Episode 150: Ask a Coach: The Reality of Learning New Skills

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. 

Hi everyone, welcome to Overcome Pornography For Good. We are currently on a season break, and regular podcasting will resume January 1st. But we are still bringing you brand-new content every single week by sharing an Ask a Coach question and answer from me or from one of the other coaches in Overcome Pornography For Good. 

Ask a Coach is a feature in the program, in our program Overcome Pornography For Good, where you can come and you can submit questions or coaching and get a personalized response from a coach on our team. This is something that when you join you get lifetime access to and you can submit as many questions as you would like. 

You can submit 10 a day, 20 a day, you could come back down the road in three years and submit a question. You’ll always get answers, you’ll always get help and support via our portal through the Ask a Coach function in the program. So you can submit questions. If you’re struggling you can ask for help. You can submit your learn and move-ons or other worksheets. 

And so what we’re doing right now is we are picking and choosing a few of these to answer anonymously, of course, here on the podcast until we pick back up with regular programming on January 1st. And I think you’re going to love it, it’s going to be so helpful and so good. And you get to hear from all the other coaches. 

So before we hop in I do want to talk about a brand-new free resource that I have for you all that’s perfect to announce during this podcast break. It is called the Podcast Roadmap. What this is, is it’s a roadmap of all of the key podcast episodes. With around 150 episodes, that can feel really overwhelming if you’re new to the podcast. So what we did is we created a roadmap. 

Here’s 12 of the most important episodes to listen to. You can listen to them in order or not, but we have those listed out for you and linked for you and you can sign up for that and get that in your inbox for free at sarabrewer.com/podcastroadmap. No spaces, no dashes, Podcast Roadmap. 

I really hope that you guys will go and take advantage of this. Even if you’ve been a longtime listener and you’re using this podcast break to maybe catch up on episodes, go and download the Podcast Roadmap to re-listen to those most important episodes. 

We also have our free masterclass that’s always available if you want just the quick and easy version of how do I quit porn, that’s sarabrewer.com/masterclass. It’s just an hour long, it’ll walk you through the process. It keeps it short and simple. 

And then, of course, we always have our program open. So you can come and join and work with us. You can start getting answers to your Ask a Coach questions, you can come and get coaching. Remember, it’s a lifetime access, so we’ve got the modules and all of the work for you to do in the program, the milestones to complete. 

And then you have lifetime access to coaching calls. We have multiple coaching calls every single week. We have specialized marriage calls, relationship calls, support calls. We have regular coaching calls, which are the ones that I do. We have calls on each individual milestone. Anyways, there’s so much in there. I won’t go into all of those details here, but you can see all the details of the program, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. 

All right, you guys, enjoy these Ask a Coach Q&As. 

Tina: Hey everyone, this is Tina from Overcome Pornography For Good. Today’s Ask a Coach question is, “I’ve been laser-focusing on processing urges the last couple of months. And I do think I’ve made a lot of progress. When I’m at home I buffer with porn and when I’m away I buffer with food. I’ve been tracking urges processed for both of these activities and setting clear intentions for myself. But even though I’ve been making progress, lately I’ve been in a state of panic. 

Time moves by so fast and I constantly feel as though I’m barely grasping on and just getting to the next thing. I can only focus on so many things and when processing urges takes up this much attention, the other goals are sidelined. 

Showing up to work, to household tasks, to friendships and other relationships all feel like gargantuan tasks that I’m barely able to keep up with. Forget about bigger goals or even staying informed on the news. Basically, everything feels really, really difficult, even the things I used to think were easy. It doesn’t seem sustainable and it’s not the life I want for myself.” 

Okay, and here’s the answer. You’re developing new skills right now. And those skills take time to feel natural and comfortable. Do you know how to drive? Remember when you learned how to drive a car and all of the so many things that you had to think about to operate the car. Like just sitting inside the car and operating all the things in the car. 

And then you had to also navigate the road signs outside of the car. And the other drivers that were outside of you, and they were driving next to you and maybe coming up towards you. Or maybe they were not even following the traffic laws and you had to deal with that. And possibly you even had a parent or a driving instructor in the passenger seat that was yelling at you and telling you that you were doing it wrong. 

That is a lot. Think about how this is kind of the same thing that you’re doing right now. You are learning a new skill. Your brain has to work so hard to learn a new skill. And our brains do not like to work hard. In fact, our brains love to do things that are easy and to just put things on autopilot. 

If you’ve been driving for a while, you know that you can drive to a place that you’ve been quite often, you know that you can probably drive there without really even being conscious. That’s how much your brain has gone on autopilot with driving. Your brain loves to do things that you already know. 

One of our brain’s jobs is to conserve calories. And learning a new skill, like processing urges, uses up a lot of calories. It’s a lot of brainpower. And then, let’s just add on top of that, that what you’re working to change is a coping skill, a way that you have learned how to feel better and cope with the stresses of life. 

So not only are you burning a lot of calories with your brain power learning a new skill, but you’re also taking away the thing that you would usually use in order to feel better. That’s a lot. That’s a lot on your plate. So just acknowledge that to yourself. Give yourself a little bit of compassion and understanding that you are doing really hard things right now. 

So, what if you took a really big, deep breath and you took really good care of yourself right now? What if you prioritized sleep, eating healthy food, drinking lots of water, deep breathing so you can give your body plenty of oxygen? What if you take care of your emotions by being very kind and compassionate with yourself? And what if you prioritize human connections with people that you love? 

Maybe this isn’t the time to take on other goals, or to keep up with the news or to take on a big project at home or at work, because you are a human, not a robot. So these ways of taking care of yourself don’t have to take a ton of time. But they should be a priority as your brain learns a different way of taking care of you and different coping skills and you just are working on getting better at this skill. 

You can prioritize things like going to work and taking care of your responsibilities during the day, but when you have really taken the time to care for your own wellbeing and be kind and compassionate with yourself first, you’ll find that you have a lot more energy to take care of those other things that are feeling overwhelming to you right now. 

Think of it like when you’re on the airplane and they’re telling you, okay, in case the air pressure drops, the cabin pressure drops and the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, make sure you put yours on first before you try to help anybody else because you need your oxygen in order to be able to do anything, take care of yourself or anybody else. So think of this as really taking care of yourself, as putting on your own oxygen mask right now. 

So maybe find a mantra or something that you can just say to yourself that helps you to remember what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and is very encouraging. And here’s just some ideas. It could be something like, I take care of myself while I do hard things. It won’t always be this hard. I’m a powerful creator in my own life. I am developing empowered compassion for myself. 

Those are just some ideas, but what feels good to you and what sounds like your voice to say to you that will help you to remember and stay focused and to remember what you’re prioritizing right now. When you purposefully direct your brain towards what you want it to focus on, you’ll feel less overwhelmed and more in control of your own life. 

Okay, everybody, thanks for being here. We’ll see you next week.

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.