How to deal with intrusive porn Fantasy Guide 3 (White Bear Phenomenon)

I think this topic will compliment my 2nd Guide on paradoxical intention since their seemed to be confusion.

Disclaimer As you read this try not to think about a white bear.

I believe a lot of our initial battle plans when starting the 90 day journey is to white knuckle it and resist the temptations, which I think we can all agree on isn’t always that successful. One issue with this attempt is we are under the impression that we need to suppress our thoughts of porn. I often see post of “How do I stop thinking about Porn?” The Problem here is that you are trying not to think about it.

Have we stopped thinking about that white bear yet?

You see I will try and give a primitive explanation and if asked I will be glad to go more in depth. Basically when you are trying not to think of something a part of your brain developed by evolution is on the look out for any signs of this threat. Like our ancestors trying to avoid being eaten by a lion. One part of your brain is trying not to think about porn while the other part of your brain is on the look out for any dangerous temptations, can you see the problem here. you have created a paradox in turn you actually increase your level of urges by trying to suppress it.

Ever notice you have a harder time avoiding sweets when your on a diet, to be fair there are other issues involving willpower why it is more difficult which I will cover in another guide.

That being said I’ll make it clear how to get rid of that white bear now. Just like in paradoxical intention you need to embrace the issue instead of suppressing it, surf the urge if you will. Allow any intrusive thoughts to enter your mind and observe them from a distance, feel your urges and understand them and after accepting the fact that even though you can not control your thoughts you do not have to act on them. The fear of intrusive thoughts is caused by the feeling that we will inevitably act on them. Which of course is not true.

Be like water, practice meditating & when the thoughts arise imagine yourself under water and the thoughts going right through you.

I am trying to write a guide everyday because this is a journey we take one day at a time, also none of these guides are end all be all solution to this problem but instead a variety of topics to help along the way.

I know when we relapse we feel down and wonder, I’ve done everything what is going to be different this time… well I hope these guides will offer hope that it will be different this time.

Remember you my friend are much bigger then this.