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From Porn to Peace | Recovery Mindset Practices to Stop Watching Porn

Updated: May 1



Dad holding his daughter's hand walking down the street

What if you had mental tools you could use in an instant to remove your desire for porn? 


What if you could stop watching porn using a recovery mindset that replaced your need for it? 


What I often hear from my clients when they begin my intensive porn addiction recovery program is that cravings for porn and sex feel instant and automatic.


They see a woman, and immediately the lust and fantasizing starts. It feels like they have no say in the matter.


I remember exactly what this was like during the years I was addicted to porn. 


Many men feel out of control and unable to change the way they think about sexuality, romantic relationships, and women. They feel they have no choice whether they get dragged along by their sexual urges, and so much of what they want to accomplish or become is drowned out by these on-going cravings. 


They have a powerful drive to do great things with their lives, but so much of that just doesn’t feel possible with this monkey on their back. And this is the case for many more men than just "porn addicts."


It's difficult to quit porn. Sexual drive is a powerful force, and it can feel exhausting trying to fight it all the time; trying to be a responsible man, husband, and father. Sometimes we might wish we could just turn our sexual attraction off! Flip a switch and make the desire go away. 


That’s the same way I felt for many years. But there is a better way.


Adopt a New Mental Perspective To Stop Watching Porn

Here’s the thing. There’s nothing wrong with physical and sexual attraction. They’re normal. They’re needed. But the fixation on or obsession with body parts, attraction, and sexual desires makes a man feel like a slave to his own mind. As if these desires are in the driver’s seat and he’s just along for the ride. That to break free of porn addiction is an impossibility.


Today, I’ll teach you to stop watching porn by building a recovery mindset that replaces your desire for porn with a new, fulfilling perspective that enables you to love the people around you and yourself.


This perspective takes work. It’s not some freaking magic trick to “quit porn in 30 days” (those are scams). Instead, it’s a practical and psychological approach you can use throughout the day to prevent relapse and get rid of porn addiction over time. 


It takes time to build, just as all good things do. But the nice thing is the more you practice these thought strategies to quit porn, the more automatic they will become. And the more automatic they become, the more you will genuinely lose your desire for porn. 


Read on to learn how you can grow this recovery mindset and replace your desire for porn with a fresh, new perspective that serves you and your loved ones. 


Stop watching Porn | Free eBook - 10 Tools to Conquer Porn Cravings

Addict Mindset: To Some Degree, I Place Value on People as a Collection of Body Parts

To start, we need to talk about the perspective that porn gives us, particularly how it teaches our brain to see other human beings as a collection of body parts.


Does this make us a bad person? Certainly not! It's simply the product of a brain being trained to think this way, and that can be reversed with the proper mindset and lifestyle tools.


To some degree, we could term porn addiction as a “body-parts-obsession-disorder”. In other words, porn trains our brain to place obsessive value and focus on people’s physical appearance. 


These days, we may see this as more typical for males in general. Men want sex and it often dominates their mind and motives. But it doesn't have to be this way.


Why change it?


Ultimately, this obsessive focus on physical appearance stops us from living a more meaningful, fulfilling life. It stops us from being the man our family needs and the man we want to become. If we can retrain our brain to focus on other aspects of human beings, we'll find we are happier, more connected, and can bring more good to the world.


Porn addiction is a surface-level symptom of underlying psychological factors, and this habit is hard to change, and those of us with this obsession need compassion and the right mindset and lifestyle tools for transformation.


This obsession with body parts extends beyond the way we view the women around us. When we struggle with porn addiction, we can sometimes place the same level of focus and value on how our own body looks - a form of body-centered perfectionism, or body dysmorphia.


"Am I skinny enough?", "Am I buff enough?", "Do I look good enough in the mirror?", "Do I have a six pack?" etc.


And our body-obsessed western culture has not helped. The media and mainstream entertainment has not helped. And sufferers of religious shame only have yet another layer on top of these to break down in order to find self-worth and subsequent sobriety.



Addict Mindset: I Automatically Lust When I See a Beautiful Woman

When we talk about building a recovery mindset, one of the biggest hurdles we face is the automatic reaction of lust when we see a beautiful woman.


Society often reinforces this behavior with sayings like "boys will be boys" or "men only want one thing." And it's true, this mindset existed long before pornography, but porn has made it more accessible, more universal. It's made it easier for men to objectify women and fall into lustful habits.


As men, we tend to objectify people, often without even realizing it. We do this in different areas of life—whether it's in business, where people become tools to achieve our goals, or in sex, where we reduce someone to a body rather than seeing them as a whole person. This mindset causes real harm.


When we view others as objects, we create pain, destruction, and distance in our relationships.


But here's the thing: I’m not saying men are terrible. Men are awesome. Yet, we are wired in a way that makes us more prone to this kind of thinking. It’s how our brains naturally work.


Our minds naturally compartmentalize things—we have boxes for business, boxes for relationships, and boxes for sex. The problem comes when we let the sexual box dominate, focusing only on physical pleasure or using sex as a tool for our own satisfaction. Over time, this perspective can become automatic, and it becomes the default mode in which we view women and relationships.


If I automatically lust when I see a beautiful woman, it’s because I’ve developed a habit. And yes, as a man, I might be more prone to this. And that's unfair, but it doesn't mean I don't have a duty to change it over time. I can work on these thought patterns, bridal my passions, and transform the way I think to be more holistic and loving.


With conscious effort and the right tools, we can break free of porn and these automatic responses. That’s why I work with people to develop recovery mindset tools that help them stop watching porn.



Addict Mindset: I Judge Myself for Feeling Sexual Attraction

Another important aspect of recovery is addressing how we judge ourselves for feeling sexual attraction.


This is so common among the men I work with. Many of us struggle with shame, not just for our behavior but even for having the attraction in the first place.


When this happens, we’re caught in a cycle of judgment and shame. We judge women for how they look, and then we judge ourselves for having those thoughts. It becomes an automatic process, ingrained in our minds after years of reinforcement.


But this can change. Just like we can make lust and self-judgment an automatic reaction, we can rewire our minds to react differently. We can learn how to stop porn addiction, and replace our automatic lust with healthier, more respectful ways of seeing women and ourselves.



Recovery Mindset: I Train My Brain to Value People for Better Reasons

Building a recovery mindset means rewiring how I perceive others. For years, I trained my brain—unconsciously—to view people as a collection of body parts. But if I could train myself to do that, I can just as consciously retrain my mind to value people for deeper, more meaningful reasons.


This isn't about using sheer willpower; it's about actively redirecting my thoughts. The first step is making a conscious decision to see the whole person, not just their physical attributes. It’s not easy and it doesn’t feel natural at first, but like any habit, it takes repetition. You have to do it every single day, over and over and over again.


The key is to practice this redirection every time I encounter someone, whether in person or on a screen. Instead of instantly objectifying them (which can be very automatic and natural), I remind myself that this person has a life, experiences, and emotions that go beyond their appearance.


This shift doesn’t happen overnight, but with persistence, I can change how I view people. As I train my brain to see others more holistically, I also find that I treat them better—and in turn, I begin treating myself better.


This change permeates all of my relationships, from my wife to my friends to strangers, transforming how I interact with the world.


To learn how to do this, as well as 9 more mental tools to quit porn, check out my free eBook to quit porn: The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings.



Recovery Mindset: I Focus on Compassion Rather than Lust

Another vital aspect of a recovery mindset is focusing on compassion instead of lust. This may sound unusual, but it’s been one of the most transformative tools for me and my clients.


I remember a client who shared his experience with this approach. He was nervous about an upcoming business trip to Las Vegas. We made a plan together, and he decided to bring his family along for support, scheduled his entire week to stay focused, and stuck to his mental, physical, and spiritual routines. By doing this, he set himself up for success.


During his trip, surrounded by triggers like provocative advertisements and scantily dressed individuals, he found himself not falling into old habits. Instead, he felt compassion.


He wanted better for people who were flaunting their bodies on screens, billboards, or in public. He realized that they were likely struggling themselves—maybe they hadn’t felt real love or were in abusive relationships. He chose to see their humanity and felt sorrow for their situations.


This shift from lust to compassion hasn't come easily, but over time, he has trained his brain to see others as whole people.


By replacing lust with empathy, he not only stayed strong in his recovery but found a deeper connection to others, God, and to himself.


Because some of the most profound and troubling porn addiction symptoms can be issues with self-esteem and self-worth, it is necessary to build compassion for ourselves and others, which counteracts some of the causes of porn addiction and its effects.



Recovery Mindset: Rather than Judge Myself for Physical Attraction, I Understand Myself

Another part of a recovery mindset involves understanding, not judging, myself for physical attraction. It’s natural to feel drawn to people’s looks, but that doesn’t have to lead to objectification.


Instead of beating myself up for noticing someone’s appearance, I remind myself that attraction is normal, but it’s not the whole picture. People are so much more than their bodies, and I can train my mind to recognize that.


This shift requires moving from the reactive, pleasure-seeking part of my brain—the limbic system—into the prefrontal cortex, where deeper thinking and empathy reside.


When I catch myself focusing solely on physical traits, I pause and remind myself that there’s a full person behind that image. They have a life, feelings, and experiences that deserve my respect. I don’t have to suppress my attraction, but I can balance it by recognizing the value of the whole person. In doing so, I free myself from the cycle of judgment and objectification and allow myself to experience deeper, more meaningful connections.


If you’re ready to start your journey towards overcoming porn addiction and rebuilding your marriage, consider joining the Free Workshop: The 8 Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn. This workshop offers practical steps to help you break free of porn and restore intimacy in your relationship. You’ll learn a practical and applied roadmap for recovery, including…



So, head to nomoredesire.com, or hit the links in the description, to grab the Free Workshop or the Free eBook and get going on the next steps of your recovery journey. 


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Transcription: Episode 68 - From Porn to Peace | Recovery Mindset Practices to Stop Watching Porn

This is Jake Kastleman with No More Desire. I am so pumped to be here with you, my friend. What if you had mental tools that you could use in an instant to remove your desire for porn? What if you could stop watching porn because you had developed a recovery mindset that replaced your need for it? It all kind of sounds too good to be true.


We're going to get into it today. What I often hear from my clients when they begin my intensive porn addiction recovery program is that cravings for porn, cravings for sex, they feel instant. They feel automatic.


They see a woman and immediately the lust and fantasizing starts. That's probably the case for you, right? Or for a loved one that you have. It feels like you have no say in the matter.


I remember exactly what that was like the years that I was addicted to porn. Many men feel out of control. They feel unable to change the way that they think about sexuality, romantic relationships, and women.


They feel that they have no choice whether they get dragged along by their sexual urges and so much of what they want to accomplish or become is drowned out by these ongoing sexual cravings. That's one of the things that made me the most frustrated and brought me the most pain is that I had this potential to be a man. I had this vision of who I wanted to be, the difference I wanted to make in the world, the way I wanted to treat people, especially women, and I felt I couldn't do it because this beast had taken over my life or it took over my life intermittently.


I'd be doing really, really well one day and then I'd relapse and I'd experience crap, right? My life would be crap for days and it would affect me for weeks ultimately in my mindset, my lifestyle. It made me so susceptible to so many other bad habits and it was very, very painful. So we as men have this powerful drive to do great things with our lives but so much of that doesn't feel possible when we have this monkey on our back.


And it's a powerful force, right? It can feel exhausting trying to fight it all the time, trying to be a responsible man, husband, and father. Sometimes we might wish we could just turn it off, turn off these sexual desires, flip a switch, and make them go away. That's the same way that I felt for many years.


And here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with physical and sexual attraction. They're normal.


They're needed. I think most of us know this conceptually. Whether we actually feel that or not is a different matter but we may, we probably know it conceptually.


In my opinion, these sexual and physical attractions, and this is a little bit of a just a brief tangent but I think it's important to say, these sexual and physical attractions stem from this sexual and physical drive, I should say, stems from the same place that a masculine desire for adventure, risk-taking, and making a difference in the world comes from. I believe it's not just sexual drive but overall drive that men can utilize for destruction or they can utilize for greatness. So we can't just get rid of this drive, right? To do so would be removing some of the greatest parts of us as a man, right? The courage, the tenacity, the risk-taking, the adventure, the desire to make a difference, to complete objectives, right? To go on conquests obviously things that have really led to a lot of destruction but also a lot of great good in the world.


It just depends on how we use it. So all that said, the fixation on or obsession with body parts and attraction and sexual desires, that makes a man feel like a slave to his own mind. As if these desires are in the driver's seat and he's just along for the ride.


So today I'm going to teach you to stop watching porn. How? By building a recovery mindset that replaces your desire for porn with a new fulfilling perspective that enables you to love the people around you and yourself, not just in some cheap boyish way but in a mature masculine way. And this, you know, I want to tell you this perspective, it takes work, my friend.


It's not some freaking magic trick to quit porn in 30 days. I'm not here to scam you, okay? Instead, it's a practical and psychological approach that you can use throughout your day, right? And as the days go on, it takes time, weeks, months, years to develop it. But as you really work on it and you put in conscious effort, it will build.


And it takes time to build, just as all good things do. But the nice thing is, the more that you do it, the more automatic it will become, this new perspective that I'm going to teach you. And the more automatic that perspective becomes, the more you're going to lose your desire for porn.


So let's learn how you can grow this recovery mindset and replace your desire for porn with a fresh new perspective that serves you and your loved ones. And to do that, the very first thing that I want to talk about is this addict mindset, okay? And when we talk about addict mindset, there are kind of three different things that I want to talk about generally. The first thing is placing value on people as a collection of body parts, okay? To whatever degree.


Now, when we struggle with porn addiction or some other kind of related addiction or sex addiction, to some degree, we place value on people as body parts. And porn trains our mind to do this, okay? Particularly, it teaches our brain to see other human beings as that. That is what gives them value.


Because of the simple nature of watching porn, you do not get any context for who a human being is. You see a human being on the screen in their most vulnerable kind of situation physically possible. You know nothing about their emotions, their personality, their history, who they are.


You're not thinking about any of that. And it's very easy for the male brain to be prone to that objectification. And porn plays on that objectification, where it's easy for us to relate to sex in a purely physical way.


And it takes conscious effort for us to relate to it in an emotional way. And porn plays on that big time. Where it plays on the weakest parts of us as men, in that we only engage in the sexual experience as a physical matter.


Purely physical, purely sexual, no emotions, no sacrifice for another human being in, you know, a relationship that we build or an emotional attachment that we build. It's just zero to a hundred in a moment. If you listen to other episodes, you've heard me talk about this.


So to some degree, we could term porn addiction as a body parts obsession disorder. In other words, porn trains our brain to place all this value and all this focus on people's physical appearance. And it's not an easy thing to change.


Okay, that's part of the addict mindset, is we have been brainwashed into seeing women as a collection of body parts. Again, I'm not saying all or nothing don't think, all or nothing thinking is very common amongst those of us that struggle with addictions. And so I'm not saying that you only view people as that, but porn moves you more in that direction.


And so this, and it's worth saying, this obsession extends beyond just those around us, and viewing them as a collection of body parts. We can do the same thing to us and place so much value of our own value on the way we look and how our body parts look. And am I skinny enough? Am I buff enough? You know, do I look good enough in the mirror? Do I have a six pack? All this stuff, right, that we really place heavy emphasis upon.


And our culture has not helped. The media and entertainment has not helped this. Okay, so to some degree, we're placing value on people as a collection of body parts.


Then the second thing with the addict mindset is I automatically lust when I see a beautiful woman. All right, again, a very easy thing to happen to us because our brain has been trained into it. And so often in the mainstream culture and media and entertainment, they can say things like, boys will be boys.


And they can say things like, that's just the way the male mind works. They're only thinking of one thing. And you might be thinking, well, that was happening before porn.


You're 100% right. Porn has just exacerbated it. It's made it more universal, in my opinion.


And it's made it easier for us to become that way, inexcusably. And in addition, it's made it harder for us to change because of porn. And really, for all of history, I believe that as men and as women, we have been born with, we come with certain weaknesses and strengths that we're prone to, on average, right? For men, one of those things is objectification.


We can very easily turn people into objects. We see that with violence and aggression. We see that with men in business, utilizing people as resources and as tools to accomplish objectives.


We see that in sex. We see it in abuse. Okay.


If we are approaching people and viewing them as objects or lesser or inhuman, we are using them. That obviously creates a lot of destruction, pain. It hurts people.


We tend to be more prone towards that than women. Why am I saying that? I'm not saying it because men suck. I'm not saying that at all.


Men are freaking awesome. But we are more prone towards that because of the way that our brain naturally works. Okay.


Women's brains are more interconnected, far more. I believe it's three to five times as there are three to five times as many interconnections in a woman's brain as a male's on average. I could be wrong on that stat.


So men, really, our brains are set up as these, it's kind of like boxes or categories that we have things in. And we can easily pull out one box, say we're in business. I'm in business right now.


I'm not in relationship mode or people mode. And so therefore, all these people are resources to use for my objectives. Okay.


Then in sex, if we allow ourselves to over years of time or whether consciously or unconsciously, we allow ourselves over years of time to develop a mindset of sex is for me. It is about physical pleasure. It is something that I enjoy for my own sake.


And that's what it is, right? We lean into that and let ourselves succumb to that. That's what it becomes for us. Whereas as men, because we're prone to this, and when we know we're prone to it, we need to actively and consistently work to develop a different perspective, a new way of seeing people and women and seeing our ourselves and seeing the world, right? A new way of interacting sexually and with our physical and sexual feelings.


So if I automatically lust, when I see a beautiful woman, I need to understand that that is a habit. It may be something that I am unfairly prone to as a man. Life is unfair.


It sucks. It is hard, but we can also change it through conscious effort when we have the right tools. And that's why I work with people on building those mindset tools, some of which we'll talk about today.


And by the way, if you want to get 10 tools to conquer cravings, that's the name of my free ebook. Head to nomoredesire.com. On the homepage, at the bottom, you will see my free ebook. I'll give you 10 mental tools.


We're really only discussing, to some degree, one of those tools today. We're going to be discussing different angles and discussing it in different ways than the ebook does, but you can get nine other tools in that ebook that are all things you can use in the moment. Mental techniques you can use in the moment in order to offset porn cravings.


So check that out, nomoredesire.com or hit it on free ebook in the description below this episode. So this needs to be a conscious effort, all right? We need to learn these tools and use them in the moment. If my lust is automatic, I can eventually make another approach automatic, which we will talk about what that approach is going to be in a little while.


The other aspect, the third thing that I want to talk about with the addict mindset is I judge myself for feeling sexual attraction. This is so, so, so common amongst those that I work with. There's always judgment of yourself happening, to some degree, in some kind of way.


You're judging yourself. You're judging others when it comes to physical and sexual attraction. Often what I have seen is there is this, I talked about porn addiction, that another term for it to some degree could be body parts obsession disorder.


When I work with men, when we break things down, it's very often very hard to see in the beginning for so many of them. But if we eventually dive down deep enough in our mental structure and understand our thoughts and unconscious kind of reactions and habits well enough, we can begin to see that when I see a woman, I size her up, right? I see her body parts. I judge her body parts.


I see, right? Maybe I won't use the words because it can be triggering for some people, but we know the different body parts that we look at and that, you know, we're naturally drawn to, or through culture are drawn to, to observe and to see and to see, oh, those are too small. Those are too big. This doesn't look quite right.


They've got too much fat there or, you know, or, oh, they have the perfect body. Look at this. Look at that obsession, obsession, focus, focus, focus.


And as we are doing that, we're judging them, right? And then simultaneously, we can often feel a great deal of shame towards ourselves for that kind of mental process that we're going through of this lusting and fantasizing and all the other things that go on in our head, right? Of thinking about that woman in all sorts of scenarios or whatever that might be through our imagination. And it can happen very instantly and very easily automatically. And the brain is prone towards automations and habits, right? That's what it will move towards.


And so this has become our automated habit. So that, that is yet another thing, judging ourselves, judging other people. If you want to learn more about that, check out the ebook.


And I will add as well, check out my free workshop. That's another resource that can dive into a lot of details on specifically what I'm talking about right now, actually. Okay.


And then, so we've addressed those three things. Now I want to address the recovery mindset, right? We've talked about the problem. We've talked about some of the solutions, but I really want to dive into the solutions that we have to be able to work with.


So if I can train my brain unconsciously to place value on people as a collection of body parts, then I can consciously through awareness and through mental effort and energy, and notice I'm not saying willpower, I'm saying through redirection, redirecting, excuse me, my mind, I can train my brain to value people for better reasons, for other reasons. Now, this is going to take a very conscious effort. This is tool one in my free ebook, The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings.


Tool one is to see the whole person. When we see someone out in public, or we see someone on a screen, or whatever the case might be, we need to actively and consciously make a choice to say, I am going to make an effort to think of this person differently. And it doesn't happen in the beginning.


This takes many, many repetitions, and it feels very unnatural, and it feels very forced. It feels very hard, because all we want to do is look at a woman and say, well, yeah, I'm attracted. Like, she's hot.


I mean, like, why would I not be super attracted and think about doing all these things physically with her? That's a habit. It is a habit. You may be more naturally prone towards it because of your sexuality.


Nevertheless, it is your job and responsibility as a man, as a human being, to work, to be able to treat people better. In order to treat people better, you need to think of them differently, including your wife, including your loved ones, including all these women all around you in your life. And I will add, when you think of them differently, you'll be able to treat yourself differently.


You'll be able to treat everyone differently and better. Okay? Even the men in your life. So, train your brain to value people for better reasons.


All right? So, that's going to look like a lot of different things. It's going to look like a very conscious effort that you put in on your end to think about those things, about that individual. Even if you don't know who they are, use your imagination.


Use your imagination. So, the next aspect of recovery mindset is to focus on compassion rather than lust. Now, this might sound so strange, but I have multiple clients I've helped with this, and it's been very effective for them.


And I met with a client today that told me a story. I asked him for permission to share this. I felt it was extremely powerful and very central to recovery.


And a unique way that he has approached it, I think, adding in some layers that I really believe are sacred. And so, I want to tell you about that right now.


So to start off, my client, he was going off on a trip to Vegas for a business trip. And moving into this, he was very, felt a lot of trepidation, and this is the same case for so many of my clients when they start out in the program, of how am I going to go on a business trip by myself and not relapse? I'm going to be alone, I'm going to have my own hotel room, obviously I'm going to be under probably a fair amount of stress because of all the business meetings and the high pressure and all the individuals that you're seeing, especially if you have social anxiety, right? Which is the case for many of the people that I work with. So this individual, he and I made a plan, and he headed that up and led that of what he was going to do.


One, he brought his family with him. Okay, so there's a bit of a tangent, but he brought his family with him in order to get their support while he's out there. His kids and his wife came, he paid for them to fly out with him.


And that was, I mean, that was crucial for him. He knows without them there, he would have relapsed. And that's important to know our limitations with things and to set boundaries and to set up for success.


He also had a schedule fully outlined for the entire week. He knew exactly what he was doing each day. He kept his daily routines going in the mornings, physically, mentally, spiritually, kept all those things going on a daily basis.


So he's setting himself up for success. He's giving himself strength each day. He's gaining strength from his higher power, right? I believe that's extremely important.


And he had all of these mental tools that he'd been working on in the program that he used throughout the week. He continued to use them. And there are many, and it's an overall mindset that people are trained into through the program.


But this is what he had to say about it. So first off, I'll start kind of with his gratitude that he felt for his wife and kids, and then he'll talk about exactly what he experienced. So I'm very grateful for my wife and children's willingness to come with me.


Las Vegas is full of people smoking marijuana in the streets, so much that it bothered me to breathe. And a lot of semi-naked women in posters, advertisements, or even in the street at night, it got much worse. I applied what I have been, I applied what I've been learning in the program.


Without having to think too much, I felt sorry and sad for the people that were semi-naked, the men, the women. I wanted to tell them that they are all wonderful people, and that there are better ways to conduct their lives, ways that would bring them happiness. I thought that maybe they didn't feel loved by their parents, or maybe their parents were abusive or neglected their desire to be loved.


I told my children that we should have compassion for them, not judge them. I'm still reflecting about it, because this was an important situation where I reacted instinctively in a more compassionate way. I did not feel immediately triggered by things that I'd normally struggle a lot with.


And this client of mine has been working very hard on this. This particularly, probably for like the last three months, he's been working on this mindset consistently. Each day he's been building it, this mindset of compassion.


And basically what he's done is, from a psychological perspective, or from a neuroscience perspective perhaps, he's been moving out of the limbic system, which is all about pleasure, inviting pleasure, avoiding pain, okay, seeking pleasure, avoiding pain. And then he's moved into the prefrontal cortex, which is all about critical thinking, connection, relationships, meaning, purpose. And so he's been replacing his typical lust and fantasizing habits, mental habits, with a compassion for other people.


When he sees a woman on the street who's dressed in like underwear walking down the street, he thinks, you know, man, she's probably being objectified by a lot of men that are coming around her. She's probably in a relationship with a man that doesn't treat her well because he just wants her for her body. Okay, that's straight up.


Maybe you disagree with that. That's okay. But this is kind of, this is what happens to a lot of people.


This woman believes that her value is based upon the way she looks. That obviously, why else would she be exposing herself to everyone that she meets in the streets? There's got to be some reason it's not comfortable to dress that way. Like it's, it's more breezy, but like to expose yourself that way, I don't think that really feels comfortable for most people.


Again, you can disagree. That's, that's fine. I see other reasons to it.


I get that. But most of the people who are dressing that way, and then of course, people who are prostitutes or, or who work in a strip club or who act in porn videos, not all of them, but many of them have had a history of abuse. They've been treated poorly.


They've never been shown true love. And they're trying to gain the affection and the love that they need so desperately through their body, through the way that they look. And they believe that this is what gives them value.


And he's seeing these people, he's seeing them and he's feeling sorry for them. He's feeling compassion and love for them. He's thinking, you can have so much more in your life.


You are so much more than your body parts. Again, I know for some people is going to sound a little silly or a little strange. That's okay.


But this is the real deal. This is, if you don't feel that, if you don't feel that kind of perspective, you don't feel the truth in that. You need to train yourself to feel the truth in it.


Even if you don't desire to feel that you're like, dude, I like porn. It feels good to, you know, look at all this stuff and to masturbate and I don't want to stop. Okay, well, then you're cut off from leading a more meaningful life and having more meaningful relationships and from being in the driver's seat mentally.


Because as long as you think that way, sexuality is leading the show instead of you being the master of your mind and it being a component of your life that's enjoyable, that you share with someone in a meaningful way. This is the next thing that he shares. The biggest thing about the program for me is that you've taught me to see a new meaning in things, to shift my perspective.


It's not a body. It's not the physical. There's a person there.


And when he's referring to and he's thinking about these people that I've seen online, that I see out and about, my mind has so automatically turned them into a collection of body parts. They're not. They're a human being.


And I can train myself to see them differently. And I will add in that if you believe in God or in a higher power, get Him or get that higher power involved in that. Ask that you will see people as whole human beings.


Love them. Feel compassion for them. Ask that when you see someone who is prostrating themselves or objectifying themselves, that you see that with sadness for them and who they are.


That they are a human being that deserves respect. They deserve love. They deserve to feel valued for far more than their body.


It's just a body. It's just a shell. And if you believe in a consciousness or you believe in a soul, eventually that soul or that consciousness will leave that body.


It's temporary, okay? It's just a body. It's not who they are. And he kind of goes deeper in because he's a Christian and many of the people who listen to my podcast are, so I'm going to share this.


And I'm a Christian as well myself. Seeing people as God sees them, okay? He talks about that. Adam and Eve were naked in front of God in the Bible, right? It was not a problem for him.


Why? Because there's a value there that is not seen and God knows it deeply and profoundly, far beyond what we know. He says, the word porn for me now is a sad word because porn focuses on giving people only a physical value. There's so much more to people.


Maybe they were not loved by their parents. Maybe they were abused. And there's someone up above these human beings that are being exploited for their bodies, who's making millions of dollars off of them.


The word porn has a new meaning. It brings him sadness. It brings him compassion for these individuals.


This is how much his mindset has changed in working through the program. He sees people differently. And when he sees a woman that would typically be triggering for lust or fantasizing even six months ago for him, now he sees that person and he thinks and he believes he feels this compassion for them.


And he thinks, you don't deserve that. You're a human being. You don't deserve to have me fawning over and obsessing about your body.


You are not your body. That's just a small part of who you are. It's just a shell for who you are inside your personality, your consciousness, all your strengths and all your weaknesses, all the things that add to who you are as a human being.


That's what I'm going to focus on. That's who I'm going to see. And you deserve better than this.


When we can feel that compassion and that deep desire for other people's well-being, that can replace our desire for porn. That can help us quit porn. It's one of the things that we can implement.


And there are many, many tools that we can use. This is just one, but it's powerful. And I'll add as well a caveat that my client added to this.


He says, there's ups and downs. It comes in waves. I feel the compassion more automatically sometimes.


And other times it's a much more conscious effort for me. Other times the lust comes up and I need to step back from that and I need to practice this compassion. So it's a conscious effort.


It's not like you do it one time and then you're like, sweet, I have built the habit. I am good to go. No, you're not.


You're not good to go. Look, nine and a half years of sobriety from porn. That's where I'm at now.


I still practice this stuff every single day. And if you're in the beginning stages of your recovery, you may hear that and you may be like, well, screw this then. That sounds like way too much freaking work.


I can never do that forever. I've got a secret for you. You don't have to do it forever.


You just got to do it today. And that is how I'm nine and a half years sober. This recovery mindset focused on just today, tomorrow, a week from now, two years from now, I got nothing on that.


I don't know anything about that. I just know about today and that I'm sober today. And I'm going to practice this recovery mindset today.


Tomorrow comes, I'm going to do the same thing and so on and so forth. Don't take it all on at once and don't expect yourself to develop this recovery mindset for all of time. Work on it today.


Meet yourself where you're at today and make just little incremental baby steps of progress. That's another thing my client talked about. He said, it's incremental.


It's one day at a time. It's not all done at once and it takes conscious effort and it feels unnatural for a good long time, depending on who you are, what your history of addiction is. It can feel unnatural to try to think about people this way, but pray to God.


If you believe in God, ask him to develop this mindset of compassion within you. And I believe, and I've experienced this myself, he will bring people into your life. He will bring experiences into your life.


He will bring thoughts into your mind. You will receive inspiration in little small increments, line upon line, to eventually get to this place of deep compassion and love, if you aim for it and you ask for it. The last thing that I want to talk about is, rather than judging yourself for physical attraction, you got to understand yourself.


So with all of this, my client also said, I didn't even know that I could have compassion for myself when I started the program. I didn't know what that meant, what self-compassion meant. Like there's the word, but he'd never felt it.


He'd never felt that. He said, I didn't know what it meant. I could hear the word, but I couldn't feel it.


That's an amazing thing. There's, there's a lot of people that experienced that. You're a man.


All right. It isn't easy to transform the way that you think about physical and sexual matters. If it were, everybody would do it.


Everybody would do it. Okay. This, I get from a spiritual perspective, an existential perspective.


I believe we are put here or, or I should say, I believe we chose to come here to earth so we can learn. And part of that learning process as a man or as a woman, as we come with things biologically that are challenging for us. And I believe we are meant to meet those challenges and manage, and then eventually overcome them to become masters of our weaknesses, to turn them into strengths.


And I believe God helps us do that. We can get there. You can change the way that you think about women sexually and the way that physical attraction works for you.


I am speaking from personal experience, sexuality, sexual desire, fantasies, lust. It used to rule my mind at every moment. And I feel a compassion for that past me.


That was the best way that I knew. And I didn't know how to change all that. And through 10 years, more than 10 years, 15 years of consistent effort and, and focus and practice and learning from people, from God, I slowly learned all of the answers that I needed.


And I'm continuing to learn them for how recovery works and how I have this new, what I call a recovery mindset, which in this case is about seeing people with this completely new perspective, seeing physical attraction, sexual attraction, sexuality in a totally new way. And you can have that too. And it's amazing.


It's freeing. You can do so much more with your life than you ever could before, because now this thing isn't ruling you, but have an understanding for yourself as you walk that journey. Okay.


It isn't easy to change it again. I'm still changing that to this day. I'm working on new heights of progression with where I'm at.


You got to meet yourself where you're at. You're probably more progressed than I am in other areas of life. Okay.


This area of life, it takes work. It takes consistency. So have understanding for yourself and have compassion for yourself.


You're a man, you're a male, and you come with this stuff. And then in addition, you have a history of addiction. This is shared in the free ebook as well.


Again, check that out for way more resources that it's going to lay out for you exactly how to approach these situations. You have a history of addiction. Okay.


And if you have a history of porn addiction, it's trained your mind to think a different way. It's brainwashed you. That's not your fault that it's brainwashed you that way.


And you came into a world in a modern day and age where there's an internet and that makes things way harder than ever with all of this. So have that compassion for yourself. When you feel these things, when you feel this lust, this fantasizing, don't judge yourself.


All right. It's okay if you do, but what I'm saying is work on and practice saying, okay, there's physical and sexual attraction. I'm a man.


I'm a male. This is normal. This is normal.


And a healthy level of it is just great. There's nothing wrong with it. It's the fixation and obsession that's not serving you and it's not serving those around you.


Okay. So remember it doesn't make you bad. It doesn't make, uh, it doesn't make you unworthy or immoral to feel physical or sexual attraction.


It's part of being a human. It's the fixation and obsession with that physical and sexual, uh, with physical and sexual matters that doesn't serve you. And it doesn't serve those around you.


It doesn't help you. That is why you're looking to change it so you can become a powerful, great man that you want to be. So if you found today's episode helpful, rate this podcast, give me a follow, uh, to get each new episode that I release pretty much on a weekly basis in order to help you out with porn addiction recovery or to help a loved one.


And again, if you haven't checked out my free workshop or my free ebook, I mentioned it like 25,000 times in this, in this episode, but check those out. You can go to nomoredesire.com. You'll find both of them on the homepage, grab both of them and have me send them to your email. Uh, that will give you so, so, so many tools and so many resources and so many things to work on.


It's going to be way more than you could ever do on your own. So check that out. And if you want to take things to the next level, join my porn addiction recovery program.


It is an intensive recovery program. It's one of the most personalized one-on-one coaching programs you'll find. I would venture to say in the entire world, my approach is unique from many other programs out there.


I have you filling out daily assessments that are giving me insights into your emotions and your challenges, the things that you're experiencing and going through. I ha I use those assessments to prepare for our weekly one-on-one sessions. I don't just walk into chat with you about your week.


I've already got answers for you. I already have things that we're going to discuss that I know that you're going through from the week because you're giving me all that information that you're filling out throughout the week and submitting to me. It only takes about 10 to 15 minutes per day for you.


And I get all those insights and I come with expert knowledge, both professionally and personally from my own recovery to give to you in that session. In addition, you get a personalized recovery plan and you also get a step-by-step recovery program with exercises that are going to take you one step at a time through the recovery process. So thanks so much for listening today, my friend.


God bless and much love.


 
 
 

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