Episode 157: Keep It Simple – Commitment

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, and today we’re going to be talking commitment. So the series, the idea is let’s keep it freaking simple because it can get complicated. We can get confused. There are so many things and there are so many episodes to listen to, right? 

Our brain likes to make things complicated. And I want to help us make it as simple as possible. And so we’re going through each of the milestones in the program. All of the things that I have people learn. Remember, the milestones are the videos, the worksheets, the stuff that you actually do. And then these are the goals that we want every client to understand.

And these principles and these concepts we really want them to have a great understanding of as they finish the milestone. So I’m telling you exactly what those are. We’re keeping it simple. Here’s what you need to do to quit porn. And we’re talking about the commitment milestone today. 

So we did learn and move on, now we’re doing commitment. Before we dive in, let me share a quick review. I love doing this. And I really want to shout out to you guys for leaving me a review. It’s just so, so, so awesome. Thank you. 

Okay, this is the most current one. It says, “This show and the program are life changing. As a woman who has been exploited by the porn industry, I recognize that the only sustainable way to combat the harm done to women is to help those who struggle with porn, recognize that porn is escapism. 

People who struggle with porn have to learn to love themselves enough to manage their urges and emotions shame-free. This approach is so effective and light-filled.” Yeah, thank you so much. This is such a great review and rating. I really appreciate it. I agree with you, totally agree with you. 

And go ahead and go leave me a review and rating if you haven’t yet. I would love that. It helps me get the word out there. It helps more people find my podcast who need it. So the more reviews, the more we get seen. 

Okay, commitment. So just three main points with commitment that we want every client to understand in this commitment module. Okay, number one, the client has a compelling reason for quitting porn that is not based in fear or shame. We call this shame-free commitment. So much we try to convince people to quit porn with shame and fear. It’s going to ruin your life. You’re a bad person if you don’t. You want to be a good person, let’s get filled with light instead of filled with darkness. 

A lot of fear and shame-based reasons. And what we find is that just isn’t effective long term and not really healthy either because sometimes what happens with this is we use these tactics like it’s someone who has committed a crime. If you don’t quit, you’re going to become a serial killer. It’s going to get worse and you’re going to turn into a pedophile or all these things that are pretty horrific and sad. 

And then what happens is that people start to associate the porn use with a crime that’s big. I mean, and I’ve heard this. I’ve heard this a lot. I’ve heard this, geez, in other more personal settings where you hear someone who blames the porn use for someone raping another. Oh, well they raped someone, but I think he was into porn. Or their marriage fell apart, well, I think he was into porn. 

It’s just it’s not that simple and it’s not the porn’s fault. There is so much more happening under the surface that can create these types of results. And especially crime and horrible things, it’s not the porn that’s causing that, okay? Because the truth is that there are so many people that view porn. Like, I don’t know the numbers, 90% of the people in the world that view porn. And most of them are not that way. 

And so, yes, those things are horrible, horrific, terrible, and no, the porn does not cause them to do that. The porn is like a symptom, like a result of so many other things happening underneath the surface. Even with marriage and relationship stuff it’s the lying, it’s the hiding, it’s the not being able to connect emotionally, it’s the betrayal, that’s what’s creating a lot of times. 

And I don’t mean to simplify this into one statement, because of course there’s nuance and there’s lots of different scenarios and situations. But yeah, often it’s not the porn use, it’s all the stuff that’s happening underneath the surface. And if it was the porn use every single person in a relationship where there is porn would be having marriage problems. And that’s just not true either. That’s just not true. Especially maybe in dynamics where it is like a normal thing and it’s not morally against any of their morals, it’s not. 

There’s so much nuance and we have to be really careful that the reasons that we’re giving people to quit porn are not based in shame and fear and don’t create these big reactions. I mean, I can’t tell you how many people have come to me and I’ve heard so many people say, yeah, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get married because I viewed porn as a teenager. 

Doesn’t that just break your heart? It totally does. Or even if I don’t quit this, I’m going to become a serial killer, you know, Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy viewed porn. And that’s something we laugh about, but we laugh about it because also we’ve heard it because it’s true. 

So reasons for quitting porn that are not based in fear and shame, there are so many good ones. And so there’s options here. Number one, and probably the biggest one is to quit buffering and quit escaping your life. 

Buffering, and we’re going to talk about this when we get into the emotions and buffering one in depth. But buffering is using actions to escape your life, and quitting porn is a way that we escape life, that we escape emotion. And so a huge reason to quit porn alone is just so I actually live the life I want instead of numbing out with porn. 

A very compelling reason is because I want to stop escaping my life and I want to live fully. And I cannot live fully if I’m not willing to experience the range of emotion that comes up. If I just escape loneliness, if I escape stress, if I escape conflict, I’m not really living, right? 

My new commitment is to be a full human, which is feeling and experiencing all the range of emotion and working through problems and addressing stuff instead of just burying it. Instead of just creating a life that I can kind of handle and manage until I can escape when I get home from work, I want to create a life that I love every minute, every second. 

So many people, and it’s not their fault, it’s just we don’t know how. So many people live these lives that are just kind of barely manageable. They’re okay. They’re fine, but I’m really looking forward to when I can go home and escape. So that’s one reason. 

Another reason could be that you want to use your time and energy to create instead of consume. You want to use that time and energy, right? We only have so much energy and creative energy in a day. And sexual energy is creative energy, and so you can redirect that towards creating something. 

You can redirect that towards creating a relationship that you really enjoy or creating an art piece or creating a life that you like. Just something that sounds fun to you to create. Creating a business, creating a beautiful space, creating relationships, creating and accomplishing goals. 

Porn is going to take time and energy and money sometimes, right? So that’s another non-shame commitment reason, is to use your time and energy to create instead of consume. 

Maybe the reason is that you want to feel more in control. You don’t like feeling out of control. You don’t like feeling like you have to give into urges when they happen. That’s a non-shameful reason. I want to make decisions instead of feeling like my decisions are being made for me. 

Another reason could be that you want to work on your emotional health, and the porn use is keeping you from doing that because you’re escaping all the things that come up. It could be because I want to contribute to a good, meaningful society, a healthy society and I don’t feel like consuming porn is helping me contribute to a healthy society. 

Can you see the differences there? It’s not like you’re a bad person that’s creating these bad societal impacts. It’s like, no, I want to do my part and that’s a reason. So even just little switches like that can help us create a non-shameful reason to quit porn. 

It can be relationships, that you want to use your energy to create and build that relationship with your person. You want to work through those things with that person instead of using porn to escape conflict that comes up in your relationship. 

So we want to create a compelling reason to quit porn that is not based in fear and shame. And there are so many out there. And what this does is it also really requires you to dig deep to really find your reason why, instead of just because I’ve been told to, because my parents expect me to, because my bishop expects me to, because I don’t know why. I just have been told to, I’ve been told that it’s not good. 

And so when I really have to actually dig deep and really think about this in a way that’s not shame and fear, it makes you dig deep. It’s really good. And then you’re so much more likely to follow through with yourself if you have that inner deep commitment. 

Okay, the second point is that the client understands the difference between commitment and motivation. So motivation is like very hooraw energy, let’s go, this is going to be awesome, come on. And commitment energy is not as exciting. It is more like, ooh, all right, let’s do it. Let’s go. I told myself I would do it. I don’t want to do it, but I’m going to because I committed. 

And so being able to sit in that commitment energy is going to make so much, like such a big difference in your ability to be successful. If you’re only able to use the motivation energy, it’s going to come and go really quick. 

And so commitment energy is difficult to sit through, it’s something you have to create capacity for to experience and create capacity for to feel and recognize that commitment is not wanting to and doing it anyways. And all the skills we teach you in the buffering urges section really help you do that. But it’s important to understand the difference between commitment and motivation. 

And then the third point in this keep it simple commitment milestone is that the client is motivated by creating long-term success rather than short-term success and is committed to being patient with the process. This goes back to what I was saying last time in the learn and move on one. Are we thinking in weeks or months, or are we thinking in years? Are you just committed for the next three months or are you committed even if it takes a year or two? 

Now, if you’re only committed for a couple months and if thinking about it for a year or two is super overwhelming, you’re probably trying to do too much. You’re probably not approaching this in a way that is sustainable. And so you’re probably thinking in all or nothing terms or you’re thinking that you have to, like it’s going to be really difficult, it’s going to take all your energy instead of compounding success. 

Little tiny steps at a day, trusting the process, trusting that it’s seeping into you, doing little bits of the work here and there. It doesn’t even have to be every single day. Like just stay consistent, whatever that looks like, a couple times a week. The more consistent you are, the more you do it, the quicker your progress is going to be. But even if it’s not every day, three or four times a week where we’re doing some of the work, doing some of the work three to four times a week. 

Every single urge processed is a step forward, even if there’s one urge processed, two not processed. It’s not one step forward, two steps back. It’s, oh, those two urges that we didn’t process, remember the learn and move on that we talked about? Go and listen to that one if you haven’t listened to that one. The learn and move on, those are just helping us move forward and every tiny urge that we process is getting us closer and closer and closer, even if in between we’re not processing. 

So trusting the process, being committed for the long-term. And if you do this, you’ll realize that it’s going to be a lot quicker than if you just try to do it all at once, because if you can just be patient for a year or however long it takes, you’re free. You’re good. 

It’s like the analogy of if we’ve got this tiger, instead of just whipping it and trying to build a fence around it to control it and tame it, that’s the easy, quick solution. But you’re going to have to rebuild the walls. But you’re going to always have to be looking at it, always constantly monitoring it. 

Instead, we’re going to take the time to train this tiger. To train it to be our friend, to train it to follow us and obey us and be with us. And that’s going to take some time. You’re going to get bruised and scratched at the beginning. It might take a year or longer to train this tiger, but long-term you train that tiger, you’re good. It’s your buddy and it’s not hurting you and we have control over it. 

That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what we’re doing here. Okay, all right. Again, I’m going to offer the invitation. If you’re feeling called to come and join us in Overcome Pornography For Good, come and do that anytime, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. We’re ready, we’re ready, we’re ready. Let’s go. 

All right, you guys, have a great week. Talk to you later, 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.