Porn Addiction and Emotional Numbness: How Disconnection from Your Body Keeps You Stuck
- Jake Kastleman
- 3 days ago
- 29 min read
Are you unable to feel genuine, joyful emotion to the depth you’d like? Does empathy come with more effort than you prefer? Is it hard to get on your wife’s emotional level or to feel things the way she wishes you would?
If you’re like many men I talk to, you might feel numb, distracted, or strangely disconnected from your own life. Maybe your goals feel out of reach, or you keep fighting the same internal battle over and over again. You want to change—but it feels like you’re pushing through mud.
I know that feeling intimately.
What most men don’t realize is this: emotional numbness is not a personality flaw. It’s not a weakness. It’s not who you are. It’s a state your brain and body enter when you’ve become disconnected from yourself. And for many men recovering from porn addiction, this disconnection didn’t start yesterday. It built slowly, quietly, and invisibly—until emotional blunting became your “normal.”
But here’s the twist that caught me completely off guard:
Part of this numbness comes from being disembodied—disconnected from your own physical body.
The Misunderstanding: Emotions Don’t Just Live in Your Brain
Most of us grew up believing emotion is a “mind thing”—something psychological, something mental, something that happens in our thoughts.
That’s not accurate.
Emotion is a full-body experience. Neuroscience shows that your ability to feel emotion depends on your ability to accurately sense what’s happening inside your body. This internal sensing system is called interoception, and it lives in a region of the brain called the insula.
When the insula is functioning well, you naturally feel:
empathy
motivation
direction
emotional depth
authentic, grounded presence
But when this system gets disrupted—especially by compulsive behaviors like porn addiction—you lose access to the full spectrum of your emotions.
Instead, you feel:
flat
numb
detached
aimless
disconnected from your wife and the people you love
This isn’t weakness. It’s physiology.
How Porn Addiction Creates Emotional Numbness
Porn is not “just a habit.”It’s not “just a bad behavior.”It’s not “just lust.”
Porn addiction is fundamentally a dysregulation of the body–mind system.
When you’ve spent years using porn to regulate stress, avoid pain, or soothe discomfort, your brain learns one thing:
“Feelings are dangerous. Sensations are dangerous. Real intimacy is dangerous. Shut it down.”
In my own life, I spent years unconsciously running from my body. I didn’t intend to, I was trying to survive emotional pain I didn’t know how to face.
So my brain did what brains do: It protected me by disconnecting me from sensation.
But when you detach from sensation, you detach from self.
You detach from emotion. You detach from empathy. You detach from your own identity.
You become half-present, half-feeling, half-alive.
And here’s the painful truth:
You can’t heal porn addiction while staying disconnected from your body—because porn addiction is disconnection from the body.
The Science: Emotional Numbness Begins in the Insula
Multiple studies from the University of Iowa and University College London show that when the insula’s activity drops, a man begins to experience:
emotional blunting
difficulty accessing empathy
chronic procrastination
weakened sense of identity or purpose
This is exactly what men describe in porn addiction recovery every single day.
A 2023 review in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews goes even further: It found that addictive behaviors dampen the body–mind connection, causing people to lose access to the depth of their emotional experience.
Meaning: Your inability to feel deeply isn’t a moral issue. It’s not a spiritual deficiency. It’s not a personality flaw.
It’s a body issue.
And when you rebuild your connection with your body, recovery becomes not just possible—but natural.
Technology: The Hidden Accelerant of Emotional Numbness
If porn addiction weakens your connection with your body, technology finishes the job.
We don’t realize how deeply technology affects our emotional systems. Today, we’re living in a world that is:
overstimulated
distracted
sedentary
chronically online
dopamine-saturated
disembodied
And here’s what many don’t see: Technology and porn are two sides of the same psychological coin.
They both pull you away from your physical experience. They both interrupt your interoceptive awareness. They both train your brain to pursue stimulation instead of sensation.
Every endless scroll on your phone
Every auto played video
Every micro-dose of dopamine
Every unintentional hour of consumption
…pulls you further away from your body.
Technology doesn’t just distract you—it detaches you from yourself.
And a man who is detached from his body is vulnerable to every form of compulsivity, including porn.
Why You Can’t Recover Without Reconnecting to Your Body
Recovery is not just mental. It’s not just spiritual. It’s not even primarily behavioral.
Recovery is embodied.
When you rebuild your relationship with your body:
your emotions return
your empathy returns
your identity and direction return
your motivation returns
your sobriety becomes easier
your connection to your wife deepens
And most importantly:
The craving for porn decreases—because the root numbness that drives it begins to disappear.
You start feeling again. You start connecting again. You start living again.
And when you feel whole, you stop reaching for things that break you.
My Own Wake-Up Call: How I Realized I Was Disconnected
Recently, I began noticing how frequently my hand reached for my smartphone when I felt discomfort.
Stress → phone. Boredom → phone. Fatigue → phone. Silence → phone.
I realized how much of my day was lived outside my body.
So I initiated a personal 30-day challenge: Two hours off technology in the morning. Two hours off technology in the evening. Phone-free workouts.
I expected boredom. What I didn’t expect was withdrawal.
And I didn’t expect what came after.
Something shifted inside me.
At the gym—without headphones, without podcasts, without distraction—I began to “meet” my own body again.
I noticed tension I had ignored for years. I noticed breath patterns I’d never paid attention to. I noticed emotions surfacing—subtle ones I didn’t know I could still feel.
And something unexpected happened:
I began talking to my body.
Rebuilding the Relationship With My Body
This may sound strange at first. It certainly did to me.
But consider this:
If you wanted to build a healthy relationship with someone, would you:
ignore them
criticize their limitations
only use them when you needed something
flood them with junk
push them past their breaking point
never spend quality time with them
Of course not.
Yet that’s how most of us treat our own bodies.
So I decided to shift from objectification to stewardship.
During workouts, I would quietly say in my mind:
“Thank you for working hard.”“I’m here with you.”“We’re doing this together.”“I respect your limits.”“I trust you.”
What I didn’t expect was how powerful this practice would be.
The more I honored my body, the more my body responded. I felt stronger, more focused, more motivated, and more emotionally open.
This is not woo-woo spirituality. This is the biology of interoception, safety, and self-compassion.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we learn that internal parts of us soften and trust us when we approach them with warmth, curiosity, and respect.
Your body is no different.
When you build trust with your body:
you gain self-leadership
you gain emotional stability
you gain psychological freedom
you gain spiritual alignment
And this directly strengthens your porn addiction recovery.
Practical Tools for Becoming Embodied Again (and Strengthening Your Sobriety)
These aren’t random tips—these are neuroscience-backed ways to restore your interoception and reclaim emotional depth.
1. Do One Thing at a Time
Multitasking destroys presence. Presence rebuilds emotional regulation.
Doing one thing at a time rebuilds your brain’s ability to focus, feel, and connect.
2. Technology Boundaries
Try what I’ve been doing:
Two hours tech-free in the morning
Two hours tech-free in the evening
No phone at the gym
Allow discomfort
Your brain will detox. Your emotions will return.
3. Micro-Pauses
Every couple hours, stop for 10–20 seconds.
Feel your breath. Feel your feet. Feel your body.
This brief interoceptive check-in rewires the insula and reduces cravings.
4. Embodied Naming (Name → Locate → Feel)
When emotion arises:
Name it (“I feel anxious”)
Locate it (“It’s in my chest”)
Feel it (“It’s tight and warm”)
This calms the amygdala and trains emotional awareness.
5. Cold Exposure
Cold showers or cold water immersion teach your brain:
“I can feel intensity and stay grounded.”
This reconditions your response to cravings.
6. Mindful Walking
Leave the phone at home. Feel your steps, breath, and surroundings. This revives sensory awareness and presence.
7. Speak to Your Body With Respect
This transforms your identity. This builds trust. This heals the internal fragmentation that fuels porn addiction.
Your body becomes your ally—not your enemy.
From Objectification to Connection
Porn addiction trains you to objectify other people. But you’ve also been objectifying yourself.
When you rebuild empathy and connection with your own body, something profound happens:
You begin to see women differently.
Not as images. Not as objects. Not as dopamine triggers.
But as whole, sacred, powerful beings.
This shift is essential—not only for recovery, but for your marriage, your masculinity, your spiritual alignment, and your self-worth.
The End of Emotional Numbness: Becoming Whole Again
If you feel numb, disconnected, or emotionally flat, hear me clearly:
You are not broken.
You are disembodied.
And when you reconnect to your body:
your emotions return
your empathy deepens
your motivation increases
your cravings decrease
your sense of identity strengthens
your connection with your wife becomes richer
your recovery becomes natural instead of forced
The more you feel, the less you need porn.
Because a man who feels whole doesn’t reach for things that break him.
Final Thoughts: Your Path Back to Yourself
It’s about becoming embodied—becoming grounded—becoming a man who lives from his heart, his body, and his higher values.
Porn addiction recovery is not just a mental battle. It’s a body–mind–spirit alignment.
And when you reconnect with your physical body, you reconnect with:
your purpose
your emotions
your masculinity
your relationships
your God-given identity
This is your path to wholeness. This is your path to sobriety. This is your path back to yourself.
If you commit to rebuilding the body–mind connection, everything changes.
Free Resources:
Grab my Free eBook and Free Workshop for more strategies to overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life
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Full Transcription of Episode 121: Porn Addiction and Emotional Numbness: How Disconnection from Your Body Keeps You Stuck
Jake Kastleman (00:07.95)
Are you unable to feel genuine joyful emotion to the depth that you'd like? Does empathy come with more effort than you'd prefer? And is it a struggle sometimes to get on your wife's level emotionally or to feel things the way that she wishes you would? Do you ever feel numb, distracted, or out of tune with what you really want and who you believe yourself to be? And do some goals feel out of reach, like you continuously fight yourself? You're your own worst enemy. What if
Part of this came down to something as unexpected as a lack of connection with your own physical body. If you're like most of the Western world, you've been taught that emotion is experienced and processed in the brain. This is not true. Not entirely. When you struggle with porn or sex addiction, you've spent years using and abusing your own body. You didn't mean to, but now you suffer from self-inflicted trauma, like a perpetrator has harmed you, but you did it to yourself. I myself,
know what this is like. Out of an effort to protect me from the abuse of my own addictions, my brain detached from the full feeling of my bodily sensations. And when that happened, I lost touch with who I was. Research shows that when we become disconnected from our own body, our brain's ability to experience emotion, empathy, and motivation drops dramatically. We cannot feel the way that we used to.
And so we continue to engage in addiction in an attempt to surpass the numbness we experience in day-to-day life. We don't know we feel this numb, for it's just become our day-to-day norm.
Jake Kastleman (01:50.894)
But this is not the end, my friend. We can reclaim our feeling and our attachment to our own emotions and sensations. Today, we are going to discuss how to reestablish connection with your own physical body, empowering your relationships, your recovery, and bringing you back into the present to feel the way that you want to again. Before we dive in, a reminder to follow this podcast, hit the notification button and shoot me a rating. It helps grow this show.
and helps others who are in need find it. All right, let's get started. This phenomenon of losing touch with our physical bodies is becoming recognized in the mainstream of the psychological world more and more. So many of us are going through it. And unfortunately, the main culprit for much of this disembodiment is rampant and commonplace in our society. It's our technology. And if you've listened to last few episodes, you know I've been talking about this a lot lately.
Technology is amazing. Without it, I wouldn't have a job. I could never do what I do and provide for my family this way. Technology is a miracle, a blessing. It's our society's advanced way of navigating this world. And it's helped us reach heights we never dreamed possible. But it has also been our destroyer. And I think we all know this. We see it, we talk about it.
constantly spoken of in multiple circles. And we feel the disconnection from each other. It distracts us from what's important and it detaches us not only from each other, but from our own bodies. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm not saying that technology is good or bad. It just depends on how we use it, I think. And that requires us more than ever today to be vigilant
and how deliberate we are with it every day. Myself included, because it's hard for me too. Unfortunately, as a whole society, we've been incredibly irresponsible with how we've used technology. Right? And I talked about on previous episode how I'm coming out of this funnel I've been in with my smartphone and the constant distractions and the, you know, checking my phone over and over again throughout the whole day and using as a shield.
Jake Kastleman (04:18.53)
from connecting with the everyday moments with family members and responsibilities and connecting with people. Entertainment for us is constant. Distraction is constant. We are scrolling social media, watching videos, playing video games, binge watching TV, and not to mention how we eat. And all of this slowly detaches us from our bodies. It diminishes our ability to feel because technology is the opposite
of embodiment, it is dis-embodiment. We are not moving, we are not feeling, we are not being, we're consuming, right? We're sitting, we're being sedentary, we're living in a virtual world. Things like dance, singing, exercising, writing, service, social activities, they become foreign to us and we've seen a severe decrease in some of these things, especially since COVID.
We are not living in the real world as much as we used to. We are living through a screen more and more and so we feel less and less human. This wasn't an option, you over a hundred years ago, right? Before TV was around. We couldn't do that. It just wasn't something that we could do. We had to live life. We had to experience the everyday mundane moments and the times where we were just with our thoughts, just with our bodies.
Studies from the University of Iowa and University College London found that reduced activity in the insula, the region of the brain responsible for interoception, that's a not a very commonly known word, interoception, the ability to sense internal physical states. This part of the brain plays a crucial role in emotion, empathy, and self-identity. Self-identity, my gosh.
I often say that addiction is a self-worth game. Do we have any idea what we're doing to ourselves with our technology? I don't think so. I don't think I know anywhere near to the extent of what I've done to myself. This reduction of activity in the insula is directly linked with emotional blunting, difficulty accessing, empathy, chronic procrastination, and a weakened sense of identity or direction.
Jake Kastleman (06:44.906)
Jeez. Guys, that's fundamental to recovery. Each of those things I just said, emotional regulation and awareness. Empathy. To be able to show empathy for others and ourselves, that's one of the main things I work on with my clients, right? Self-empathy, it's crucial. But we have to be able to empathize in relationships as well. And this is robbing our ability to do it, because we're not embodied. Chronic procrastination, it's just commonplace now. We make jokes about it all over social media.
Right? I want you to know that this, that can become so much better, not by having more time, but by having more presence and more focus. And we can actually cultivate that through what I'm going to talk about today. And then that, that sense of identity, that sense of direction, I often say we need to replace pleasure with purpose if we are to recover. Pleasure's not bad, or we can have pleasure in life, but what pleasures do we choose and what's the balance?
between things like base pleasures versus noble pleasures, right? Things that require no effort versus things that require effort. We need to bring in those noble pleasures into our lives if we want to recover. So in other words, all this whole situation with the insula, when your brain isn't accurately reading what's happening in your body because you're out of attunement with your body. And this is, by the way, this is talked about in the Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Vander Kolk, right, in multiple other books.
many of which I haven't read, but others of which I've dived into, is being talked about more and more. It's been talked about for a very, very long time, thousands of years, but especially in the emerging psychological culture and literature, we are now understanding mind, body, the body and mind are one. And so when we can't read what's happening in our body, it can't accurately interpret what's in our feelings, our emotions. We can't...
accurately interpret what's happening there. We need to be in tune with our physical bodies to have that. I think this is particularly true for a lot of males that become disconnected from the body. And there's a lot of females who are inevitably more connected to their bodies. And I would say that a part of that, there's a lot of reasons for that. But a part of that would be the fact that women go through cycles, right? To be frank, they go through a cycle and so they actually experience physical pain.
Jake Kastleman (09:10.22)
and then physical relief, right? They go through a cycle each month. So they kind of automatically are more in tune with their bodies in that way. So this is something, this disconnection from our emotion and our body deeply saddens me because I've seen it in my life too. I know what that feels like, especially recently in my life. I'm making even more progress in that area in ways that I didn't anticipate I could.
And as a society, we've become more numb, right? And we're continuing to become more numb. And we as men, right? This movement of all of us who are aware of this, we have to make conscious decisions to be less reactive, to be more proactive, to take our agency and ownership over our choices, to become more embodied and to make conscious decisions about what we're going to engage with.
with each day and to detach from technologies so we can attach to real life. We become more disconnected as a society from what we really want. And when we don't get in touch with our bodies on a daily basis, that becomes so much more extreme. We feel weak and broken because the emotional circuits of the brain can't fire correctly without proper sensory input from our bodies. And we are disconnected.
from our bodies when that happens, when we struggle with interoceptive impairment and impaired ability to sense the body and emotion. A lot of things happens. It's extremely common in addiction and compulsive behavior to experience this. And so a 2023 review in neuroscience and bio behavioral reviews found that
Addicted behaviors often dampen the body-mind connection, as I was talking about, leading people to lose access to the full depth of their emotional experience. Which means my ability to feel deeply and to connect deeply is not just a psychological issue, it's a body issue. And when I rebuild that internal connection, things can change dramatically for me.
Jake Kastleman (11:30.529)
So when you reattune to your body, mending the body mind connection, this counteracts the numbness and brokenness that your unconscious mind is seeking to relieve you from using the addiction. This can change. You desire the addiction less and less as you mend this connection with your body because your mind and body are getting what they need. You don't seek out behaviors or substances that make you feel broken because you feel whole already, body and mind connected. And why would someone who feels whole
want to break themselves using something like pornography addiction that is disembodying, right? It's actively breaking this connection. It just doesn't align with the way I feel if I feel that wholeness and hence I live a whole new life, a sober life, right? So right about now you may be saying, what? I should just get off all technology? I'm not saying that. What I am saying though, to myself included, is I need to be extremely conscious.
these days about how I spend my time and how I interact with technology. And if you've been listening to the last couple of episodes, again, you know I've been emphasizing this in the 30 day challenge that we're doing right now to be more present and put down your smartphone and technology for designated periods every day. I need to be deliberate about doing things that are embodied because it's easy to spend a lot of time disembodied. And along with this 30 day challenge, I've experienced some incredible things.
by going to the gym without my headphones and getting present with my body. I'm gonna tell you about some of those things today. So in connection with today's topic of becoming embodied to fuel emotion, empathy, recovery, happiness, and self-identity, I wanna talk about some of the strategies that I've been using in my own life to practice embodiment and how I've experienced some amazing things in just a few short weeks.
So I'll talk about some of these strategies too about how to become embodied. I hope I've driven home why it's important. We wanna be connected with emotion, with empathy, with our physical sensations because pornography addiction or sexual addictions have taken us out of the body. We need to come back into it. So one of these strategies is doing one thing at a time, decreasing stacking behaviors or multitasking.
Jake Kastleman (13:54.997)
something that is so common for us now. This breaks our overall ability for presence, focus, creativity, and enjoyment of life. These are neurological habits that we need to shift. And again, we need to be so conscious of this in today's society, because it's so rampant, it's so acceptable in today's society. It's so common to be on our phones.
Consistently, I actually had an experience this last weekend. I went to a concert, Ben Rector concert. Fantastic, by the way. It put on an amazing show. I was outside of the concert waiting for my friend who had invited me, very kind of him. And I wasn't on my phone because I've been practicing being off of my phone. Again, the 30 day challenge that I set up is two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening.
off of the phone, but then also to be off of it during my gym time. And I set the goal of two to three days. I've been doing it every day now and it's been phenomenal for multiple reasons. I'm gonna get more into what that's been like and some of the things I've been learning. But I was out at the front and I had about a 20 minute wait, just I got there early, which was cool because that like never used to happen in my life.
Maybe that has something to do with getting out the tech, I think a little more focus. But I'm standing there and I'm not on my phone. So I'm just kind of just chilling, just like, and I'm looking around and this is not, you know, there may be a part of me that's judgmental and I, and I want to stay out of that zone. But I was just observing the number of people who were on their phones. There was a guy sitting near me who
Well, he came and sat down while I was standing there and he pulled out his phone because that's what we do now. This has become so commonplace. It's just our go-to where we get on our phone. It's almost like, you know, if someone was to just bring a book everywhere they went and they just read it, it's our shield, right? From the discomfort of maybe starting a conversation or just be sitting in the moment in silence, right? And which hides us from our thoughts. It stops us from coming up with as creative of ideas.
Jake Kastleman (16:17.322)
I think in a lot of ways, or having innovation come to us because we can't focus. I love the work I get to do as a one-on-one porn addiction recovery coach with men across the world. My clients feel seen and heard in that they are receiving the tailored help they need with clear, structured exercises and tools to get sober long term. I wanted to share a couple of the stories from these men. The first story is from my client, John.
He said, I spent many years in denial about my problem, blind to how my actions and behavior hurt myself and those around me. I had tried traditional therapists in the past, but none provided the solutions or tools I needed to overcome my addiction on a day-to-day basis. Jake, however, directly relates to what I'm going through, and it gave me comfort to know that I am not alone in my struggles and that I can overcome my addiction.
He has given me the tools and support I needed to get through some of the most difficult times of my life. It has truly been life changing. I have been sober seven months now. I have strengthened my relationships with my spouse, children and friends, and I am more present with those around me, more mindful of my own emotions, and I'm beginning to take control of my life. The second story is from my client Chris who said,
I found out about Jake through his podcast and was intrigued. The experience working with him has been great to date. I've worked with many therapists and coaches over the years. Jake stands out partly because he cares so deeply and is so eager to help. He sees my problems and is almost as excited as I am to solve them. I hear him furiously typing notes on his keyboard when we're talking and I hear, am deeply invested in your success in every keystroke.
I love his enthusiasm to continually find new ways to help his clients. I'm a big fan of Jake. If you or your loved one are struggling with the incredible challenge of porn addiction, and it is getting in the way of your love, your success, your motivation, and your joy, then apply for my one-on-one intensive porn addiction recovery program at nomordesire.com. A structured program with personalized help.
Jake Kastleman (18:48.788)
And so, as he sat down, I just had the inclination just to start a conversation with him. And this felt kind of awkward for me. I used to do this a lot more frequently with random people and I kind of recognized that in that moment. I used to do it a lot, actually. And I still do that. I still talk to random people, but actually stopping and having a conversation.
I don't know how frequent that was for me, having a rant, really deliberately starting a random conversation with someone out in public. So I did and ended up having this conversation with him about faith and religion. Like we went really deep. I don't know that he necessarily wanted to go that deep. Maybe I kind of, I know that I kind of stepped over some things that would have been more comfortable for him, but I think, I mean, it was a great conversation for me and I hope that.
It was pleasant for him too. And I just found, I found it so interesting, you know, wow, I never would have had that conversation and had to go through that discomfort of speaking to a random person and getting a connection with somebody that I didn't know if I had been on my phone. I could have easily taken up that time with text messages, emails, calendar stuff, planning, reading, whatever it was, right? Whatever it was to distract me from just being in the moment.
Not that any of those things are bad. I need time to do those things, but I've been deliberate about allotting time each day. And typically with text messages, you know, it's at night, you know, I'll just pull out my phone and I'm going to answer all my text messages with few exceptions to that rule. Like if my wife texts me, right? Because if she texts me, you know, I need to get to it sooner a lot of times, right?
But her and I have an understanding. We're building where she's on her phone less. So I don't expect her to answer my call all the time or answer my texts all the time. We don't need to. This has helped us so much. So, and then the other thing that I want to mention is, and really diving in here into my workouts and what this has been like, and apply this to whatever you like, you know, walking outdoors, you know, running trails.
Jake Kastleman (21:12.2)
exercising, whether it be sports that you play or dancing, right? Yoga. Getting, so I've been going to the gym with, I used to just do podcasts and audiobooks all the time. Every time when I went to the gym. Because I felt like, you know, here's my time to learn, to be educated, to catch up with my favorite people and see what they're putting out. To listen to my own podcast episodes, to learn from what I wrote in the past.
and like what went well, what didn't go well, that's my time. Cutting that out, I've had to make more deliberate time at other points of the day to actually like sit down and read or to listen. And I haven't been doing as much of it as I would like, but it's worth it. And so...
So I have been working out five days a week without that. And as I've been in the gym, you know, I've realized, and I've noticed this in the past, but just how everybody has headphones in with very, very rare exceptions. There's some older people, you know, people who are in their fifties, their sixties. I'm saying older people when I work with clients that are that age, I don't mean to date anybody or be like, you're old, just older than me.
And I've realized how many people are just there. I think what was saddening me today is again, this embodiment principle. What I've been experiencing in the gym has been really, really cool. So I thought that this would be boring. I thought that it would be painful. And I'm actually beginning to really look forward to the time in the gym. And this might sound interesting.
be especially because of the mainstream way that we look at the body, but I'm actually spending time with my own body. Again, this can sound a little odd because it's me, right? Like it's my body, it's me. What do you mean spending time with my body? And this comes back to a principle of stewardship actually, which I've developed in my program. And this is what I teach people to do is to be a steward over your mind and your body.
Jake Kastleman (23:27.837)
And this is part of that. So to kind of put this in a proper framework, let me ask you something. If you wanted to develop a good relationship with someone, would you abuse them by filling them with junk and never spending time with them and never paying attention to them and always half-heartedly engaging with them? Or perhaps not even doing that, not feeding them junk necessarily, but just using them as a means to an end, right?
saying work when I say you work, get productive when I say you need to be productive. And then I'm gonna be hard on you and critical of you in the times when you get tired and you feel like you're not capable of more. And I'm just gonna, I'm gonna say what's wrong with you. Why don't you get up off your butt and do more. And I'm speaking from personal experience here, you know, being a driver and somebody that, you know, has been all about achievement.
That's how I treated my body. Like I used to treat my body by abusing it and using it and, you know, using it for pleasure and filling it with junk and all that. Now in my life, it's been more of the, what you would call like socially acceptable kinds of addictions with achievement and achievement and planning and structure and constant productivity. And I've realized, wow, I go to the gym.
I listen to things, I hardly pay attention to my body. I'm at home, you know, when I eat, it's like I'm just fueling my body. That's all I'm doing. It's not really about, you know, spending time enjoying and like really allowing myself to be present with that. I eat while I'm working. I, you know, I eat and there's a purpose to it, right? And then when I get tired, it's like, come on body, why won't you move faster? I have this feeling like, why do I feel tired?
And granted, I'm being a little bit exaggerated in some ways, but in other ways I'm not. And I'm learning to be more loving towards my body. This is really significant guys. And if you don't know about this, again, mind body being one, the way you think, the way you feel about your body, the way you speak to your body directly affects it. There's plenty of research out there on this. Sounds a little woo woo to some of us, but it truly, it's just, it's...
Jake Kastleman (25:50.645)
This is mind-body connection, our body's made up of energy, how we speak to it, how we feel about it, what we believe, right? These are all very important things in our physical health, our emotional health. And so as I've gone to the gym, when I'm there, I actually am practicing speaking words of thanks to my body, to work in tandem with it.
I often say I'm here to challenge the body and I'm here to respect the body. So a more holistic way to look at it, because it used to be just push as hard as I can. And when I wasn't able to do any more reps, I just had this unconscious feeling of, man, why can't I do more? And I carried that from when I was younger. I had some bullying and things like that that I went through and kids that called me fat and stuff like that, which...
Honestly, the one kid that really called me that I ended up finding out later in my life, I never was fat, but I really carried this feeling of like, I'm not good enough, you know, I'm ugly and things like that. I carried all that as a kid. And so I carried that into my adulthood. I've healed from a lot of it and I've done some work, especially as of recently with some therapeutic work, some IFS work to get in touch with that kid that felt those things and some experiences that I had that were really
really difficult for me and to show that kid some love, you know? And just with that, to start to be able to gain a relationship with my body of like, hey, I'm here with you. We're working out, we're doing this. Thank you for what you're doing. And I'm literally saying this as I'm working out, you know, in my mind, like you're doing well. Thank you for what you're doing for me, body. Like thank you for working hard, you know, excellent work, right? And I'm in this pain with you, right? This self-empathy.
I'm in this pain with you right now. I have got you, we're doing this together. And for those of us who are religious or spiritual, this is very much a God-centered way of engaging with the body. Because essentially, I'm stepping into self-awareness, I'm stepping into higher self, and I'm working in tandem with God or with Christ, right? Where their power, their light is shining through me to express that compassion, that acceptance, that love,
Jake Kastleman (28:15.294)
that empathy that comes through their power, I believe, the power of truth and love. And so when I express to the body, I'm here for you, I've got you, we're in this pain together, I'm grateful for what you're doing for me, you're doing an excellent job, right? I am stepping outside of the body and the brain, no longer identifying with them. I'm actually speaking to them like they are something I have stewardship over.
And when you get into concepts of, and again, for a lot of us, this can sound strange. I totally get that, but it's powerful in concept and principle. It's very empowering. And so what I've come to understand in IFS is one of the fundamental foundations of truth, or sorry, not truth, trust. That's the word I'm looking for. Trust. I need to gain trust with this intelligence that is within the mind and body.
And this is again, what IFS teaches. are plenty of clinical research and experience with clients and things that show this where we can actually work with parts of us, build trust with them. And when they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel understood. We develop an agency. And I think I'm going to cover this in a deeper sense in a couple of episodes or so, maybe next week we'll have to see. But as I gain that trust, I gain a higher ability
for a higher ability to make my own choices, my own decisions, according to my deepest values. And so all of this helps with recovery, right? Because we've spent years objectifying other people's bodies. That's harsh, I know, but it's true. We need to rebuild our ability to stop objectifying and start loving people as a whole. And this starts with our
rebuilding our relationship to our own body, to stop objectifying our own body, whether through work or through, you know, indulging in pleasure. I'm actually approaching my body with a mutual relationship of respect and love between my body and I, to build trust between my body and I. This is directly intertwined with overcoming pornography addiction because I can learn to see myself that way and I can learn to see other people that way. And those two things can happen at once. I can practice both.
Jake Kastleman (30:38.537)
And if you want a few more tips or ways of doing that, my free ebook on my homepage, nomoresire.com, actually has some great ways of learning to step outside of objectification and how to see women differently. Because this happens to all of us that have struggled with pornography addiction. It's a normal thing. But we want to be able to see people as whole people, right? So those are, those are some different ways to do it, right? In workouts and, and really building this embodiment. Some other ways.
are taking moments, micro pauses throughout the day, 20, 30 seconds, even 10 seconds, just to pause and be present. So maybe once every hour or a couple of hours, just stop, feel your breath, notice your thoughts, feel your feet on the ground, feel your lungs and your stomach move as you breathe. This resets the insula and prefrontal cortex. It literally reactivates the circuits that addiction numbs.
And a 2021 study in Frontiers in Psychology show that even brief interoceptive check-ins increase emotional awareness and decrease compulsivity. And then another tip is embodied naming. So name, locate, feel. Name, locate, feel. When an emotion comes up, even a small one, practice this. I feel anxious, right? Or I feel angry. And then locate it. So that's, you name it and then you locate it. It's in my chest. Then you feel it. It's tight. It's hot. It's overwhelming.
My heart's beating really fast. Yeah, this is a somatic therapy and emotional regulation practice. The amygdala, the emotion center of the brain calms down when emotions are named and located. You're training your emotional system to come out of hiding. And then things like cold exposure or contrast showers. This is one that I've been doing for a few years or so now. It's not so much for pain tolerance.
but to, which it does help with that, but to teach your body that you can feel intense sensations without running away from them. I often say we need to learn how to regulate and tolerate painful emotion in order to recover, which is something we've practiced doing the opposite of for a lot of years when we struggled with something like pornography addiction, because pornography addiction is a coping mechanism to get away from pain and stress. This is powerful for porn recovery.
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because again, compulsive behavior is often an escape. When you step into cold water, you stay calm, you're training the insula, the prefrontal cortex and the vagus nerve to work together. Your brain learns, I can feel intensity and stay grounded. And that rewires your relationship with cravings. And then of course, in addition to all these, being off of all technology, two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening, which is a big part of...
since a big part of 30-day challenge that I'm doing with all my listeners that are choosing to engage for the month of November. If you have not joined that challenge with me, I invite you to do so. Practice it for the next couple of weeks. See how it goes. See what you experience. You may experience cravings. You may experience withdrawals. I know that I did to a degree, right? That was really painful. And now I've come out of those withdrawals from what I can see.
I still have temptations come up. I still have thoughts come up that say, check your phone, check your phone, check your phone, especially if I'm stressed. I'm very prone to pull out my phone and use all those little coping mechanisms, right? So I invite you to do that, become more embodied so you can increase your empathy and your emotional, your engagement with emotions, improve your sense of self identity and empower your.
With that, my friend, I wish you the best in your recovery. God bless and much love.
Jake Kastleman (34:37.235)
Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell and shoot me a rating. The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. If you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn.
or my free ebook, The 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 that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.
Jake Kastleman (35:53.713)
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.
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