00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 134, "What About Pornography?" Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well hello there, my friends! How are you today? So so glad to be here. I hope your New Year is doing great. I hope that you have looked at any resolutions that you may have set and that you've looked at your big "why" behind them and that you've taken a look at "am I coming at them from a place of fear or a place of love? What are my reasons? Are they for me or are they for somebody else?" Such a great time of year to start working on this, right? So that's all a lot in reference to what we talked about last week. 

00:59 

So this morning I got up and I had a very different topic in mind to prepare for today. But I had a discussion at one point with a friend of mine who's a member of the Bishopric for a single's ward and we were talking about a lot of the challenges that COVID has presented us with this last year, and he said that one he's seen is that his ward has seen a spike of pornography use, especially among the women in his ward. So we chatted a bit about how the work I do using the thought model helps to work with pornography on both sides, the side of the viewer of pornography and the side of the spouse. And I just got such a strong feeling that this was my topic for today. So here we are. This is a little heavier topic that we usually cover but such an important one. 

01:47 

So I want to start off the discussion today by talking about buffering. Now this is a topic we covered back on podcast number 67. So let's review the concept really quick because that's been a while ago, right? Buffering is any behavior that we engage in to distract ourselves from uncomfortable feelings. So one of my favorite buffers is scrolling Facebook. So when I'm here in my office and I have a project to do, maybe writing a podcast or I'm working on some other content I know is going to require some effort, I will often to distract myself from the, "oh, I have to get to work" thought. I will often get on Facebook and I'll begin scrolling in an attempt to ease that discomfort of needing to get down to work. Or I might find myself wandering into the kitchen for a snack, even though I'm not hungry at all. This as well is an attempt to avoid the discomfort. So buffering can honestly be any behavior that we engage in to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of something else. 

02:50 

And this is a very important thing. "Something else" can be anything. It can be a task we don't want to do. It can be feeling grief or pain, or it can be feelings of anxiety or depression or loneliness. And avoiding these feelings through buffering will show up in almost any way that you can think of. It can be food or Facebook. It can be games on your phone or overworking even or watching too much TV. And it can even show up in sleeping too much or even serving other people too much. And central to our discussion today, it will also show up in pornography use. 

03:29 

So pornography is used as a buffer. Very often people who view pornography do it as a way to distract themselves from the discomfort of something else that's going on. Maybe things are very stressful at home or at work. Maybe they are feeling anxiety about a presentation or about their child's drug use. So their brain starts to look for an escape from the perceived pain. So people who use pornography do so because they are trying to feel good. We have to remember that our primitive brain is 100% geared toward helping us feel better. And the thing is, this same brain is not very good at distinguishing between actual physical danger and the pain of feeling stressed or hungry or angry or lonely or sad or tired. So because of this, it is always trying to move us out of pain and into pleasure. And it will create habits to do this so that it can become more efficient for us. So when we are feeling stress or anger or frustration, any of those, and a person turns to pornography, they get distracted from the discomfort of those previous emotions and they get the dopamine hits of looking at the pornography. So it moves them out of pain and into pleasure. And the brain then starts to say, "oh, this is a good thing." Right? Like "this is something that takes away the pain." And so it will continue to remind us and push us toward more continued pornography use because it helps to create that pleasure. Even though long term there are so many things that  pornography viewers are not happy with, short term it does exactly what they want it to do. So whatever the difficult emotion, it is so helpful for the person to start looking at pornography use as a buffer, as an attempt to alleviate pain of some sort. 

05:34 

So where would you put viewing of pornography in the thought model? Okay, it's actually going to we're going to use two different models here and it's going to go in a different place in both models. So the first model, the circumstance would be that my work project is due tomorrow and the thought could be "I'm not even close to being prepared." The feeling then might be anxiety and the action then to that anxiety would be that they view pornography as an effort to manage that anxiety. Okay, now we don't always manage things in a healthy way, but we do manage things. So here's what happens. Any action, like that action line was viewing pornography, any action that takes place starts a new model with the action going into the circumstance line of the next model. So we just have these rolling models going on in our lives all of the time. So the action of "I view pornography" goes into the circumstance of the next model. "I viewed pornography," the thought "I shouldn't do that. Maybe I'm a horrible person. Maybe I have no self control. I'm weak. I'm worthless." Okay, these kinds of thoughts. So let's say "I'm weak" and then the feeling then would be one of shame, and the action would then be that they try to hide it. They lie about it. Right? 

06:58 

So let's say then that we take the action of lying about the pornography use and put that into the next model circumstance line, right? Because our action goes into the circumstance line. Then the thought about the lying could become something like "I'm such a bad person." And then this model creates another and another and another and the end actions and results. None of them is taking us to a place of strength and healing and self control over this, and mastery. This cycle takes us to a place of despair and overwhelm and hopelessness and powerlessness. So now I'm going to bring up something that will go against some long standing beliefs about pornography use. I do not believe that it is helpful to have the thought that "I'm weak" and that we are an "addict." Now I know that there are many programs out there that their basic tenet is to create the belief that they are an addict and to relive that over and over. I've read articles about the chemical addictions that occur around pornography, so I'm not saying that someone cannot be addicted to pornography. What I'm saying is that the thought "I'm addicted to pornography" is not helpful. 

08:10 

Here's why: what we believe about ourselves is what we become. When we put it into the thought model, our thought always creates our results. So whenever we put the phrase "I am" and whatever we put behind that, our brain works hard to achieve. So if we believe we are an addict, our result is that we are an addict and our brain fights hard to maintain that. Even after the behavior is stopped, it becomes a part of our identity. and our brain wants to preserve that. The statement that "I am an addict" becomes something our brain wants to prove over and over and over. Now some would say identifying with being an addict is good preventative thinking. 

08:59 

But first of all, the thought that "I am an addict," that is a thought based in fear. And though a fear-based thought can sometimes spur us to action and keep us there short term, it will never have long lasting results without a lot of exhausting white-knuckling. So for example, here's another model. The circumstance "I looked at pornography last night," the thought "I'm an addict" or "I can't help myself." The feeling then becomes "helpless." The action that is caused by that feeling of helplessness are feelings of constant struggle, complacent behaviors that give in easier to the thought and the temptation. Fear-based thoughts require a lot of energy to keep them in play. Can we do it? Yes, and we can probably do it for quite a while, but none of it is fun or liberating or empowering. We will always feel trapped with fear-based reasons for our behavior. 

10:05 

One reason we will always feel trapped is that it's likely that pornography will always be something that is readily available. Every time I turn on my computer or my phone, the opportunity to look at pornography is there. So we can put all kinds of firewalls up and I promise you that your brain, if this is a behavior that you engage in, your brain will find a way around them. If you are always having the thought that you would like to look at it, but you can't for whatever reason, you will always be fighting against yourself because pornography is so readily available. It is always there when your brain thinks you want it. 

10:48 

So a client that I worked with on pornography had the thought that when he got married, he didn't want pornography to impact his marriage. Going to offer that this is a fear-based thought, fear of what would happen in his future marriage if he continued the behavior. So another reason believing we are an addict can be a problem is because it is a "victim mentality" thought. It makes us feel as though we are powerless. That pornography is something that controls us rather than something that we can control. If we want to step into a place of empowerment with pornography, it is important to step out of the fear and the victim mentality thinking and choose to step into love and responsibility thinking instead. Stepping into love looks like us loving ourselves enough to create for ourselves the kind of experience we want to have in this life. For my client I just referenced, it looks like deciding not for his future wife, but for him, that he wants to live a life free from pornography. He wants the experience of living a life without pornography. He loves himself enough to decide not to use it because he doesn't like the way it makes him feel about himself. He doesn't want to live with the shame and the guilt. The thoughts that come up after he used it, he doesn't want the feelings that those thoughts create anymore. He loves himself enough to not look at pornography because it's not creating what he wants to create for his life, either now or in the future. 

12:25 

Stepping into responsibility for it means realizing and embracing the belief that "yes, I could look at pornography, but I choose not to." Just as we do with so many other things in our lives, people may say to me, "you're a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, right? That means you can't drink alcohol." My response to that, "I could drink alcohol, but I choose not to. I want to live a life without alcohol in it. It is my choice, not something that is being imposed upon me." When I feel I have to do it, that I'm being forced to do it, then I am constantly resisting it, which takes a lot of energy. When I choose to do it, I can relax into my decision. And this is a much more empowering place to be. Now, I'm not saying that learning to stop buffering with pornography is as quick as a discussion about how we need to approach it from love and responsibility. Like every buffering behavior, it can take some time to adjust our thoughts and move into a place of strong thoughts that we really believe. But with awareness and consistent work around adjusting our thoughts and empowering ourselves with these new thoughts, we can get to the point where we live how we choose and we're not white knuckling it all day, every day. 

13:46 

So remember the model we talked about before, let's do now an intentional model. "Intentional model" means that I'm choosing a more intentional thought rather than just what happens naturally. So the circumstance: I looked at pornography last night. The thought: "I am choosing not to view pornography today." The feeling could be one of empowered actions that would come from that empowered feeling, more engaged, decisive behaviors. Don't give into thoughts that I need to look at the pornography. 

14:18 

Pornography use is no longer a behavior that we attribute to men only. More and more women are engaging in the use of pornography as well. And I have yet to meet a person who views pornography and thinks it's all a great thing. Every one of these people wants a way out, but they don't know how to do it. I know there are a lot of people in the world who believe differently. But among those I work with as a coach and those I know in my personal life, none of them wants to be viewing pornography, but nobody will quit only because their wife or their husband is pressuring them to the ultimatum only works for so long. They all want to quit for themselves because they don't like living a life where they are disempowered and constantly living a lie. The struggle is very real, but so is the ability to move into love and responsibility and use the power of our brains to create the results we want in life. And coaching is a brilliant tool to help change the mindset around unwanted pornography use. This is something that I can work with you on and coach you on. 

15:28 

So now let's move into this space of the spouse. We've covered the pornography user. Let's look at the spouse. If your spouse is the one using pornography, you have your own work to do completely associated with your spouse's work, because this work affects you as well. For simplicity's sake, while doing this podcast, I'm going to use the example of a husband who is engaging with pornography, but also knowing full well that the roles could be, and often are, switched. Okay. So you find your husband has been viewing pornography for several years without your knowledge. There's just so much going on there. Right? Feelings of betrayal, of shame, of guilt, of anger, of loneliness, of resentment, of not being enough, not being a good enough wife. 

16:18 

Once the initial shock wears off and you've allowed yourself to feel all of the feels, you do have choices. You are not a victim, right? Just like your spouse, you get to be responsible for everything you go through as well. Remember your spouse looking  at pornography is going to go into your circumstance line. It is neutral. You get to choose what to think about it. You get to choose your experience with this based on your thoughts, because they will create your feelings which will then create your actions. First you get to decide, I guess, if you want to stay in the marriage or if you want to leave the marriage. You can choose to leave. Just make sure you love your reasons for leaving, but you can also choose to stay. And again, make sure you love your reasons for staying. Coaching can work wonders and miracles here in helping you figure out your reasons. But regardless of what you choose on that first question, here's the second thing you get to take responsibility for: how you show up. The kind of person you choose to be in this time with a spouse using pornography. Do you want to be an angry, bitter, spiteful person? Or do you want to be a compassionate, loving, trusting person? You get to choose, regardless of how your spouse is showing up or what he is doing. Isn't that a beautiful thing? 

17:55 

I'll tell you what, though, it won't feel beautiful right up front, but over time, the beauty becomes more and more apparent. The beauty of your choice. Because even though pornography can be a big deal, it doesn't have to consume your life in negativity. You can still choose to be happy, to be loving and kind and compassionate toward yourself and towards your spouse. What can make this easier is understanding what we talked about earlier. Pornography is about wanting to feel better. It is a buffer. It's about wanting to feel good and avoid the discomfort of whatever else is going on. It is rarely about the spouse. If your husband or wife is engaging with pornography, it's not because of you. It has nothing to do with your looks or your behavior. It has everything to do with how they are choosing to engage with their emotions. Their pornography use is all about them. 

18:56 

So here's something to think about. As long as you make their pornography about you, for example, "I'm not enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not a good enough wife," it will be very hard for you to stay and show up with love and compassion and kindness. Because when you think it's about you, the feelings you create will be somewhat along the lines of insecurity, worthlessness, and that will never create the kinds of behaviors that will create a safe space. When you choose to see your spouse's pornography use instead as a poor coping mechanism for their discomfort and really know that it has nothing to do with with you, then it is much easier to show up with love and compassion. 

19:47 

This is an amazing place to talk about boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries here would be you giving your spouse the space to work through their life and you keep out of their space and you focusing instead on your own responses, actions, feelings, and thoughts. Let's put another buffer in here just to see how it works with something that is not so emotionally charged. Let's say that you, my friend, buffer with food. Every time you are stressed or angry or filled with anxiety, you head to the kitchen for a sugary snack, right? And maybe even when you just feel really happy and overjoyed, that feeling can be a little overwhelming sometimes and you head to the kitchen for a snack. And what if your spouse started demanding that you stop doing that? What if he told you that every time you do that, it hurts him emotionally, it makes him feel like he's worthless, and that this is an attack on your marriage? 

20:48 

The thing is, you're not heading to the kitchen for that sugary snack because of your husband. It doesn't have anything to do with him, even if the two of you just had a disagreement and you've got that negative emotion going on, right? You engage in that behavior, in that buffer, the eating, because of your own discomfort surrounding your own feelings, but it doesn't have anything to do with him. When your husband views pornography, again, it has nothing to do with you, just like you eating the food. It doesn't make you less of a person, and you may tell your spouse that you want them to be 100% honest with you about it, but then when they are, how often would you freak out because you're making it all about you? 

21:34 

And when you make it about you, you become the victim, and you don't have to be. You can set the boundaries between "this is your work, this is my work." You take care of you and let them take care of them. This doesn't mean we walk away from our spouse and we don't offer support. It's actually just the opposite. What it does mean is that you show up taking responsibility for your own thoughts and behaviors, you show up as the kind of person you really want to be, and you allow them to figure out how to manage this while you create a supportive space for them to work it out. This is his to manage, not yours. You've got your own stuff to work on, for sure. 

22:18 

What if they showed up 100% honest with you and you didn't freak out? What if you showed up with love and compassion  and kindness? What if you allowed your spouse to be an adult who makes their own choices and you didn't make it mean anything about how you're not good enough? What if you created a safe, space for them to work through this with them knowing that you have their back and are supporting them? What would be different for you? When we show up this way, we would be seeking to understand the reasons behind the pornography use and why it keeps occurring. We would help them in their quest to eliminate this behavior from their lives. 

23:02 

If they are always feeling attacked by you, you will not become a safe space for them to explore and to heal. Your husband's pornography use is not your problem, just as your buffering behaviors, your overeating or your over Facebooking or over sleeping or over working, that's not his problem either. Being attacked for our buffering behaviors by ourselves or by someone else does not, it likely creates more of the difficult emotions that led to the buffering in the first place. So, you get to choose to respond with fear and feeling like a victim, or with love and taking responsibility just as your spouse does. Both of you, the viewer of pornography and the spouse, get to choose your own thoughts that create your feelings and actions. Because ultimately, both of you get to choose to be responsible for your behavior. Choose wisely. A spouse using pornography doesn't mean it is the end of your marriage. It just may be the beginning of a more intimate, loving, and trusting relationship as you both seek to respond with love and responsibility. 

24:16 

If you are on either side of this equation and struggling to show up with love and responsibility and you want, I can help you. I am specifically trained to work through these kinds of circumstances with you and help you show up the way you want. And as with any marriage struggle, pornography doesn't have to tear your relationship apart. You don't have to be miserable and unhappy either staying or leaving. You can choose to be loving and kind. You get to show up any way that you want to. You get to feel however you want to feel. That is the power of coaching. And I love it so much. I love coaching. Let me coach you through this. If you are stuck in this on either side, either as the pornography viewer or the spouse, if you are stuck, let me help you please. There's no reason to stay here. We don't have to. We can get out. 

25:19 

I love growing up, my friends. I love the place of empowerment that growing up affords me. It is so beautiful. If you have not signed up for a free consult, now this consult can be questions about coaching that you may have. It may be bringing a situation to me and I can help you see it more clearly. I will talk to you about what coaching entails, the time commitment, the energy commitment, the money commitment. I can talk to you about all of that. You can go to my Facebook page, Tanya Hale LDS Life Coaching. There is a "book now" button or you can go to my website, tanyahale.com and you can book a free 30 minute actually coaching session to get you started, right? I can help you with this for sure. Okay, if you love this podcast, please share it. Share it with people who can use this information and leave me a review. If you have not, I would love to have a review. Thank you so much to those who have left one and that, my friends, is going to do it for us today. I wish you all the best. I wish you a fabulous week and I will talk to you next time. Bye. 

26:33 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!