Grieving Your Porn Addiction: The Unexpected Emotional Process You Must Go Through and the Step Most Porn Recovery Programs Miss
- Jake Kastleman
- 5 hours ago
- 35 min read
If you’re anything like I was during my years addicted to porn, you feel that pornography has ruined your life.
Porn use makes you feel isolated, ashamed, and depressed. It’s damaged your relationship, hurt your wife, and it causes you to feel like a slave to your own sexuality—distracted by unwanted cravings and urges, rather than present in the moment.
It causes you to objectify women, feeling distracted by their bodies, rather than being able to engage, eye-to-eye, person to person, and to FEEL a genuine, life-giving connection.
It’s also removed a portion of your ambition, your motivation, your focus, and your enjoyment in every area of life - causing you to always feel…like you’re not quite living up to your potential.
So…if porn does all this to you…why do you keep going back?
What if I told you that you have a relationship to porn? An attachment to porn? And in order to leave it behind, you need to go through a grieving process, just as you would for any relationship you lose…
Sound strange?
“Porn has ruined my life”, you might say, “So what is there to grieve?”
Here’s the thing.
You may know this in your logical mind. But your emotional mind does not play by the same rules. It is a complex, strange place, where things like logic don’t apply.
Today, we’re going to talk about how to leave porn behind and the paradoxical grieving process you must go through. I’ll explain how you’ve become attached not only to the pleasure of pornography, but also to the pain and punishment of it.
We’ll explore the psychology and neuroscience behind this phenomenon, and I’ll give you the process to grieve your own pornography addiction, so you can divorce this companion who no longer serves you, in favor of a new one that does.
So, if you feel a hate for pornography and what it’s done to your life—but a part of you still desires it—and you want to unravel the psychology behind it so you can leave it, then this article is for you.
Your Sexual Fantasies Aren’t Random: How Porn Reveals Unmet Emotional Needs
Every sexual fantasy is a story trying to be understood. Your personal sexual fantasies and choices in porn are not random. You may think you watch generic porn, as I did—that it’s simply a method of gaining instant pleasure and a dopamine spike. But this is not how the unconscious emotional mind functions.
There are genuine reasons behind the pursuit of self-destructive behaviors—needs that your unconscious mind is trying to meet. Otherwise, why would you keep going back to something that hurts you and your loved ones?
Your sexual fantasies have been crafted by unconscious parts of your psyche in response to abuse, neglect, or unmet emotional needs—often experienced in childhood. Your mind is trying to help you.
Your fantasy is your mind’s way of signalling that there are emotional wounds you have left unaddressed. It is a map back to your story. It’s not evidence of a lack of care or goodness in you.
Fantasies emerge because the brain is trying to symbolically replay and solve a problem. It is the psyche’s attempt to reimagine a world where you finally have the things you feel you needed:
Safety
Acceptance
Freedom
Comfort
Connection
Love
Meaning
Power
Unfortunately, porn does not meet these needs. When the mind pursues this fabrication—a broken version of the actual healing that’s needed—it only furthers your feeling of brokenness. That’s the paradox. The protective parts of your psyche that have sought out pornography to help you feel better cause the problems that they seek to fix.
These unconscious parts of your emotional mind seek out porn as a means of helping you escape pain, find comfort, seek connection, feel accepted, avoid rejection, feel powerful, feel safe, or seek perfection (the perfect body). They do all this symbolically through porn.
The unconscious brain seeks to fulfill your emotional needs through sexual means. This salve never reaches the core wound, so it continues to fester.
An Addict’s Attachment to Pain
Most of us think that we go to porn as a source of pleasure. That makes sense, but it is not the whole story.
You’ve probably been taught that we become attached to pleasurable experiences and relationships. We want to experience more of what is pleasant and enjoyable. But again, that is only partly true.
We can also become attached to painful experiences and relationships just as we can to pleasurable ones.
The Neuroscience of Pain Attachment
Our brain processes both pleasure and pain in the same regions. Key areas like the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and parts of the prefrontal cortex are involved in the experience of both joyful and painful emotions.
These overlapping regions are responsible for processing the emotional "valence" (or combined energy) and intensity of experiences, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.
The attachment to painful emotions comes as a result of interactions between the brain's emotional and reward systems, which can create a cycle where we subconsciously seek out painful states, particularly when those emotions are linked to early life experiences.
The Familiarity Principle
One powerful psychological factor in pain attachment is the brain's preference for familiarity, even if that familiarity is harmful.
When we grew up in an environment where love was inconsistent or tied to distress (e.g., only receiving meaningful attention when we are hurt, sad, or in crisis), we may learn to associate emotional pain with being cared for or loved.
As adults, our subconscious may try to recreate these dynamics to fulfill unresolved needs, confusing emotional instability with affection.
This process can lead to trauma bonding, where cycles of abuse and occasional kindness in relationships create an intense, addictive attachment to the perpetrator or situation. The unpredictability of the "highs" keeps us hooked, similar to a slot machine.
In porn addiction, the porn we consume becomes our self-inflicted perpetrator, which we come to rely on as a familiar companion of pain.
We become attached to the pain and punishment of the addictive experience. It enhances the overall emotional valence and intensity of the addiction, causing our unconscious mind to seek out that intensity again.
Without the fear, shame, grief, self-judgment, and self-hatred we’ve attached to pornography use, we likely would not return to the behavior so obsessively and with such continuous fixation. It simply wouldn’t carry the weight that it does.
Pain Becomes Our Companion
If I grew up with painful relationships or faced frequent melancholy, fear, depression, anxiety, drama, or abuse, I can gain an attachment to these types of relationships and experiences (even if they occurred later in life).
These emotions become familiar and known. They become my constant companion: a relationship that is predictable and consistent. Whereas unfamiliar emotions like unconditional love, generosity, or selflessness may feel unknown or foreign to me. I do not have a secure attachment to these emotions, and so they are harder for me to hold on to.
Too much joyful emotion may scare a part of me or cause it to feel suspicious. Or, joyful emotion may be something I’m so desperate to keep around that I try too hard to hold onto it and control it, worrying that it will disappear. In doing so, I sabotage that joy, because my fear causes it to disappear.
My mind may even go so far as to sabotage me when I feel “too much” happiness. It does this in an attempt to bring me back to what is familiar and what I identify with most easily: pain, my known companion and attachment.
Because the unconscious mind fights change—even good change—I may constantly find myself reengaging in relationships and experiences that are painful. I unconsciously recreate them. This is certainly the case with pornography addiction.
Leaving Our Pain Behind
So, if I’m addicted to porn, am I doomed to a lifelong attachment to pain and self-sabotage?
No!
Leaving these patterns behind requires me to go through a process of self-discovery, understanding, grieving, and self-forgiveness. I must literally grieve the loss of my self-destructive behaviors and relationships.
This may sound strange, but remember, for many of us we are losing a relationship we’ve held on to since childhood. This is a lifelong companion I am contemplating giving up. One that has been there through thick and thin, with unconditional acceptance and no expectations of me. Grieving is a natural part of this process.
As I do so, I must replace these destructive behaviors with people and things that actually meet my true, core needs.
Attachment to pain is not my default as a human being. It is a destructive pattern that disguises my true inner longings for peace, love, meaning, comfort, significance, etc. In order to recover, I must discover the truth of what my addictions and fantasies have been trying to bring me; what these parts of my psyche truly want for me underneath the mask of self-destruction and self-sabotage.
In discovering this truth, I may redefine my identity as a person. Not as someone who is broken and attached to pain—to self-punishment—but as someone with good desires who wants to do the right thing and feels safe, seen, and loved. And as someone who wants to help others feel safe, seen, and loved as well.
How to Grieve Your Porn Addiction
Each of the following steps is an emotional practice. You must take time to fully feel them. Don’t just engage mentally. Go inward, focusing on the emotions in your body and stopping to be still, present, reflect, and experience the answers to each question.
Step 1: “What does this behavior do for me?”
To grieve your porn addiction and leave it behind, you must first ask yourself, “What does this behavior do for me?”
Does porn bring you:
The illusion of unconditional acceptance
False connection and attachment
Escape, thrill, or exciting forbiddenness
Perceived power and dominance
Fabricated sense of success or status
Perceived attainment of bodily perfection
The feeling of being wanted or desired by someone you can’t have
Being enveloped in a story or fantasy that rewrites reality
Perceived safety or security
Freedom from expectations
Comfort and soothing from stress
Which of these does porn symbolically bring to your unconscious emotional mind? What needs are parts of your deep psyche symbolically trying to fulfill?
Fundamentally, this is about the unconscious mind trying to meet your unmet emotional needs you’ve likely carried since childhood.
…It’s not working, but these parts of your mind are trying very hard.
Like well-meaning parents who are causing harm to their children in an effort to soothe or help them escape pain, parts of your mind are attempting to parent you in the same way. They want to help, but they are causing the problem they seek to fix.
So…you need to step in as the rightful parent to your own mind. You are not your body or your brain. You are the awareness that can stand outside of them and seek to understand. You can help these parts feel appreciated for what they’ve been trying to do, rather than demonizing them for causing your pain.
If you fight and condemn these parts of your mind, it’s a losing battle. You may get sober, but that sobriety will be driven by fear, shame, and self-loathing (at least to some degree). Instead, you empower the addictive parts of your mind to relax and step down by helping them feel seen for their intent.
Much the same as a wise mediator helps all sides feel heard and appreciated, you do the same for your mind. From this more relaxed state, you can take conscious initiative to meet the deeper needs addiction has been trying to fulfill.
Putting It Into Practice
So what does this look like in practice, specifically?
Take time to sit down and ask the parts of your unconscious mind what they like about porn—or why they keep going back to it. Keep a pen with you to write down inclinations. Take time to introspect, be silent, and let it come over time.
You may get a surface-level answer such as, “It feels good”, “The girls are hot”, “I like sex”, or “I have a high sex drive”. Okay…fair enough. But this is the surface—a distraction. There are much deeper reasons.
Take the list I’ve written above and ask the parts of your mind which of these match the needs they are trying to fulfill through porn.
Notice I’m not telling you to think about which of these needs you are trying to meet. Instead, ask your unconscious mind what it is trying to do for you through porn. Then, feel inside you for the answers as you look at the list I’ve written.
For many of us, this can feel uncomfortable at first. We’re not used to listening inwardly or trusting what our body and emotions might be trying to communicate.
Most of us were never taught how to do this—and in fact, many of us were taught not to. So if this feels awkward, vague, or unfamiliar, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It simply means you’re learning a new way of relating to yourself. And, if it helps, know that there is an entire field of psychology (IFS) that teaches people how to do this, and millions are finding success using this approach of emotional mindfulness.
Step 2: “What will I lose if I leave porn behind?”
To grieve porn addiction and leave it behind, we have to understand to the deepest degree what we are afraid of losing. So, after I’ve reflected and written about what it does for me, I then need to get curious about what my mind is afraid of losing by leaving it behind.
The protective parts of your unconscious mind believe that abandoning porn is an impossibility. They think that leaving it will hurt you—or even kill you.
To overcome porn addiction, you don’t need to convince these parts of your mind that they shouldn’t feel this way, or speak to yourself logically about all the reasons why it will be better. None of this will work.
Instead, you just need to feel all of the reasons your mind is afraid to leave pornography behind.
Remember, you don’t need to think your way to recovery. You need to feel your way to it. Addiction isn’t driven by faulty logic—it’s driven by unprocessed emotional pain held in the body and nervous system.
When those emotions aren’t allowed to move or be felt, they look for relief. Over time, porn becomes a shortcut for regulating what feels overwhelming inside. Healing begins when you slow down enough to let these emotions surface, be felt, and pass through—without needing to escape them.
Again, most of us have not been taught how to do this. Instead, we’ve been taught to willpower our way through emotions. We’ve been taught to invite joyful emotion and deny painful emotion. When we do this, we become broken, because we are not here for every part of ourselves.
We judge painful emotions as “bad” or “negative”. But we need to feel them just as much as the joyful emotions. When we allow them—welcome them, invite them—then they have the chance to rise, peak, and fall away.
Then, these difficult emotions can teach me something new about myself. They lead to deeper self-discovery. They refine me, rather than define me. They no longer remain stuck, running my life. Now, I am freer to choose my actions because I am less busy reacting to emotions.
Because when I’m busy running from emotion, it runs me.
Step 3: “What core needs am I trying to fulfill through porn?”
Once you have discovered what porn does for you and accepted what part of you fears losing by leaving it behind, now it’s time to discover the core needs you’ve been trying to fulfill.
These are needs for:
Safety
Love
Connection
Importance
Excitement
Power
Peace
While porn doesn’t ultimately meet any of these needs, it can give a broken solution to many of them temporarily, followed by an emotional plunge and feeling of emptiness.
Porn gives us a band-aid to put over our emotions, while leaving the underlying wound festering. We need something more substantial to cultivate healing, but the porn suffices for the moment, so our unconscious mind keeps going back to it.
What needs is porn meeting for you? Think of how it makes you feel when you go to it. Or, think of how you feel when you begin craving it.
Perhaps you feel unappreciated. Porn helps you feel important or wanted for a time, followed by a feeling of being drained and small.
Maybe you feel unsafe. Porn gives you the illusion of safety and freedom from expectation.
Maybe you feel a lack of control in your life. Engaging with beautiful women online makes you feel powerful, while stripping you of your masculine drive and focus afterward.
Perhaps you lack excitement and enjoyment in your life. Porn gives your mind a cheap version of the adventure and reasonable risk-taking you desire as a man.
As you see each of these needs, see if you can feel compassion for the parts of your mind that have tried to fulfill your needs through porn. They’ve done their best, but it hasn’t worked. As you discover what your mind has been trying to do, see if you can feel appreciation for its attempts. Stay in this space for a period of time. Let the emotion move through you.
Step 4: “What does this show about who I really am?”
Once you’ve seen the true needs your unconscious mind has been attempting to fulfill, notice how each need is good at its core.
There is nothing inherently bad about wanting to feel important, safe, connected, powerful, or loved. These are all good things. Take time to feel this truth and show acceptance and understanding for these parts of yourself.
Step 5: “How can I fulfill these core needs in a way that honors who I am?”
Once you’ve recognized the truth about the needs you are trying to fulfill and how they reflect who you are at your core, determine how you could meet these needs in ways that agree with your values and long-term goals.
Quitting Porn is Not a One Time Event - Neither is Grieving It
Quitting porn is not a single event—so grieving your porn addiction is not done in one sitting.
The above exercises give you a path, but it’s one you’ll likely need to walk down many, many times—understanding more and more about yourself, your addiction, and the new life you are creating.
All this comes in layers. It can help significantly to have a guide in this process. I complete exercises like this frequently with my clients. If you’d like a coach to walk you through it, I encourage you to join my coaching program.
If you’re looking for deeper support and real connection in recovery, I’m opening the No More Desire Brotherhood on January 15th. The pre-launch is open right now, and when you join you’ll get free lifetime access to my 4 Pillars of Recovery mini-course, plus exclusive pre-launch bonuses. You can learn more and join here: https://www.nomoredesire.com/prelaunch
Free Resources:
Grab my Free eBook and Free Workshop for more strategies to overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life.
Recommended Episodes:
Why You Can’t “Just Stop”: Porn Addiction, Your Nervous System, and Polyvagal Theory Explained From Stuck to Free: The 2 Recovery Mindset Elements That Most People Overlook
Full Transcription of Episode 126: Grieving Your Porn Addiction: The Unexpected Emotional Process You Must Go Through and the Step Most Porn Recovery Programs Miss
Jake Kastleman (00:01.006)
Welcome to No More Desire, where we build the mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from poor. My name is Jake Castleman, and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.
Jake Kastleman (00:18.415)
Hey, brothers, I have an announcement I'm genuinely excited about, and I want to take a minute right now to tell you all about it so you can be involved. On January 15th, 2026, I'm officially opening doors to the No More Desire Brotherhood. This is a free online community that has been in the works for a long time, and launch day is finally here. The No More Desire Brotherhood is a space for men who are serious about overcoming porn by building a recovery mindset,
and a recovery lifestyle together. Inside, you'll find support, accountability, and real connection. You'll take part in exclusive conversations, access content I don't share anywhere else, and engage in monthly challenges designed to help you set goals, share wins, and keep moving forward with brothers just like you. My entire course library will also live in this space for those who want to take the next step and invest further in their recovery.
This community isn't just about quitting porn. It's about living with meaning, emotional stability, and daily habits that bless you and the people that you love. I created this community to be what I needed during my years of porn addiction. And I'm personally very excited to connect on a deeper level with all of you, thousands of men who listen to this show, most of whom I haven't met yet. I want to know each of you and bring depth to this movement like never before. And if you've
ever wished you had other men walking this path with you, men who get it, who won't judge you, and who are committed to this growth, this is your place. The community officially launches January 15th, but starting right now, I'm opening a pre-launch group. When you join, you will become an exclusive pre-launch member, helping found the culture of this brotherhood that will live on for years to come. As a special bonus, you will get free lifetime access to a course
I've created called the Four Pillars of Recovery. This is a foundational curriculum I've taught hundreds of times and refined over many years. It underlies everything that I do at No More Desire and it's transformed men's lives across the world. I will release this as a paid course in the near future, but when you join the pre-launch, you'll get it for free. Not only that, you'll gain access to five exclusive pre-launch bonuses with this online course that you cannot get anywhere else.
Jake Kastleman (02:43.552)
This opportunity will disappear January 14th at midnight, so come join us before that. To sign up, go to nomordesire.com slash pre-launch or hit the link in the show notes. Aside from the bonuses and the pre-launch exclusives, I'm just so excited to meet you. So come be a part of it all and I'll see you in there, my friend. If you're anything like I was during my years addicted to porn, you feel that pornography has ruined your life.
Porn use makes you feel isolated, ashamed, depressed. It's damaged your relationship, hurt your wife, and it causes you to feel like slave to your own sexuality, distracted by unwanted cravings and urges rather than present in the moment. It causes you to objectify women, feeling distracted by their bodies, rather than able to engage eye to eye, person to person, and to feel genuine, life-giving connection. It's also removed a portion of your ambition, your motivation,
your focus and your enjoyment in every area of life, causing you to always feel like you're not quite living up to your potential. So if porn does all this to you, why do you keep going back? What if I told you that you have a relationship to porn, an attachment to porn, and in order to leave it behind, you need to go through a grieving process, just as you would for any relationship that you lose? Does that sound strange?
Porn has ruined my life, you might say. So what is there to grieve? Here's the thing. You may know this in your logical mind, but your emotional mind does not play by the same rules. It's a complex, strange place where things like logic don't apply. Today, we're going to talk about how to leave porn behind and the paradoxical grieving process you must go through. I'll explain how you've become attached, not only
to the pleasure of pornography, but also to the pain and the punishment of pornography. We'll explore the psychology and neuroscience behind this phenomenon, and I'll give you the process to grieve your own pornography addiction so you can divorce this companion who no longer serves you in favor of a new one that does. So, if you feel a hate for pornography and what it's done to your life, but a part of you still desires it,
Jake Kastleman (05:09.12)
and you want to unravel the psychology behind this so you can leave it, then this episode is for you, my friend. Before we dive in, a reminder to follow, subscribe, hit the notification bell and like this video or shoot my podcast rating. Doing so helps me grow this show so I can reach other men who need help too. Let's get into it.
Jake Kastleman (05:36.19)
Every sexual fantasy is a story trying to be understood. Your personal sexual fantasies and choices in porn are not random. You may think you watch generic porn as I did, that it's simply a method of gaining instant pleasure and a dopamine spike. But this is not how the unconscious emotional mind functions. There are genuine reasons behind the pursuit of self-destructive behaviors, needs that your unconscious mind is trying to meet.
Otherwise, why would you keep going back to something that hurts you and your loved ones? Your sexual fantasies have been crafted by unconscious parts of your psyche in response to abuse, to neglect, or unmet emotional needs often experienced in childhood. Your mind is trying to help you. This is one of the things that's so hard for us to understand. Your mind is trying to help you. How could it be trying to help me, right?
It's ruining my life. But again, this is not how the unconscious mind functions. Your fantasy is your mind's way of signaling that there are emotional wounds you have left unaddressed. It's a map back to your story. It's not evidence of a lack of care or goodness in you. Fantasies emerge because the brain is trying to symbolically replay and solve a problem. And I want you to think about that.
Fantasies emerge because the brain is trying to symbolically replay and solve a problem. We're gonna talk a lot more about this today. It is the psyche's attempt to reimagine a world where you finally have the things you feel you need. Needs like safety, acceptance, freedom, comfort, connection, love, meaning, power.
Unfortunately, porn does not meet any of these needs when the mind pursues this fabrication of true human experience, a broken version of the actual healing that's needed. This only furthers your feeling of brokenness. And that's the paradox. That's the ego, it's the natural man, right? It's the unconscious mind, the protective parts of your psyche that have sought out pornography to help you feel better. They actually cause the problems that they seek to fix.
Jake Kastleman (08:02.74)
These unconscious parts of your emotional mind seek out porn as a means of helping you escape pain, find comfort, seek connection, feel accepted, avoid rejection, feel powerful, feel safe, or seek perfection, the perfect body. They do this all symbolically through porn. A very unexpected portion of this, and I wanna just cover this as a tangent for a minute because I was...
I've spoken to a few different clients about this. For me, I grew up always feeling like my body was not enough. Feeling like I wasn't strong, like one of the guys. I wasn't attractive, like the other guys around me. Girls wouldn't want me like they wanted the other guys, right? I grew up with this feeling of inadequacy. And I didn't really know this. It's just something I carried, right? As a kid, as a teenager,
Right? And into my twenties and into my current life to some degree. Right? It's much better now, but I still carry some of these wounds. For me, pornography was a vicarious achievement or vicarious kind of grasping at bodily perfection.
not only to be accepted by a woman with a perfect body, but also to feel that I was attaining bodily perfection through pornography consumption. This is something that's really hard to understand, but as I've shared it with other clients, I've watched men, I've spoken with them. There is so frequently a
either unconscious or conscious feeling of my body is not enough in the men that I work with. And this is an unexpected connection to pornography addiction because I am obsessed. So when I struggle with pornography addiction, I am obsessed with the bodily form. I was obsessed with this.
Jake Kastleman (10:26.707)
during my teenage years. As a kid as well, I grew up with a feeling, I grew up with body dysmorphia, which is essentially I saw my body as fat, as ugly, as gross, as undesirable. I believed all that and when I was 13, I came to understand that I was never overweight in the first place. I spoke to people about that later in my twenties and I talked to them about how I was so insecure that I was fat as a kid. They said, you were never fat.
Spoke to family members about this, friends about this. So strange, right? That's body dysmorphia. even if I was overweight, what was more important is that I felt my body was not enough. And because my body was not enough, I was not enough. I lacked worth in my mind. I believed that I was unworthy as a kid, as a teen. And so when I was 13, I began working out every day, probably an hour a day trying to get
get fit, get the muscles, right? Eventually it was, at first it was about getting skinny. Then once I found out, okay, I'm skinny, then it was, well, I'm not buff enough. Then once I had some muscle, then it was, I need to get buffer. Then once I did that, then it was, I need a six pack, right? And I worked and worked and worked to get that, right? All for what? Eventually I realized through this process, eventually I saw this is also I can gain acceptance.
And we try to vicariously seek this acceptance through pornography. We try to experience bodily perfection through another human being, a fake person on the screen, so that we can feel like,
We have attained that perfection. I don't know if that makes sense. This is an unconscious kind of world that is very strange, but I'm essentially becoming desired by this woman with a perfect body and therefore my body must be acceptable. I think that's a better way of saying it. The unconscious brain seeks to fulfill your emotional needs through sexual means. This salve never reaches the core wound, so it continues to fester.
Jake Kastleman (12:41.179)
Most of us think that we go to porn as a source of pleasure. That's true. Yes, it's pleasurable, but it's not the whole story. It's very little of it, actually. You've probably been taught that we become attached to pleasurable experiences, right? That this is how dopamine functions, for instance. It's about pleasure. And that this is how the brain is wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure.
We want to experience more of what is pleasant and enjoyable, that's true. But again, that's only part of the truth. We can also become attached to painful experiences and relationships just as we can, pleasurable ones. This is the phenomenal psychology behind this we've come to understand in the last couple of decades, especially, I think. There are probably plenty of people who discovered it before that, but it's come more into mainstream thought.
Our brain processes both pleasure and pain in the same regions. Okay, I wanna talk about the neuroscience behind this. Key areas like the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and parts of the prefrontal cortex are involved in the experience of both joyful and painful emotions. These overlapping regions are responsible for processing the emotional valence or combined energy and intensity of experiences, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.
The attachment to painful emotions comes as a result of interactions between the brain's emotional and reward systems, which can create, not always, but can create a cycle where I subconsciously seek out painful states, particularly when those emotions are linked to early life experiences. If I grew up in a family, for instance, where there was a lot of conflict, I may seek out another relationship with someone I will then be in a lot of conflict with.
because underneath I carry a burden and a belief. I belong in conflict-ridden relationships. I am attached to them. This is how relationships are. And so I seek them out again and again and again. What's happening? Why does this keep happening? This is so unfair. I feel like I'm cursed. We are cursed. There's psychology behind that curse though, and we can heal from it. But we need to understand at first,
Jake Kastleman (14:59.763)
So one powerful psychological factor in pain attachment is the brain's preference for familiarity. Even if that familiarity is harmful, when we grew up in an environment where love was inconsistent or tied to distress, for instance, only receiving meaningful attention when we are hurt, when we're sad, or when we're in crisis, and when we're not, our parents aren't really engaged or our siblings aren't really engaged.
We may then learn to associate pain, emotional pain with being cared for or loved. As adults, our subconscious may try to recreate these dynamics to fulfill unresolved needs, confusing emotional instability with affection. We can become bonded to people through trauma, right? Trauma bonding. This process can lead to cycles of abuse and occasional kindness.
in relationships, which creates an intense addictive attachment to the perpetrator or situation. The unpredictability of the highs keeps us hooked similar to a slot machine. Okay, so we're talking about both familiarity here and attachment to the pain and then attachment to the intensity of the pain and the unpredictability of the intensity. In porn addiction, how does this relate?
The porn we consume becomes our self-inflicted perpetrator. I come to rely on it as a familiar companion of pain, a companion of darkness. I become attached to the pain and punishment of the addictive experience, as strange and paradoxical as that sounds. But that is the human psyche, it's ego, it's the natural man, it's how the emotional unconscious mind functions. It's not because
We are inherently bad. It is because we are in a vessel of experience here on earth that is, I would say, designed to work this way. Because we would then have to heal and overcome burdens and beliefs so we can advance as a human being and learn how to move through challenge and become more deeply compassionate and loving by doing so. This enhances the overall emotional valence and intensity of the addiction.
Jake Kastleman (17:26.461)
Right? When we become attached to the pain and the punishment of the addictive experience, it enhances the overall emotional intensity, causing our unconscious mind to seek out that intensity again and again. Without the fear, without the shame, without the grief, the self-judgment, the self-hatred, this is the strange thing. Without all that that I've attached to pornography use, I likely would not return to the behavior.
so obsessively and with such continuous fixation, it simply would not carry the emotional weight that it does.
So if I grew up with painful relationships or faced frequent melancholy, fear, depression, anxiety, drama, abuse, I can gain an attachment to these types of relationships and experiences even if there's something that I don't enjoy. Part of me or parts of me goes back to it. And this can also be the case if it's happened later in life, not just in childhood. These emotions become familiar, they become known.
They become my constant companion, a relationship that is predictable and consistent. Whereas unfamiliar emotions like unconditional love, generosity, selflessness, they may feel unknown or foreign to me. They may feel uncomfortable. I do not have a secure attachment to these emotions and so they are harder for me to hold on to. Too much joyful emotion may scare a part of me or cause it to feel suspicious.
or joyful emotion may be something I'm so desperate to keep around that I try too hard to hold onto it and control it. I worry that it will disappear and in doing so,
Jake Kastleman (19:20.039)
I sabotage that joy because my fear causes it to disappear. My mind may even go so far as to sabotage me when I feel too much happiness. It does this in an attempt to bring me back to what is familiar and what I identify with most easily, what I qualify for, if you will. Pain, my known companion, my known attachment was familiar to me, what I might feel worthy of, right?
If I'm experiencing an incredibly joyful life, gosh, then my responsibility to match that and to earn it, according to this part of my mind, that may go up. Who knows what could happen then? That might be risky. Because the unconscious mind fights change, even good change, I may constantly find myself re-engaging in relationships and experiences that are painful. I unconsciously recreate them. This is certainly the case with pornography addiction.
So, if I'm addicted to porn, am I doomed to a lifelong attachment to pain and self-sabotage? No, of course not. Leaving these patterns behind requires me to go through a process of self-discovery, understanding, grieving, and self-forgiveness, to give away my old ways, in other words.
I must literally grieve the loss of my self-destructive behaviors and relationships. This may sound strange, but remember, for many of us, we are losing a relationship we've held onto since childhood. This is a life-long companion. I am contemplating giving up, one that has been there through thick and thin, with unconditional acceptance and no expectations of me. Grieving is a natural part of this process.
paradoxical, it doesn't make sense logically, but it's part of process. And I've done it with multiple clients. It's an important part that we have to cross through. So as I do so, as I outline this, must, as I go through this, I must replace these destructive behaviors with people and things that actually meet my true core needs, right? I need to replace them with joyful things that are actually enjoyable. And that is going to feel
Jake Kastleman (21:45.115)
Uncomfortable at first. Attachment to pain is not my default as a human being. It is a destructive pattern that disguises my true inner longings for peace, love, meaning, comfort, significance. In order to recover, I must discover the truth of what my addictions and fantasies have been trying to bring me. What these parts of my psyche truly want for me underneath the mask of self-destruction and self-sabotage.
In discovering this truth, I may redefine my identity as a person, not as someone who is broken and attached to pain, to self-punishment, but as someone with good desires, who wants to do the right thing and feel safe, seen, and loved, and someone who wants to help others feel safe, seen, and loved as well. So how do we do this? I'm going to outline these steps for you. Each of the following steps is an emotional practice.
Okay, so as I outline them for you, know that this is in the blog. So if you want a written version of how to do this, it's there. I encourage you to go to it. And as I walk through this, what's the most, one of the most crucial things about this is that this is not a mental practice. This is not about engaging mentally. It's about feeling as you go through each step.
And for a lot of us guys, it can be so hard for us to do, so hard for us to understand, but you have to go inward, focusing on the emotions in your body and stopping to be still, present, reflect and experience the answers to each question. So step one is what does this behavior do for me? To grieve your porn addiction and leave it behind, you must first ask yourself, what does this behavior do for me?
Does porn bring you any of the following? And as I go through these, these are very specific and very deliberate. These are not just random. These are things that I've experienced in clients. These are things that are in the research. These are things that I've seen in myself. Every single one of these are things that I tried to fulfill through porn.
Jake Kastleman (24:01.715)
So does porn bring you the illusion of unconditional acceptance, false connection and attachment, escape thrill or exciting forbiddenness? It's a big one, an unexpected one. Perceived power and dominance? A fabricated sense of success or status? A perceived attainment of bodily perfection?
The feeling of being wanted or desired by someone that you can't have.
being enveloped in a story or fantasy that rewrites reality.
a perceived safety or security, freedom from expectations, or comfort and soothing from stress. Each of these correspond to, especially to different personality types, by the way. Different people gravitate more or less to these different things based on their personality structure. So which of these does porn symbolically bring to your unconscious emotional mind?
What needs are parts of your deep psyche symbolically trying to fulfill? Fundamentally, this is about the unconscious mind trying to meet your unmet emotional needs you've likely been carrying since childhood. This is not about sexuality. It is symbolic. It is about emotionality. And that is so unexpected for so many of us. Okay, so these...
Jake Kastleman (25:43.891)
This is what these parts have been trying to fulfill for you, but it's not working. These parts of your mind are trying very hard though, using porn. Like well-meaning parents who are causing harm to their children in an effort to soothe or help. These children escape pain. Parts of your mind are attempting to parent you in the same way. They wanna help, but they are causing the problem they seek to fix. So,
You need to step in as the rightful parent to your own mind. You reparent yourself. You are not your body. You are not your brain. You are the awareness that can stand outside of your body and brain and seek to understand what's going on. You can help these parts feel appreciated for what they've been trying to do rather than demonizing them for causing you pain. By the way, this is all mindfulness. These are mindfulness concepts from Buddhism. And this is also derived from
Western religion, and this is derived from IFS. This is a combining of truths from Eastern, Western, faith and psychology. The same truth is found in all these areas. If you fight and condemn these parts of your mind, it's a losing battle. You may get sober, but that sobriety will be driven by fear, by shame, by self-loathing, at least to some degree. Instead, you empower.
the addictive parts of your mind to relax and step down by helping them feel seen for their intent. And then eventually they can actually become very helpful parts of your mind. Seen it happen for other guys, it's happened for me. Much the same as a wise mediator helps all sides feel heard and appreciated, you do the same for your mind. From this more relaxed state, you can take conscious initiative to meet the deeper needs addiction has been trying to fulfill.
And as I say, these parts of your mind can become very helpful. Important to note that still in my life, they take unhelpful roles sometimes, often with things like overeating, right? Or becoming impulsive or engaging in conflict, right? Just to get a, a stimulation through the drama. That happens for some of us sometimes. It can certainly happen for me if I'm not mindful. So,
Jake Kastleman (28:02.665)
putting this into practice, this step. What does it look like specifically? Take time to sit down and ask the parts of your unconscious mind what they like about porn or why they keep going back to it. Sounds strange. Many of us would not choose to do this, but it is important. Keep a pen with you to write down inclinations, take time to introspect, be silent and let it come over time. You may get a surface level answers such as, it feels good.
Girls are hot. I like sex. I have a high sex drive. Okay, fair enough. But this is the surface. It's a distraction. There are much deeper reasons. Take the list I've written above, right? And you'll find this in the blog, and ask the parts of your mind which of these match the needs they are trying to fulfill through porn. You can literally ask the parts of your mind. This sounds so weird to so many of us, but it works, at least through practice. It can be strange at first, it can feel unfamiliar, but you can...
So many people do this, millions of people do this. So for, again, for many of us, this can feel uncomfortable. We're not used to listening inward. We're trusting what our body and emotions might be trying to communicate. Most of us were never taught how to do this. And in fact, many of us were taught not to do this. So if it feels awkward, it feels vague, it feels unfamiliar, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It simply means you're learning a new way of relating to yourself. And if it helps,
Know that there is an entire field of psychology, IFS, that teaches people how to do this. And millions are finding success using this approach of emotional mindfulness. And it helps to have someone do it with you, right? So a coach or a therapist that's trained in it. So what will I lose if I leave porn behind? That is step two, okay? So step one, right, was answering the question, what does this behavior do for me?
Step two is what will I lose if I leave porn behind? To grieve porn addiction and leave it behind, we have to understand the deepest degree of what we are afraid of losing. So after I've reflected and written about what it does for me, I then need to get curious about what my mind is afraid of losing by leaving it behind. The protective parts of your unconscious mind believe that abandoning porn is an impossibility.
Jake Kastleman (30:25.545)
They think that leaving it will hurt you or even kill you. To overcome pornography, and that's truly how extreme it can feel in our unconscious mind. To overcome porn addiction, you don't need to convince these parts of your mind that they shouldn't feel this way or speak to yourself logically about all the reasons why it will be better. None of this is gonna work. You're trying to take a logical approach to an emotional issue. Instead, you have to feel your way through all the reasons your mind is afraid to leave pornography behind.
You don't have to convince, you just feel your way through it. Remember, don't think your way through it. Addiction isn't driven by logic, okay? It's driven by unprocessed emotional pain held in the body and the nervous system. When these emotions aren't allowed to move or be felt, they look for relief. So over time, porn becomes a shortcut for regulating what feels overwhelming inside. Healing begins when you slow down enough to let these emotions surface, be felt and pass through.
without needing to escape them. Again, most of us have not been taught how to do this. Instead, we've been taught to willpower our way through emotions. We've been taught to invite joyful emotions, deny painful emotions. When we do this, we become broken because we are not here for every part of ourselves. We are not feeling all of our emotions. We judge painful emotions as bad, as negative, but we need to feel them as just as much as we do joyful ones. When we allow them,
We welcome them, we witness them, we invite them, then they have a chance to rise, peak and fall away. They don't control us. These difficult emotions can teach me something new about myself. And if I move through them using a system or framework work that works, in other words, with principles that work, then it can lead to deeper self-discovery. These emotions can refine me rather than define me. They no longer remain stuck running my life. Now I'm a more...
Now I'm more free to choose my actions because I am less busy running from emotion. When I'm busy running from emotion, it runs me. So step three is what core emotions, what core needs rather, am I trying to fulfill through porn? Once you have discovered what porn does for you and accepted what part of you fears losing by leaving it behind,
Jake Kastleman (32:51.165)
Now it's time to discover the core needs you've been trying to fulfill. So these are needs, big ones would would correlate with what we said earlier. So specifically safety, love, connection, importance, excitement, power, peace. While porn doesn't ultimately meet any of these needs, it can give a broken solution to many of them temporarily, followed by an emotional plunge and a feeling of emptiness. Porn gives us a band-aid to put over our emotions while leaving the underlying wound festering.
We need something more substantial to cultivate healing, but the porn suffices for the moment. So our unconscious mind keeps going back to it. What needs is porn meeting for you? Think of how it makes you feel when you go to it, or think of how you feel when you begin craving it. Those are the needs it's trying to fulfill. Perhaps you feel unappreciated. Porn helps you feel important or wanted for a time, followed by a feeling of being drained and small. Maybe you feel unsafe.
Porn gives you the illusion of safety and freedom from expectation. Maybe you feel a lack of control in your life. Engaging with beautiful women online makes you feel powerful while stripping you of your masculine drive and focus afterward. Perhaps you feel a lack of excitement and enjoyment in your life. Porn gives your mind a cheap version of the adventure and reasonable risk taking you desire as a man, as a human being. As you see each of these needs,
See if you can feel compassion for the parts of your mind that have tried to fulfill your needs through porn. They've done their best, but it hasn't worked. Their parenting strategies have not worked. As you discover what your mind has been trying to do, see if you can feel appreciation for the attempts of these parts of your mind, and then you can step in to reparent yourself. But first, you need to stay in this space for a period of time. Let the emotions move through you. Find a true compassion
appreciation and understanding for these parts of you. Step four is what does this show about who I really am? Once you've seen the true needs, your unconscious mind has been attempting to fulfill. Notice how each need is good at its core. There is nothing inherently bad about wanting to feel important, safe, connected, powerful or loved. These are all good things.
Jake Kastleman (35:18.611)
Take time to feel this truth and show acceptance and understanding for these parts of your mind. You're inherently taking what seems so negative and horrible and turning it into something pure and good. This is crucial for healing and coming out of something like pornography. We need to redefine our identity. This is how to do that. Step five is how can I fulfill these core needs in a way that honors who I am?
Once you've recognized the truth about the needs you are trying to fulfill and how they reflect who you are at your core, determine how you could meet these needs in a way that agrees with your values and long-term goals. I've just walked you through five steps of how to grieve your pornography addiction and leave it behind. Each of these five steps correlates with the RAIL method that I have in an online course.
You can actually find it. that we're in the pre-launch phase of Mighty Networks, of my public online community, the No More Desire Brotherhood, I have the Rail Method online course there in that same community. You can gain access to it there. It does require an investment to do that because it is a course that is specialized in teaching you how to work through pornography cravings and how to work through all painful emotions using this exact same process, the Rail Method, which is founded in IFS principles.
So check that out. If this process has intrigued you, you can apply this to every aspect of your life. And it can train you for how to move through all painful emotions and all cravings successfully and in a way that actually fuels your recovery rather than cravings being the cause of relapse. So.
This is not all done at once, by the way. Quitting porn is not a single event. So grieving your porn addiction is not done in one sitting. The above exercises that I've just gone through give you a path, but it's one you'll likely need to walk down many, many times, understanding more and more about yourself, your addiction and the new life that you're trying to create. All this comes in layers, so be patient with yourself.
Jake Kastleman (37:29.477)
It can help significantly to have a guide in this process. I complete exercises like this frequently with my clients. So if you'd like a coach to walk you through it, I encourage you to join my coaching program. Check that out. nomoredesire.com slash program. So I hope this has been helpful to you. Write this out, work through it, email me or go into the public online community and tell people about what you experience doing this. Love to have you in the No More Desire Brotherhood. And I also wish you a wonderful
Holiday as well. God bless. Before you go, a quick reminder that the No More Desire Brotherhood launches January 15th, and right now the pre-launch is open. Join now and get free lifetime access to my 4 Pillars of Recovery course, plus exclusive bonuses only for pre-launch members. This offer ends January 14th at midnight. Again, go to nomordesire.com slash pre-launch or hit the link in the show notes.
I'll see you inside my friend.
Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell and shoot me a rating. The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. If you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Corn.
or my free ebook, The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome porn addiction. And you can find them at nomordesire.com. As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of porn to live more impactful, meaningful, and selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building.
Jake Kastleman (39:32.209)
that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.
Jake Kastleman (39:49.179)
Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you're experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others,
Please dial 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.