Episode 168: What’s Missing from the Quit Porn Industry & Why It’s Messing You Up

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 168, What’s Missing From the Quit Porn Industry and Why it’s Messing You Up.

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, you guys, welcome to today’s podcast episode. I’m so glad you’re here. I am excited to talk about this episode. I have a couple of bigger episodes coming, but before I release those there’s a couple of these other ones that I need to release along the way to help prepare us.

I know that’s broad. I’m not trying to be annoying, but that’s all I want to say about it now. And this is a really good one that is going to give us a lot of context as I release a few of these bigger episodes in the next couple of weeks.

So I want to talk about what’s missing in the quit porn world and why it’s such a big freaking deal. Why it’s messing you up. Why it’s creating a lot of problems. And this title came about because this is some feedback that I get a lot, that I’ve tried all these things. I’ve tried this and this and this and this and this and this and this. I’ve worked with these people. I’ve worked with the best and just all of them were missing this component. But now once I have this component, everything’s changing for me.

So I want to talk about what that is and why it’s so important. So the first thing I want to say is that if you haven’t been able to quit, it’s not your fault. Especially if you’ve been taught a lot of this bad information about pornography in the past and you’ve been told things like just stop or replace it with something else. Sing a hymn in your mind or just use more willpower or use filters, pray more, be more spiritual, focus on only connection.

These might work for a little bit, but these things do not get to the root of the issue and don’t actually create the healing that we need to, to feel at peace and to move past unwanted pornography use. If we think of unwanted porn use, and I always say unwanted, right? Because there are people who view porn and it’s ethical to them. It feels okay to them. It’s a part of their life and it’s not unwanted and they feel like they’re able to do it in a healthy way. So that’s why I always call this unwanted pornography use.

For those of you who don’t want to view porn and you do, that’s what I call this unwanted porn use. So we think of that as an iceberg. And so the unwanted pornography use is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s what we’re seeing and it’s what we want to blame everything for. We want to blame everything on the porn. But really when we get underneath the surface and we see what’s really going on underneath, there are so many things under this iceberg that are creating this unwanted pornography use.

It could be buffering, escaping emotion, sexual shame, willpower, repression, shame spirals that lead to binging, over desire, which is like witching hours. If you just want to view every night at 10pm it can be this dopamine hit in your brain that your brain’s just expecting it. It’s not a huge deal, but that is a thing, these witching hours. Loneliness, negative beliefs about yourself, fear or panic around pornography creates more unwanted porn use. There can be self-hatred. There is a lack of education, fear or stress around intimacy.

So there’s all of these things that are going on underneath the surface. So when it comes to unwanted pornography use and all the effects of unwanted porn use, the porn isn’t even the real problem. And you are not the problem either. The problem comes down to this, that we have been taught so much shame around it, that it has impacted and made it spiral and made it bigger than it really needs to be.

Shame is the ultimate driver of most, if not all of these issues I just talked about. All of these underneath the surface issues, the willpower, the buffering, the repression, the shame spirals, the binging, the over desire, the negative beliefs about yourself, the fear, the porn panic, the self-hatred, the lack of education, all these things. Shame is the ultimate driver of all of these issues.

And so where the quit porn industry has really failed you is they have not addressed shame. Some you might see addressing escaping emotion. Some you might see addressing relationship stuff that’s going on. But what they’re not addressing underneath the surface is shame, shame, shame. That if we do not heal, will continue to be this monster that creates all this distress, all this unwanted pornography use and feeling of hopelessness, feeling of never good enough that leads us further and further away from who we want to be.

What we really need to do is no more band-aid solutions. So those things that we’ve heard, like just stop. I had someone who said, I had a therapist tell me like, just be a man and stop. I’m like, ooh, I really hope you are not seeing that therapist anymore. Dang it. And people hear that from family members and from all sorts of people, like just stop. That’s not helpful. And it doesn’t actually do anything, it just creates more shame.

Replace it with something else. Use more willpower, use filters, pray more, be more spiritual. That’s a great thing and that can be a really amazing tool, but that alone isn’t going to get you the result that you want of quitting unwanted pornography use. So we’ve got to stop using these band-aid solutions and remove it at its root, which really means healing identity issues around this. Healing, sexual shame, healing emotional distress, healing fear and panic.

It’s a healing, healing, healing approach to this where, yeah, there’s unwanted porn use, but that’s just the iceberg. We really need to look at everything else that’s going on underneath the surface. It’s going to help you so much more than just focusing on the porn, focusing on the porn.

And this has been so, so life-changing for so many people, specifically the shame part, specifically the shame aspect. And so if you are working to quit porn and you’re not addressing the shame at every single level, getting deeper and deeper and deeper, and you don’t have someone who’s willing to do that for you and who can look at things more neutrally to help you do that, you’re never going to be able to make the progress that you want to, to really feel free unless you really address that shame.

And so we really are a shame-free approach, not just because shame sucks and it’s the worst to feel, but because removing the shame gets us the best results in our life. Removing the shame helps us get rid of binging behaviors, helps us get rid of spirals, helps us get rid of buffering, helps us get rid of panic and fear and pressure, helps us get rid of just doing dangerous things.

Now, when I say this, sometimes what people think I’m saying is that getting rid of shame is getting rid of remorse, getting rid of guilt, getting rid of this part of us that is helping us make decisions. That’s not what I’m saying at all, okay? Shame is that part of you that’s really destructive. And it turns, when you make a decision that’s outside of your value system, it turns it from this mistake that we’re going to look at and learn from and grow from and turns it into an identity issue, that there’s something wrong with you and with me. And that gets really dangerous.

So we can use remorse. Remorse can be really healthy. Guilt can be really healthy. We just have to look at it deeper and see why are we feeling that? Do we like what we’re feeling this for? Is there another way to look at this? What’s the results that I’m getting from these feelings? Is it helping me or is the guilt turning into shame?

This can be a really triggering topic for people who have partners who are struggling with pornography and they’re really upset by it and really distressed by it. And there’s stuff going on under the surface there. There might be lying. There might be cheating. There might be subtle emotional abuse stuff. There’s all the patriarchal belief system. So there’s so much validation for these partners who are really struggling with their partner’s porn use, and this message can be really triggering to them.

And so if you do have a partner who is really struggling with this, I don’t want you to throw this in their face and say, see, Sara says I shouldn’t feel any shame about this. What I want you to do is I want you to use this for you and then have compassion, love, and just listen with your spouse.

So just like for you, your unwanted pornography use, and I’m speaking to a porn user, someone who’s using the pornography. Just like you have the unwanted porn use is the iceberg and all the stuff underneath is creating that, someone with a partner who is in a lot of distress around their partner’s porn use, it’s the same thing.

So there’s the porn use at the tip of the iceberg, but really what we want to look at is what’s underneath that because there are so many different relationship dynamics, right? Porn doesn’t automatically equal bad relationships. There are some people who use porn and they’re both great with it and fine with it, and it’s a good thing. There are others where it’s not. And so what’s underneath that? Is there lying? Is there betrayal? That’s tough. And yeah, that’s a wound that we need to work through.

Is there subtle emotional abuse that you’re not totally aware of? Is there coercion? Is there other stuff happening that your partner’s saying to you that’s really hurting? Like if you don’t have sex with me, I’m going to have to go get it somewhere else. Is what’s under the iceberg these patriarchal beliefs around women and their worth and that our worth derives from our ability to be not only sexual, but to also be virtuous and like this Madonna-whore complex, right?

There’s all these patriarchal wounding things that might be underneath this that make sense, that we can validate, that we can love and that deserve healing. And so I say this with, you know, there’s so much love and compassion and understanding and validation to partners who are struggling with their partner’s pornography use. And if you want to work through that, you deserve someone to help you who isn’t going to just say, we need to get over it.

And we also deserve someone who isn’t just going to demonize the pornography user, but let’s look at what’s going on. Is there betrayal trauma? Is there hurt? Are there subtle abuse tactics? What’s going on here? Are there patriarchal beliefs in this marriage where it’s not as much of a partnership as you want it to be and your partner’s porn use is just making that more clear?

Anyways, there’s so much to look at under the surface. And so again, I don’t want you to use this message against your partner if your partner is really having a tough time. What we want to do is we want to do independent healing. So you’re healing your stuff. Your partner’s healing their stuff. Some of the stuff that you’re learning about to heal with this might be really triggering for your partner. And some of the stuff that your partner is learning to heal themselves might be really triggering for you.

So we can separate that healing so that we can come together, hopefully, interdependently and work together and heal together interdependently after we’ve done this independent work.

Okay, so what’s missing from the quit porn industry is a very non-biased focus on removing shame. And what that’s done is it’s created more unwanted porn use for you. It has destroyed some of your identity beliefs. It’s created fear and panic that is completely unnecessary.

And I’m so sorry if you’re hearing this message and it’s hitting hard and you start to feel sadness and maybe some grief around the things that you have been taught that have created a lot of shame for you. You can quit porn without the shame. The reason that you’re viewing pornography is not because there’s something wrong with you or because you’re a bad person. Like I said, all the underneath iceberg stuff is what’s going on.

There’s nothing wrong with you. We just need to do some healing and look at what’s going on under there and see how we can create this healing from the inside out experience for you.

All right, you guys, I love you. I’m so grateful you’re here. Thank you for showing up for yourself. Thank you for listening. For those of you who are feeling called and like, “I’m ready to really get more help, I’m ready to dive in and do this in this way,” come join our program. We have the most amazing coaches. We have the most amazing process. There’s so much support there and the most amazing clients. You’ll connect with the people there really well. Come and join us, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. Would love, love, love to have you.

For those of you who are like, “I want to learn more but I’m not sure if I’m ready to come and join or I want to try out some of the free stuff first,” I have a really great free class at the end of this month. It’s going to be on, let’s see, on the 25th where we dive into a lot of these root issues a little bit more in depth. So make sure you’re on my email list because we’re going to be sending emails out about that. You can sign up for my email list on my website, sarabrewer.com.

One other thing, we have another new amazing coach who has some openings for one-on-one coaching. I don’t think I’ve even talked about that here on the podcast and I should have, but she has some spots. And you guys, she’s amazing. She is a master. She has so much experience and is just like a really perfect addition to my team. You’re going to love working with her.

If you’re interested in that, probably the best thing to do would be to email us at [email protected] or you can go to our private coaching page and you could submit a form to be considered for private coaching on that page as well.

All right, you guys have a great week. We’ll talk to you later.

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.