Episode 161: Keep It Simple - Beliefs and Identity

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer. 

Hey everyone, welcome to today’s podcast episode. We are continuing with our Keep It Simple series where we’re going through all the milestones in the program. Talking over the goals and objectives for each milestone and just like what are the big things that we need to understand and do and fully embody in order to quit viewing porn for good. To overcome pornography for good so that porn doesn’t have any more power over your life. So that you feel in control. So that you’re not burdened by it and it’s not ruining and continuing to take over your life. 

We’re going to talk about beliefs and identity. And arguably this is the most important one. And do you guys notice – Sorry, I’m having a squirrel moment, I got distracted. But do you notice how I’ve started saying important different? That’s because y’all are bullying me on my Ts with my Utah accent. Like how I say mountain instead of mountain, or important instead of important. And now I think I over-emphasize that Ts, so I’m super self-conscious about whenever I say any of those words because I’m like, oh, is the T too obvious? 

But arguably, this is one of the most important milestones. And I don’t know if I can even say that because I wouldn’t put anything in the milestones that was not vital to understand. So it’s all vital, but this one seems to be where we spend the most time coaching on, where when we have these basics of these other skills, this makes all the difference. This is so powerful. 

This is, I don’t even know, this one is just huge, huge, huge. And let’s talk about it. So the beliefs and identity, you are what you think, you are who you believe you are. And many of us are given identities that we didn’t really ask for and were just kind of conditioned into us. And so now that we’re adults, we get to take a minute and we get to see what is ours, what was given to us and what we want to keep. 

I recently heard, I was listening to some podcast, I don’t remember what, but they were talking about midlife crises or maybe even younger. Adult crises where you see that you have this beautiful garden and your whole life you’ve been given plants to plant in this garden. 

And you have some of your own plants, but you have other plants. And there comes a time when you get to look at your garden and say, okay, what is from me? What is from other people? What do I want to keep and what do I want to dig up and get rid of? And so that’s what we do in the beliefs and identity module. 

This is life-changing to do this work. Even just to realize that the beliefs you have are not just true and you can truly pick and choose any beliefs that you want. Beliefs are just thoughts that you’ve thought over and over and over again. Even stuff like, oh, I’m not a morning person. You can hold onto that, there’s nothing wrong with that. 

I kind of have that as a belief about myself, yeah, I do better at nights than morning, and it doesn’t negatively affect my life. But it’s also not just a fact. It’s something that we’ve thought about ourself over and over and over again, something that we were told about ourself over and over and over again. And we can change that if we want to do the work to do that. 

So for those of us, you know, we were told things about ourselves, you’re too dramatic, you’re not really smart, maybe you had a teacher who told you that, these are all beliefs that, like the garden analogy, were maybe planted and starting to bloom. And we can dig those out and change them. It’s so powerful. It’s so, so, so powerful. 

So let’s go through the points in this one. Here’s the simple thing, and remember, this is simple, that doesn’t necessarily mean easy and doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not work, but simple. We’re keeping it simple. Keeping out of the overwhelm. 

Remember, step by step, day by day letting it all just work with you a little bit more every single day. Letting the program, for those of you who are in the program, letting it seep into you every single day. A little bit every single day. We don’t have to have it all at once. We don’t have to have it all in six months. We can take it step by step by step by step. 

So the first one, the client is aware of their specific beliefs keeping them from quitting porn, beliefs about themselves and beliefs about pornography. So this awareness piece is huge. You cannot change something that you’re not aware of, and so often we think, like I said just a minute ago, we think that our beliefs are just facts. 

We think our beliefs are just facts. So, I’m not smart, and then you have all this evidence in your brain for why you’re not smart. So maybe you have some evidence, like I got a C on this test and I read this article and didn’t understand it. And I don’t know a lot about world war two, whatever that is. So that’s the evidence you have for this belief that you are not smart. 

Now, “I am not smart” is a thought, a belief. The fact, the only fact, so we want to separate – This is a part of becoming aware of the beliefs, is separating the fact from the story. The fact is I got a C minus on my test. I read this article. I only know basic world war two facts, whatever those are, you put the facts in there. 

And then we play with that. We ask ourself, is there any evidence that you are smart? Do we want to try to change this belief? How can we start doing that? And then we start to find evidence for the other side. And you can find evidence for whatever it is you want to start believing. 

Every belief that you have is just something you’ve thought over and over and over and over again and you have a lot of evidence for it. And so if we want to change that belief, we have to start thinking different thoughts and finding evidence for something different. 

And this is a ton of the work that we do in coaching calls. We go through all those specifics with you and really work through it. So we want to change and become aware of those beliefs we have about ourself. And then we want to become aware of beliefs that we have about pornography and sexuality. 

So those might be beliefs like I get pleasure from it. It helps me relieve stress and it gives me new experiences. Those are some examples I took from my What’s Possible interview with Constantine. If that’s released, you’ve got to go listen to that one. If it’s not released yet, make sure that you’re looking forward to that and listening to that episode. But some of these beliefs that we have. 

Now, it’s really important that we understand – And this is point number two. So number one, we become aware of these beliefs. And we’ve got worksheets on that, you work with your coach through that, you answer questions. It’s like a deep dive, sitting down journaling. What are my beliefs about myself? What are my beliefs about porn? Answering the prompts. 

Some of the prompts might include like, what does porn give you? What does porn take away from you? What are things you were taught about sex and sexuality? What was taught to you about porn? What did your parents teach you? What did your church teach you? What did your community teach you? And you’ll find a whole bunch of things, right? Like even things like men are sexual beings and they can’t really control themselves when this happens. 

And those little beliefs, right, someone might not say that specifically to you, even though people do say that specifically, but it’ll come up with, oh, people, you know, talking to the women about how they dress. Because if you dress a certain way, people are going to have all these thoughts about you. And you’re going to become walking pornography for people, right? Little tiny things like that, that just the underlying messages that men can’t control and they’re just super hyper-sexual beings, right? 

If you’re a woman struggling with this, it can be beliefs about women too, that bring a lot of shame. Women shouldn’t be sexual creatures. Women aren’t sexual. Sexuality is gross and bad for women. Just little tiny things that you’ll have to dig deep and think about what were all the things I was taught about sex? What are all the things I was taught about porn? What are all the things I was taught about myself? 

And then you’ll start to find these things, even things like porn is really, really addictive. Like you don’t want to look at porn once because it’s just so enticing. It’s so great. Your brain just loves it so, so much. All of these beliefs. 

And we might think that those are just facts, but we want to just write them down and start to tease them out. Are these facts or are these beliefs? Are these facts or are these beliefs? These are facts if you can go into court and prove it. So a fact is going to be, I viewed porn X amount of times. A fact is not porn is super appealing. 

Now, another thing here with facts versus thoughts, a fact has to be true for everyone. So it can’t be a fact that porn is appealing because it’s not appealing for everyone. That’s a belief that you have about it for you. And we’re just looking at this as scientists, right? Oh, what are my beliefs? Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe that’s even most people’s beliefs. That’s so interesting, but it’s not a fact. And we’re not shaming ourselves for these beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with you for having these beliefs. It’s just interesting. Okay? 

So the second point is that the client understands how to question, challenge and change these beliefs. I dive into this process in that beliefs and identity milestone, so make sure you go and watch that, those of you who are in the program. But let me give you a simple outline that I go back to a lot. 

The step to changing your beliefs, first, you’ve got to understand some basics about beliefs. Beliefs are different for everyone because we’ve all thought different things our whole life. So just really, really understanding that beliefs are not just facts. They’re not. 

That’s why everyone has different beliefs. That’s why everyone has different lives. That’s why everyone has all these different results. Beliefs are things that you’ve thought over and over and over and over again. You want to keep some, you want to get rid of some. 

And so the three steps to changing these beliefs, like if you want to start believing that you have control instead of believing that you are out of control, how you’re going to do that is number one, notice. Notice the belief, notice that it is a belief. If you think of something as just fact and you’re having a hard time seeing it any other way than fact, bring it to a coaching call, we’ll help you. 

So that’s step number one, notice, recognize, fill out those worksheets, do those prompts, get into those beliefs. What are those beliefs? Step number two is you have to be willing to be wrong about it. Sometimes it’ll be quick and easy to disprove. Other times it’s going to take some time and some work to be willing to be wrong about it. That’s the only place you have to start. 

So the belief is I’m lazy. Am I willing to be wrong about that? Yeah, maybe I’m wrong about it. Because sometimes if we just go to, “Well, actually I’m not because X, Y, and Z.” Can you feel how sometimes that can bring up anxiety and pressure because you don’t even believe it. You’re like, no, I am lazy, and just trying to convince myself that I’m not feels like I’m lying to myself. And so just, am I willing to be wrong about this? Or is there another way that I can look at this? 

And then step number three is practicing new thoughts and practicing new beliefs. And there are a bunch of ways we can go about this. First, just a little bit of education here. So, beliefs are neural pathways in your brain that connect and they form these super highways. So if you have a strong belief, it’s very easy for you to go there. It’s very easy for you to believe it. I’m lazy. You’ve thought that to yourself over and over. You’ve had people tell you that. You have lots of evidence for that. 

So it’s like a super highway in your brain. It’s just, I’m lazy. Bam. Yes, yes, yes. I’m lazy. I’m lazy. I’m lazy. It just happens very quickly, these thought processes and patterns. It’s because your brain cares more about being efficient than it does about being right, or it does about helping you. And so it has these very efficient super highways that just believe that. 

And so if you want to create a new belief, it’s kind of like getting off this highway and going down a dirt road for a while. It feels a little bit bumpy, but you keep driving it. You keep driving it. You keep driving it. And pretty soon this dirt road becomes that superhighway and it’s much easier and quicker to believe these other things. 

And so when you’re practicing new thoughts, that’s what you’re doing, is you’re going down this dirt road. And it doesn’t feel as natural and it takes some work at first, and it’s not as smooth and it’s not as simple. But you’re going to be so much better off by doing that. And eventually it will create these new neural pathways that will create these new beliefs and they’ll be a lot quicker, a lot easier to believe. 

I remember one time when I had been working so much, like at the very beginning of my journey around myself, I’d been working so much to try to just love myself and feel good about myself. And so I practiced these thoughts all the time. It felt hard. It felt difficult. I really had to be intentional and make time to think these good thoughts about myself. 

And then I remember once just pulling up to a stop sign or a red light. And this was after, I don’t know, maybe a year or so of me going on this journey of trying to increase my self-confidence. And I was just at this stoplight and I just all of a sudden started thinking, wow, I’m so proud of the person I’ve become and look at how good I am at these things. And I feel really good about myself and I really love myself. 

And it just happened naturally. I didn’t have to prompt it. I didn’t have to work on it. It was like such a big moment for me where I was like, oh my gosh, these neural pathways have been created. And now here I am thinking these things naturally and easily. And those things have stayed with me. Those things have stayed with me. 

And so that’s what we can do, and that’s the practicing new thoughts. Now, we want to do this with thoughts about ourself, but we also want to make sure that we’re doing this with thoughts about pornography. Because I just got off that interview with Constantine and now I’m working on recording some other episodes ahead of time, so that’s on my mind, but the ones that he said were so good. 

So he had this belief that porn relieves stress. And does it? Kind of, yeah. But he was willing to question that, willing to be wrong about that. And what he realized when he was just willing to be wrong about that, he’s like, actually, porn does not relieve stress at all. 

It relieves stress for that moment, but then my life is so much more stressful because of porn. Because of the effects it’s having on my marriage. Because of the effects that high levels of dopamine are having on my life. I’m actually pretty freaking miserable in my life. Porn is not – And it just hit him, it just clicked for him in that moment like, oh, porn is not helping me relieve stress. It’s creating more stress. 

And that alone helped him just decrease his desire for porn so much. Rewriting that belief. For that one, that one was a pretty quick, simple one. It might not be that quick for you, but really sit down and think about all the things you think about porn. What is porn offering you? What are those beliefs about porn? Sit down, be willing to be wrong about them, question them, challenge them and practice new things. 

Now, another thing here with practicing new thoughts is it might take little baby steps. And so I have a whole video in the program around bridge thoughts. I might even have a podcast episode on it, but the idea is that you’re taking little steps to a belief that you want. 

So you can’t usually go from, “I hate my body” to “I love my body.” But you can go from, “I hate my body” to neutral. It’s just neutral. It just is. It’s not good or bad. It just is, to “My body helps me do X, Y, and Z. It’s functional” to “I appreciate my body.” And then eventually to, “I love my body.” But it’s going to be steps. We call those bridge thoughts, it helps you get to where you want to go when the jump seems a little bit too far. 

Okay, the third objective in this milestone is that the client knows how to use the belief plan exercise. Now listen, y’all go and listen to the belief plan episode. I’m not going to go into all the details of that because I have a whole episode on this, but this exercise is freaking game changing. I promise you. I promise you. It’s like one of my biggest life hacks is the belief plan, right? 

We have a plan for not viewing porn. We have a plan for the hard moments. We have a plan for when we slip up. But do we have a plan for how we’re going to change our beliefs and what our new beliefs are going to be? That, my friends, is powerful and will create the deepest level of change for you. 

If you can change your beliefs, you can change everything. And that’s really like the level of change that we want to experience in order to create lasting change. Anything else is just willpower. If you’re changing without changing the beliefs, it’s always just going to be willpower and it’s not going to last. 

Okay, and then the last point here is that the client understands how vital belief work is and that it is in fact work. A lot of people come into the program – I hope you guys have heard me say this because I feel like I say this a lot. A lot of people come and start doing the work and they’re like, all right, the work is going to be processing urges and not looking at porn and doing the learn and move on. 

But where the real work is, is the belief work. Changing the beliefs. And this is why so much, especially one-on-one coaching, you spend so much time with your one-on-one coach doing belief work, belief work, belief work, belief work. 

You don’t need a one-on-one coach to do this. You can do it yourself, especially how we have it laid out for you in the program. Or you can listen to podcast episodes and start doing this work yourself, for sure. 

But recognizing that it is work and it doesn’t just happen. And so what I mean by that is you have to intentionally set aside time to work on your beliefs. So for example, if I wanted to change my workout routine, I would set aside time to go to the gym and to do the actual work. But I didn’t set aside any time to change how I thought about myself and my beliefs about myself as someone who works out consistently. 

And once I started doing that, setting aside even just a few minutes to work on those beliefs, everything was so much easier. Everything changed so much quicker. The belief work needs to be prioritized. And this is that level that a lot of people don’t even get to, the deep change level that a lot of people aren’t even aware of when it comes to quitting porn. It’s just about not looking. It’s just about the outside work. 

What this really is, is that inside, inside, inside belief work. It’s also going to be a lot of healing. A lot of healing old wounds, a lot of healing harmful beliefs that hurt. And it’s really, really beautiful work. 

So, okay, thanks for being here. Remember, we’re keeping it simple. That’s what we have to understand about belief work. Please prioritize it. Go listen to that belief plan exercise. 

Like I typically offer at the end of the episodes, for anyone who’s feeling called to come and join us in the program and do this work with us helping you and working with you, you get lifetime access to coaching calls and Ask A Coach and all the good things, you can come and join us. We’ll work through this with you, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. Have a great week. We’ll talk to you guys next week, bye bye.

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.