I love, there's a problem. So all of a sudden, if strawberries was making you turn purple, you would get rid of the strawberries. The problem is, is that when you get rid of the strawberries, which this is what happens is the wounds of life start to emerge because you've been sedating them.
And that's why we go back to what works. It doesn't really work, but it does work to sedate that stuff. Right.
I think to answer your question, from my perspective is that I think the biggest mistake that we sometimes make is we make the addiction strictly just about stopping behavior. Because any addiction has so many different layers to it. There's the physical elements, there's the emotional component, there's the psychological, how I think about it, and there's the spiritual.
And any freedom from addiction, you have to address all four. Because if you don't, you're just going to switch addictions. And I love the work that you do, because, you know, like porn addiction, sexual addiction, is one that is very, very deep on a lot of different levels.
And I think it's deeper than a lot of other addictions, only because it's so much intimately connected with our identity. Because the deepest parts of ourselves is our spirituality and our sexuality. And when our sexuality has a level of dysfunction to it, it really marks us on a real, real deep level.
And, you know, I've learned long ago, we talk about the wounded child and experiences that we have. But one of the most impactful experiences that we have that create deep, deep marks is our earliest sexual experiences, which I know you know, and that those marks can be acted out in ways that we don't even understand. That's why it's so important to create order, and to be properly taught about our sexual development, so forth.
But if there's just silence about it, we become prey to having marks created. If my earliest sexual experience was seeing, viewing a sexual experience, then that becomes highly eroticized to a certain part of me. If my first experience was someone touching me inappropriately, it doesn't matter who touched me.
It could be totally inappropriate, but I'm still going to feel pleasure. So it doesn't matter if it was a female, a male, a monkey, a dog, it doesn't matter. I'm still going to feel pleasure.
And it's going to create a deep mark that creates levels of confusion that we don't develop. So I think that it's a real challenge. And I love that your program is a year, you mentioned, because I think it really allows you to dig deeper into the identity issues that are connected to the dysfunction of the disorder.
Right. Yes. And I've seen for multiple clients when I have heard about past experiences that they had, when we develop porn addiction, there are reasons for that, right? We develop addictions, they're always consistent themes, right? Which we're talking about many of those.
But with porn specifically, I mean, just to speak from my perspective, and this is only some, I mean, I was, I've been sober almost 10 years from porn. But only in this last year have I come to actually understand some deeper things about my childhood. I was molested as a child.
And I was blessed enough in saying that I was blessed enough that it was one event. And it wasn't, I know it wasn't what some other people go through. But at the same time, as I say that, we can compare traumas, right? And I think I always looked back on what happened to me.
And I was like, like, not a big, like I was a kid. And it was like an older friend and like a one time thing and like, like, not a big deal. I carried, I carried a lot from that.
And I, and I, I think it's fascinating, Dean, and perhaps we'll talk more about this, but you said the deepest parts of us is our spirituality and our sexuality. Because only after years of my own mental and emotional work, did I get to a place where I finally that this memory of what happened to me has recurred in my mind throughout my life. But until you actually look at it head on, and realize, oh, wait a second, that actually really affected me.
Exactly. Only after years was able to look at that and say, you know what, I'm gonna actually really, really look at this. And I carried so much anger and fear, and a lot of shame, because essentially, how things happened, this event occurred.
My mother doing the very best that she could, got in contact with this child, this other child's parent and said, you're not to see my kid anymore, which, yeah, makes sense. The way I processed that internally as a little five-year-old was, and I didn't know anything about sexuality at that point, nothing. This is my very first exposure to anything to do with sexuality.
I thought, unconsciously, wow, whatever this is, this whole thing, like whatever happened, it must be really bad. Because my mom has stepped in to save me, and I can't see this kid anymore. I was friends with him, no longer friends with him.
This must be really bad. And so, I internalized that as sex is shameful, sex is bad. I didn't know it was sex, but that's right.
Whatever that was, whatever this is. So then when I was 13 years old, and I started going through puberty, I think there was almost, unless someone was somehow to realize what I had gone through and have some really deep conversations with me, which ultimately, there's just almost no way that would have happened, unless my parents were deeply educated about all this, and they could have sat down with me and known what to say and known how to listen. When I was 13 years old, I was almost bound to feel deeply ashamed of and afraid of my sexual feelings.
Yeah, of course. And then I went to porn, because- Of course, it's safe. Yeah, right.
In a big way, right. It's safe. And also, this is secretive, it's isolated.
I feel ashamed of it. I feel afraid of it. This is how I engage with sexuality.
All right. Yes, yes. That's right.
And only through deeply coming to understand a lot of those things, and being able to turn that from the shame and the fear to sex. And I love when we were talking last time, a bit about sexuality, and we had just our personal conversation. And we're talking about how sexuality is something that's meant to be really positive and powerful and beautiful.
And it can be, and I think it's meant to be, right? Then we twist it all up through in multiple ways. Do you guys want to talk some about that, about how we twist sexuality in our current society, et cetera? Well, before we get there, I want to honor you for doing the work that you're doing. Because here was something that you experienced that you internalized, you didn't understand, and it was acted out, and you confronted it.
And now you have really worked on externalizing that, has not only brought you levels of freedom, but you're going to bring freedom to hundreds, not thousands of people because of your courage. So I certainly admire that. And we would love to talk about that because it's very much part of our journey.
I mean, I was sexually abused as well. And in that process of trying to figure it all out, and a lot of times you may remember part of it, you don't remember all of it. And then as you continue to work, then you get all the pieces.
And then from there, in my particular situation, it was my step-grandfather, which was my grandfather, and he lived with us. And he was the only nice person to me and my family that saw me, said hello every day, how was your day, and all that. And then he's the one that sexually abused me.
So in that, it's like the nice person is the one that's going to hurt you. So why would I want to be around nice people is the message, right? And if they are nice, they're probably going to hurt you, right? And so what ends up happening is you get all these weird messages about sexuality. And what ends up happening is that you lose it.
You either cut it off or you act it out, right? Which is an important part that I want to just comment on that alternative. Yeah, sure. Is that when we've experienced sexual disorder, trauma, we either go, we used to go to one or two extremes.
We go towards sexual anorexia, which we cut ourselves off. And I think that was very much connected to my attraction to the priesthood and Catholicism when I was in seminary, or we, sexual compulsivity, acting it out over and over again. So we usually gravitate to one of those extremes.
And yet in both of those instances, it's a loss of the sacredness and the beauty of the original tent of the sexual experience. Do you mind if I really quickly, I've been on both those extremes. During my initial few years of quitting pornography, I went to sexual anorexia because I thought this is recovery.
I'm going to cut out this part of my life entirely. It's an evil, bad thing. Goodbye, sexuality.
And it wasn't until years later realizing how to come, I'm still practicing that and working on that, but how to come to a healthier way of seeing, how do I see sexuality as something that's good, not something that needs to be cut off entirely or engaged with as minimally as possible, right? Right. Right. And it's so important.
I mean, this is such a great subject. We probably do 20 shows on this, but what's so important is that, and, you know, to get people to really want to talk about it on all levels, right. Is because, you know, they see.
Say, they say, whoever the day is, is that 250 children are molested before 1 speaks or the person gets stopped, right? So, and you can just look at in the gymnast, you know, with Simone and all them in the gymnast, there was 1000 people he heard and people did speak, but no 1 did anything. So, you know, you just look at that scale. It happens.
So how many of us out there have been touched inappropriately different ways, different kinds all, you know. So we have a lot of people out here that have been wounded in the sexuality. So we know the industry is 1.1, 1.50 billion dollar industry in America.
So that tells you how many people have been hurt, right? Okay, so just, you know, it's a huge subject. It needs to be talked about. It's very important.
So, in owning, taking back my sexuality, 1 of the things that I teach and did, I did and teach, okay? Is that the concept that we use like this, you know, the parts is that there's a part of me, my wounded child, and I call her easy. We name and claim. Okay.
So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Easy. Believe sex is scary.
And my message to her is, you're a little girl. You don't need to have it. And I'm sorry that happened to you.
So, whenever I go to be sexy or sexual with my husband, she says, it's scary and I say, guess what you're not going to have sex ever again. No, 1's ever going to touch you again. You don't have to go in the bedroom.
It's not your bedroom. It's mine and he's not your husband. He's mine.
So that part of me is not allowed in my bedroom. Because that part of me is little and that part has been touched inappropriately and cannot see it for what God has given it to me. And then there's another part of me that, you know, my protective part.
Well, she used sex to get what she wanted and to manipulate because I'm going to take the power back. Right. So you're not going to tell me when to have sex.
I'm going to tell you when I'm having sex. Right. So she wanted all the power because the other one was powerless.
Right. So I tell her that's not your husband. And you're not allowed to manipulate him with that.
And you're not allowed in my bedroom. And for you, Holly Kim, how does that relate with reference to understanding and compassion for those parts? And how do you work that? Well, what I allow them to have a voice of the way they believe and see it. I don't take it as mine.
By allowing them to see sex the way they see it allows me to be able to say sex is beautiful. It's a way that I am the only person that gets to show my husband how much I love him and my prayer for our sex life is I ask God to give me all the love that he has for Dean and allow me to show it to him. That's a beautiful prayer.
But in that is that I'm asking for a download of love and because he's the one that gave me the sexuality and to be a woman is to allow me to be that sexual beautiful woman only with my husband and for me to be that with him. And so I'm asking for the download from God, the original intent that no one touched Holly Kim. I love how pure woman, but I don't look at what I try to tell people in a belief system.
Very rare will all three parts of me believe the same way. So, you know, in therapy, what people want to do and coaching and all that is like, we want to make those beliefs go away or we want to make all three believe the same. Well, give me a million dollars and maybe we'll get it done before you die.
Okay. But what I've decided is, okay, a part of me believes a certain way. I slot it.
Another part believes a certain way. I listen. I slot it.
And then I get to be have peace of mind. And then I hear, what do I really believe? And that's what I empower. But, you know, maybe one day we'll all believe the same way.
I doubt it. Because I was traumatized in sex. So by allowing, So you allow the beliefs, but you don't empower them.
Exactly. That's the difference. I don't let them become louder than who I really am.
And actually by listening to them, you depower them. By listening to them. And it's just like if a little kid comes up and says, you know, I, I, I'm going to, you know, like my son, mommy, you're going to be my wife.
Okay. Okay. I'll be your wife.
You know, he's three. Okay, great. He knows that wife is a good thing.
Daddy loves me. He calls me the wife. He wants to be with the wife.
Okay. You know, through life, you know, his little kid self believes I'm the woman of his dreams. Right.
But the truth is, as this teenager, he hated me. Right. Because I had to say no so many times to him.
Right. But as a 25 year old that just got married, you know, I was like, son, I'm not gonna be your number one anymore. He's like, no, mom, you're my number one.
I said, no. I'm not. He said, well, you're my number one mom.
And Ali's my number one wife. I said, that'll work. So just, you know, putting the belief systems where they belong.
And it's like, when you're able to do that, then there's quietness where you can really empower. I want to make love to my husband. I want to be open for him to love me.
I want what God intended for me. I don't want only one thing on this earth. And just because somebody came and broke it, they didn't make me so they can't break me.
And I believe that on a true self level. My other two parts don't believe that. But I don't care.
They're a teenager thinking and they're a little kid thinking. I let them have their thoughts. I let them draw it.
I let them write it. I let them say whatever they gotta say. But then when the end comes, I get the last word.
Yeah. And there's also, there's also, I realized as we were growing together, I mean, we've always had a healthy relationship in so many areas. A sexual relationship was needed work.
Yeah. Right. And it was more on my side than it was on her side.
Because she had done a lot more work than I had. But, you know, growing up Catholic, we get a lot of different messages around sexuality. One is that if you want to be holy.
Well, you're going to be a Catholic priest. Yeah, you get a lot of messages. There's associating celibacy with holiness.
Yes. Right. In whether it's said or not said.
There's also the not talking about it, which creates all kinds of different belief systems. And then definitely God has nothing to do with sex. You know, it's like you might be involved in other areas, but it's the bedroom.
He's not in the bedroom. Yeah. Yeah.
When Holly Kim, my son graduated from high school, we were in one of those transitions that marriages often make the empty nest type thing. And at that moment, we kind of hit a little speed bump. And I was wise enough to say we needed to go do an intensive workshop to work on our relationship for this new stage.
So we went Monday through Friday, Love After Marriage. From nine in the morning to nine in the evening. And I was like, and we've never been to a Christian workshop.
You know what I'm saying? Like, we've done many things, but it was like, this was a Christian workshop. A Christian psychologist. And I'm like, it better be good nine to nine.
So it was really good. It was. We did Monday, Tuesday.
Well, Wednesday. It was Thursday. I remember for sure.
It's OK. Now we're going to talk about sex. And Holly Kim's like all excited.
Let's do it. I'm like, oh, goodness. Everybody in the room was going like, uh.
So he says. 50 married couples. But then he starts talking about just one of the most healthiest views of sexuality I've ever heard.
He started talking about how this is the greatest gift that God has given a married couple. And it's the closest thing to heaven on this side of heaven. And it's it's what makes it so beautiful is the sacredness of the commitment between the two individuals.
And that's the epitome of experience and emotional, psychological and spiritual connection is within the sacred bond of marriage and was talking about how beautiful it is and how God gave us this gift. And it's like, I mean, it was like my pinball machine. I don't know if you've ever played pinball.
But when you get too many hits, it goes on tilt. Right. My brain was on tilt, but I was trying to absorb this all.
But I knew there was something. It was it just felt spiritually like this is the most beautiful explanation that I've never heard. And so then they start saying, and you need to invite God into the bedroom.
I said, well, this is really radical here. I can invite God in the kitchen and then. But he's never he's never in the bedroom, especially when you're naked.
You know, it's just right. And so and then they start talking about, you know, even even you can enhance your sexual experience by by having worship music, you know, and it's like all these things that was just you're like, whoa, hold on. Well, tilt again, tilt again.
All right. Then then all of a sudden he says, OK, now that we're finished for the day, I'm giving you the 30 day challenge. And I'm like, what's the 30 day challenge? Right.
He says, have sex 30 times in 30 days. And I'm like, I'm 50 years old. I don't even know if this could be possible.
You know, I was 57, 52. I was like, yeah, I don't even know if this can happen. You know, this is crazy.
And he says, no, no. 30 day challenge. It's not about performance.
It's just about being with each other intentions and intentions. And and and then they gave the advice, you know, that no matter what your schedule is like, you always have to save 10 percent for your spouse, 10 percent of the energy for your spouse. So all these things.
So I was like 30 day challenge. And we found out how he was like, yes, yes, yes. I'm like, oh, my goodness.
So we did that. We did the 30 day challenge. And it was one of the most beautiful experiences we've ever had in our marriage.
And the the we both are very strong minded and very independent thinking. But we started to think more like like I could finish her sentences. She could finish mine on a greater level than ever happened.
Like these are some of the things that started happening because we didn't she didn't want to just do 30. He wanted to do how long a year, a year, a year. So the year challenge, he was like, are you kidding me? Yes, I'm serious.
And so and he knows what I'm serious. And I don't ask for a lot. No, you don't ask for a lot.
And so he said, yes. I said, OK, we'll do this. We did.
And and everything changed. Everything changed. Yeah, we were feeling more.
We were more connected. Our relationship became a lot easier. It was never right.
But it became easier. We became so much more playful with each other. We even had my son say things like, y'all need to take that to the bedroom.
You know, I mean, he's a teenager. Like, this is disgusting. Y'all have to take that to the bedroom.
He would say like a dinner, you know, we had dinner together every night. And Dean would say, oh, honey, you look nice. He's like, oh, please, please.
You know, and then he's like, oh, baby. He's like, oh, my God, dad, stop. And, you know, what's interesting, which Holly Kim observed, was that the more our sexual relationship got in line.
Yeah. The more he became age appropriate about his own sexual development. I always say if you like.
Yeah. If you don't want your teenagers to have sex, you better be having it because somebody's going to be having in your house. So teenagers don't want to do what their parents are doing now.
Wow. Yeah. So his rebellion was to be celibate.
So save himself. Save himself to marriage. Yeah.
Yeah. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, it's amazing. I know.
So the beauty of that whole integration of the true intent that God gave us this gift and it secured our relationship. It created a stronger foundation. It created more connection.
It created an easier flow of love. We actually experienced a greater oneness on so many different levels. And it was after experiencing this that I really began to understand why there's so much attack against it.
Yeah. To defile it. Yeah.
Because it's so powerful. Because there's nothing more powerful than a husband and wife on one accord. It's one of the most powerful units that occur.
And so anything to break that down. Right. Works for the other side, right? Right.
And I can picture how some of my audience may be thinking about this, right? Right. Of where there can be so much of a divide or a gap between what you're talking about versus what they have learned sexuality to be. Yeah.
And I think in Western society these days, since the 60s and increasingly so, it's like sex is physical. Yeah. Period.
Exactly. That's it. That's it.
How does some... That's a big question, but how does someone move from seeing sex that way to seeing it the way that you're saying? Well, I think, you know, first, when you think of it and it's portrayed, that's what it's portrayed as. Just like people think marriage is the solution. And if that doesn't work, have a kid and that's the solution.
That we have these misperceptions of what things are. You know, like cake is good and it'll never get you fat, right? So we have these misperceptions. So in that, right, you know, getting drunk's fun.
Yeah. Until, you know, you don't know what the next day was like. And in this is that, what was the intent? Okay.
So it's like in the intent to become one. Okay. And in the intent is the connection and the intimacy.
Into me you see. Okay. So I am getting close to you on a physical level that is bringing me connections on all levels.
So for us, it was inviting God into the bedroom with worship music, but with intention of I'm going to show you, love is an action and a decision. So I'm going to show you that I love you by being awake and available. And so it wasn't about the erection.
It wasn't about the penetration. It was about the intention and the love. And if we had it go all the way, fantastic.
But that wasn't the goal. The goal was to show up and to be there with the love in my heart that I have for you when I'm working hard for you, or when I'm making your dinner, or when I'm taking care of our child, or when you are investing our income, whatever that is, the love that you have for one another, bringing it into that room, bringing my heart there that I'm not going to give to anyone else. No one else is getting this.
I can kiss another man on the cheek or, you know, shake his hand, hug him, but no one's getting this. This is the one thing that I'm bringing to you. Didn't buy a gift for somebody, but this thing is my gift for him to be close, connected, heart to heart, face to face, mouth to mouth, you know, genital to genital, that we're one.
You know, but it's, yes, the pleasure can come, but the pleasure first is bringing the love to the table, bringing it in there and that it becomes sacred. And if you, you know, there's praise songs and there's worship songs. If you put a worship song on and really listen, it's a love song to God, is what it is.
It's a love song to God. You put a worship song on and make love to your wife or your husband, you're singing a love song to your husband or your wife. It's like, wow, that's the most powerful love song I've ever heard.
But I never thought of it like that when I was worshiping to these songs. But we said, well, we're going to bring God there. And we know when we worship, God shows up.
Right. So we did that. And it was like, wow, this is incredible.
And then we lit a candle, you know, God is light. Right. So it was like for five years, this was it.
And it was like, the intention was, we're going to be together with him as one. As one. So the other thing in looking at that question, I think a part of us, for all of us, knows that sex is more than a physical act.
Yeah. I think that deep down, there's a part of us, our coping, our addictive part that just wants that, wants to experience the pleasure. But we don't really know it unless we are taught it, right? That there has to be vision cast that there is more.
And that's my message, is that there is more. And to entertain the fact that sex is not only a physical act, but it's an emotional act, and it's a psychological act, and it's a spiritual act. And if you want to experience the original intent and the supreme ecstasy of all those being in line, then entertain stretching and understanding it on all four levels and not just one level.
So that you can experience it all. Right. You deserve to experience it all.
And that often, in order to get to the place where you experience it on all those two levels, you need to do the work. Yeah. You need to go to your program.
You need to do the emotional work. You have to remove the blocks. You have to reclaim your sexuality.
Yes, reclaim it. Look, if we're just acting out an old experience in an addictive manner, there's nothing that's deeply fulfilling about that. Right.
It's pleasurable, but it's not deeply fulfilling. Right. And so we're just replaying a trauma.
Right. That's totally different than when that starts to get cleared out and I reclaim the parts of myself that have been lost. And when I do that, then I move into a place of restoration, and I move into a place of reclaiming the original intent.
And that's what we need to cast before people, is that it's so much more. There's so much more. And you deserve to have it all.
Right. Yeah. That's fantastic.
It was making me think about in my late teens, when I really was realizing that I had an issue with porn addiction, that started when I was 13. And it was just messing with my life in all sorts of ways that all addictions do, but then particularly that porn addiction does. And I remember at that same time, what was happening for me is I was gaining an awareness of that personally, because I started to read scripture and I started to pray.
And so my spirit started to get involved. And I started to become aware of just these things mentally and emotionally, and aware of these addictions. And I believe that there again, the spirit, right, this essence that we have, right, this light that can inspire us, was beginning to teach me.
And one of the things that I started to listen to and learn was, I go back to porn again and again and again and again, and it feels so dissatisfying, because I'm chasing something else. I'm trying to fill a hole with this thing that's very cheap, and it's weak, and it lasts a very short time. And with what you're saying, that's something else I've reflected on in my marriage now, right? My wife and I have been married, it'll be coming up on nine years.
So we don't have the years you guys have, but nine years for us to experience some things. And just realizing that sex, honestly, sex can also be to a degree just as dissatisfying. If it is approached from a place of my pleasure, my desires, all physical, just getting that fix, the same way as the porn gives a fix, a fix, quote unquote, right? And realizing, wow, that can actually feed my addiction, if I approach it from that place.
That's right. Whereas I've seen on the opposite end, if approached from the place that you guys are talking about, it can actually heal my addiction. That's right.
Yes. That's right. That's right.
Because it's that you're not making love alone. Yes. You're making love with God, because he is love.
God is love. So you're bringing the love of who he has made you to be and who he is with you in that arena. And we should never walk alone.
He says he would never leave us or forsake us. So in anything, I don't want to walk alone. And I definitely, especially if we've been abused and we don't want to walk in this arena alone, because we were alone in the abuse.
We were terrified. And we had no idea, especially if you're a little kid or if you're raped, whatever, it's painful. It's an emotionally, physically painful situation, even though it's pleasurable.
So to bring the love of God with me, it's not scary. I think the shift that has to be made is addiction is about taking. Yeah.
True self or capital S self, as you describe it, is about giving and that that's the shift that needs to be made is that I need to become a giver in areas of my life. But in my sexual relationship, I need to be a giver. And my partner needs to become a giver.
And if I'm trying to give to you as best I can and you're trying to give to me as best you can, it creates it creates an ecstatic experience, whether there's orgasm involved or not. It's just and I think that that's really the shift that we make in our language when we talk about the true self, our wounded child protector. The true self is all about giving life when we're stuck in our wounds or we're stuck in our coping behavior, our protector, our addiction, we're taking life.
And so sometimes we could be you describing like protector sex or coping behavior sex. That's about I'm given just to receive. And so there's it that's communicated in some way.
So I think that if we start to really practice the act of giving, I want to give to you and really satisfy you in ways that I know that will satisfy you. And that's my intention. And as you're doing that to me, then there's going to be an exchange of love that is really an exchange of deep.
Yeah, that's a relational love. Yeah. So.
It's fantastic. Something that so many people now need to hear and especially people in my audience need to hear. And that's wonderful.
Well, I wondered if you guys might share some last pieces of advice, whether for overcoming addiction or for or for really, because I think a lot of what we've we've talked about here has been about marriage, right? And having a happy marriage. What have been the keys for you guys on one of those two fronts, whichever you want to approach? And then I'll ask you where people can find you. But I think we'll wrap up with that question of what are the personal keys for you guys? I think it was something we stumbled upon somewhat accidentally was what made our relationship work really well and somewhat easy.
We've dealt with challenges, but they haven't been in the relationship. They've been outside the relationship is we were both very, very committed to our emotional, psychological and spiritual growth. And that was just a forefront priority.
And I think the greatest gift you can give your partner is to do your own work, to be courageously go after it. And that will make the relationship continue to thrive and continue to grow. Yeah, I think that.
I think for me is really learning. To love myself because we're on all areas, you know, all the good, the bad and the ugly. And what that has allowed me to do is to love being the good, the bad and the ugly.
And the the plant that I water is, you know, like, I mean, I grew up Cajun. So I'll just give you a look. So I grew up Cajun where men have sheds, you know, men are men, men.
Most of them haven't gone to college. You know, they're and if they did, they're still their construction worker and they own a company and they're worth, you know, 10 billion dollars, whatever. So, you know, but they fix everything.
So I marry a city guy, you know, with lots of degrees and something needs to be fixed. And he sees it. Oh, yeah.
And that's it. Right. So my protect is like, what's wrong with him? Why won't he fix it? But what I water is my husband has the softest hands.
I feel like I have the most prettiest, educated, wonderful, soft hand man. And so it's like we just have to hire that Cajun man to come help us. Right.
So it's like instead of being mad at him because the belief system is a man fixes those things. Right. Is that I've learned the things that he brings to the table.
With all of who he is, and that's what I water. And so that's just a simple example. But I water that and I take care of myself, loving myself.
So when he makes a mistake, I have learned to forgive myself in areas that I can forgive him very easily because I allow my husband to be perfect and not my dad, not my fixer, not my provider. God is all of those things. And God gave me gain to love him and be a part of his life.
I think that's a perfect way to wrap things up. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that, Holly Kim.
And thank you, Dean. Man, such incredibly valuable information and valuable advice for people. Again, as I told you guys before, it's inspiring to see your relationship and how you guys come at things together as a unit, right? You're in unity.
And that is so crucial. I think especially when we're early on in addiction recovery, we don't make the connection of things like our relationships and the health of your relationship and the health of someone's marriage is so central to whether they can recover or not. And even if there's great struggles, you can still get sober.
But my gosh, I mean, those often come hand in hand. You're healing the relationship. You're healing.
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