There are desperate men and women everywhere, of all ages, who genuinely want something to stop in their lives. Alcohol. Drugs. Overeating. Overspending. And porn.
So, they understandably focus on it. And fight it. And try to control it….exasperated and sad when it keeps coming back – like a never-ending nightmare.
Primed for porn
As long as our gaze is fixed on the isolated problem – how to resist it, how to overcome it – don’t be surprised if that nightmare continues for another couple of months or years, even many years.
But what if our gaze expanded? For instance, let’s face it: If your life is driven by distraction, saturated by screens, self-absorbed in fantasy, organized around pleasure, running away from discomfort, spiritually unanchored, isolated, cynical, resentful, chaotic, exhausted, physically depleted, emotionally wounded, quietly sad, and lacking a noble purpose, why wouldn’t you be more prone to chase whatever stimulating escape you can find?
Of course, there are plenty of people who are lonely, depressed, exhausted, spiritually adrift, and never develop compulsive patterns. But generally speaking, a life like that sets people up to struggle.
‘This is about our whole self’: Reordered to something higher
The opposite is also true. Imagine a life oriented in the reverse direction of all of the above … what then?
A “free-hearted” person is not merely someone who says no to porn – but instead, someone whose whole life is being reordered toward something better and something higher.
Matt Dobschuetz’s book, “Porn Free: Becoming the Type of (Person) That Does Not Look at Porn,” prompts a fundamentally different, whole-life approach to healing from pornography struggles – or anything else compulsive for that matter.1
My friend, therapist Jill Manning knows the difference between deep recovery and more superficial, behaviorally-managed abstinence. What the latter person doesn’t understand, she told me in a recent interview, is that lasting healing ends up touching every part of life – how you think about relationships, time, love, the body and even spiritual matters.
“We’re not just stopping something or removing something,” she said. “We are replacing it with different relational behaviors, different patterns of lifestyle, different attitudes. This is about transformation and changing hearts — not just addressing an isolated piece.”
“This is about our whole self…..We’re not just here to renovate or fix up a part of you.”
If this has been a struggle for you, ask yourself: am I becoming the kind of person for whom porn makes increasing sense? Am I becoming the kind of person for whom porn becomes less and less congruent with who I am? …
Read the rest of this post on Substack by Jacob Hess PhD.