Episode 84: Success Circle with Tina

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 84, Success Circle with Tina. 

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.

Sara: Hey you guys, welcome to the podcast episode this week. I’m so excited to have Tina on the podcast again. You may have heard her, have you been in two other episodes or just one?

Tina: Well I think we’ve recorded two, but one for my podcast and another one for yours.

Sara: Okay, that’s right.

Tina: I think I’ve been on your podcast one other time with Kat.

Sara: Okay, cool. So yeah, Tina is a coach in Overcome Pornography for Good. If you’re in the program I’m sure you’ve seen her and been coached by her in group coaching calls. She does a lot of work in the Ask a Coach board. She’s just awesome. She is seriously the best. And her clients who coach with her privately just love her. She helps them so much.

So do you want to introduce yourself a little?

Tina: That’s so nice, that’s so nice of you to say that. I love that. Yeah, so I’ve been a coach for several years now, and I’ve been working for you for, I think we just hit the one year mark.

Sara: Oh, we need to have an anniversary party.

Tina: I know, right? But I also coach in my own business. I help family relationships, so I love to coach people struggling in their family relationships. Like relationship coaching is super important to me just because I think our families are struggling and if we had these tools that we could use to strengthen our relationships and understand each other better and understand ourselves better, I think it just all plays into the strength and the strong foundation for families.

So that’s what I do in my own business. But I also love using the tools, and so many of them overlap with the tools we use in your coaching program, in overcoming pornography and in what I do with families.

Sara: Yeah, I love that. If you think about what you help people with, those are big powerful things.

Tina: Yeah.

Sara: See, I help people with their relationships and then also quitting habits like porn. So valuable.

Tina: Yeah. And it’s funny to see, well funny is maybe not the right word. But it’s interesting to see how often I coach on pornography has to do with relationships back to family of origin, the way that you’re feeling about yourself, like the relationship you’re having with yourself is a huge one. Just  like relationships to everything, they coincide, they overlap.

I can remember a few months ago on one of the group calls I actually coached one of the members on his relationship with his stepfather, stemming back to when he was a small child and how that was playing into his pornography problem today. So super interesting how much they overlap.

Sara: Yeah, and I think people listening to this wouldn't be surprised with that. I think when you really think about your porn habit or just stuff that's going on, relationships are a big part of that. Either relationships, maybe trauma from past, or just how you think about yourself, or even relationships with your spouses today and how that has an effect on things.

Tina: Absolutely. For sure.

Sara: Yeah, cool. So what we're going to talk about today, I invited Tina on to talk about the success circle. This is something that she's been talking about in the program. She just recorded a little video for us in the program about this, she has been talking to her clients about it. And I love the way that she introduces this concept, and I thought it would be so valuable for you, my podcast listeners, to hear.

So Tina, can you introduce us to the success circle and give us like a big overview of what that is?

Tina: Yeah. So there's three parts to the success circle. The first part is the program itself. The second part is coaching. And the third part is you, it's your personal responsibility.

Sara: Okay. Yeah, and the idea is like we need all of these parts to find success in quitting porn, and really in anything, right? Of course this applies to everything, but specifically for those of you with this goal to quitting porn, we need these three parts, and they all need to be working together. If you just have like two of them, it's not really going to help as much.

Tina: Not as effective.

Sara: Yeah, not as effective. And especially the you part, if you don't have that, you can't do it at all. So we'll dive into them and talk about them specifically. But those three, it's the program or just knowledge, coaching, and you. So do you want to start us off with, what's the first one? The program?

Tina: The program, yeah. So the program that you have put together has so much really vital, important information. And I think it's information that is not commonly talked about, really in a lot of places. And especially people that are coming into the program are saying things like, “I've never heard things like this before. I'm learning so much.”

And I think that information is really vital in overcoming pornography because it teaches you skills to develop that will help you to deal with the reasons that you're turning to pornography. So there's such great skills taught in the program itself, and that's the knowledge portion.

Sara: Yeah, and that's what a lot of people get hear from the podcast too. And I hear that all the time is, “Dang, knowing this is so much more helpful than the other ways that I've been taught how to quit porn.” I did a podcast episode on, I talked about the paddleboard example for those of you who listened to it, and how if your paddleboard is backwards you're not going to be able to go where you need to go. We need to turn it around.

And that's what the knowledge portion is, that's what the program portion is. It's telling you, okay, we're not going to use willpower. We're not going to use the all or nothing. We're not going to shame ourselves. We're going to teach you how to quit porn. You don't need to be told to quit porn anymore, you need to be taught how to.

Tina: Yes. And I love the fact that it works with your body and with your brain, and just re-training your brain to work the way we should have been taught many years ago. But we just didn't know these things that we know now. We didn't know this so many years ago.

So it works with the body and with the brain, rather than trying to willpower your way through something that only has a limited time span and a limited amount.

Sara: Yeah, I love that. And you said like this part is kind of fun.

Tina: It is. The learning and consuming and just like knowledge, like one of the things that I love to do is to consume information. And to learn new things. And to just feel like, man, I'm growing so much because I've learned all these things.

It’s kind of like general conference weekend when you just get dumped on. I will say though, by Sunday afternoon my brain is kind of full and I'm not really taking in new information. But I remember just learning so much and I feel so good about the things that I've taken in this weekend.

Sara: Yeah. Where do you think the, what's the word like? Like, where do we need to be careful with this? If this is all we're doing, we're only focused on the program aspect or the knowledge or the learning, why isn't that as useful? Why could that be a problem?

Tina: It's really easy to get stuck in the consuming mode because it does feel so good and because it feels like you're making progress because you're learning more. But it doesn't actually change anything just by knowing something.

I have a relative of mine who has been trying to lose weight. He's probably at least 100 pounds overweight and he’s been trying to lose weight for 15 plus years. And knows just about everything there is to know about weight loss. Has read every single book, has researched every different type of diet, and lifestyle change, and plan, and whatever comes out. Knows all of that stuff, but has not been able to take off the weight because knowledge itself doesn't change anything.

Sara: Yeah, yeah. Which kind of leads us into this next, the next parts of the success circle. There's coaching, and I will say I get messages from people that are like, “I know, I know this stuff. I've listened to your podcast. I've heard this, I know the answer you're going to tell me, but I'm not doing it,” Or whatever. And so let's talk about coaching. That's the second part of the success circle. Tell us about that.

Tina: Yeah, so coaching, especially, with coaching we can really get to the root of the problem very quickly. We all have blind spots for ourselves in our own lives. And it's really hard to see what's going on for us when we're in our own life and we're so blinded by things that have been in our way for a long time.

A coach that's trained like we are can come in and doesn't have those same blind spots. So a coach comes in and sees like, can hone in on the problem really quickly and point things out to you that you've never seen before. Or maybe ask you a question of something that you've never considered before, and that you would not be able to come up with on your own.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: Another thing coaching does is we really, we hold a lot of space. We allow people to come however they are and just kind of dump out all of their stuff. And then we just kind of look at it in a totally non-judgmental way and we just kind of look at how is that creating where you are right now? And how can we start picking these things apart one at a time to help you get to the place that you want to be?

You can't really do that on your own. A coach needs to help you, can see things that you can't see.

Sara: Yeah, and I mean, even me, I've been doing this for a long time, I've been so obsessed with it, I love it. But then there's stuff that I, like even though I know, I have all the knowledge, I need a coach to help me with things still because of the blinders I have on.

And I think it's interesting too to point out that I have my friend hat, and my daughter hat, and my parent hat. And when I'm talking to a friend about issues, it's very different than when I'm talking to someone as a coach. With a friend I'm like super validating, and I do that as a coach, too. But I kind of get pulled into the drama a little bit and then I have my own thoughts about it.

And it's just very different from a coach perspective, where my only goal is to help them get to the root of the problem. Non-judgmental, but also kind of telling you how it is, in a loving way. It's very different than a friend hat.

Tina: Yeah. In fact, when my friends do come and talk to me, I'm like, “Okay, do you want me to talk to you like a friend? Or do you want me to talk to you like a coach right now?” Because those are two different ways of me going forward with this conversation.

Sara: Yeah, I think sometimes a lot of times people are like, “Oh, a coach, well, they're just going to sit here and tell me you can do it. You can do it. Yeah, you got it. You got it.”

Tina: Nope, that’s not what we do.

Sara: No.

Tina:  Actually, I think it's really challenging to be coached. You get really challenged on things that you've thought for a long time, things that you believe are true, but maybe you get to question them. And that feels kind of threatening sometimes.

Showing up to being coached is no joke. It is tricky. It's difficult, it’s uncomfortable. But it also can move the dial so quickly when you’re willing to open yourself up and let yourself get coached.

Sara: Yeah, it's very different. I was telling Tina this example before we started talking, having a coach is like having someone really walk you through things and help you specifically. And I'm also thinking like one on one coaching, because this is something I talked about last week, we're opening up some more one on one coaching spots. So for those of you who are interested in that, we're going to be opening for you.

But I remember when I was 12 years old I took my mom snowboarding. I'd been doing snowboarding since I was eight, I’d had a number of lessons, a couple years of lessons, I was pretty good at it. My mom said, “Hey, that looks pretty fun. I want to learn how to snowboard.” And I said, “Okay, come with me.”

And so I get her a snowboard and we go up the mountain and we get to the top and I get off the lift and I say, “Okay, see ya. I'll see you at the bottom. Bye. Love you.” She's sitting there like, “What?” Anyways, we laugh about this now, I was not a very considerate 12 year old because I just took off and left and left her up there all by herself.

And she couldn't do it. She couldn't do it. For anyone who's gone snowboarding before, like that first time you go is no joke. It takes time to learn. You're falling on your butt a bunch, it's really difficult, the hills are big, it's intimidating.

And so what she ended up doing is taking off her snowboard and just walking down the hill. And she said it was so embarrassing because all these like teenagers on the lift were looking down and going like, “Hey, lady, why you walking?”

And she ended up the second part of the afternoon she took a lesson and she had someone come up and guide her and hold her hand and help her and take her the beginner routes and show her the things and tell her, “Hey, you're leaning too far backwards, we need to lean a little bit more forwards.” And pointing out these things to her that she didn't know.

I think that's such a good example, right? Like she could have listened to me, give her all the information on how to snowboard, told her how to do it. But that's way different than actually doing it, getting on the board, and doing it.

Tina: Yeah. She could have read tons of books or like watched YouTube videos or listened to podcasts about how to snowboard, but until you get on there and somebody's like, “Oh, you're leaning too far backwards.” Like, how would you know that? That would be so hard to figure out that on your own.

Sara: Yeah. And an example of this that I just saw last week on our coaching call I was a client said, “Well, I'm telling myself it's okay and I'm going to be okay.” And he's using all these techniques that I've taught in the program and in the podcast to overcome shame. But he was actually using that against himself. He was using that to justify.

And so we had to make some course correction. So, yeah, it's okay, you're going to be okay and you're going to figure it out. But if you're using those thoughts and you're using those tools to justify yourself, you're going to keep viewing more porn. And so it's just little things like that, where there's a lot of personal application and you need someone to help you course correct.

Tina: Yeah. Well, I was coaching a client recently and he was telling me like, “I don't ever follow through with my word to myself. I just don't trust myself.” Which is pretty common for us to hear.

Sara: Totally.

Tina: And as we were talking, I was like, “Why do you keep telling yourself that you're not trustworthy? What if that's not true?” And we explored all the ways that he is trustworthy, and he does live into his word to himself. But he literally couldn't see those things until I said, let's stop looking at the ways that you think you aren't and let's start looking at the ways that you are so you can stop believing that you're not a trustworthy person that doesn't ever keep his word to himself, because that's not true.

Sara: And he couldn't understand that or couldn't see it, because he just didn't have that awareness. And that's awareness that only a coach can offer you.

Tina: Yeah.

Sara: So good, I love that. I also love to think about Olympians who are the best of the best of the best of the best. They still have coaches.

Tina: Yes, and sometimes more than one.

Sara: Yeah, oftentimes more than one.

Tina: Yeah. And you and I still have coaches, sometimes more than one.

Sara: Yeah, it’s just like something you do that's such a powerful tool, especially in our world with the coaching industry getting so big and so many people really benefiting from it. It's just a really powerful tool to implement. And if there's ever anything, and we'll talk about this, well, maybe this is a good lead into the next section.

But if there's anything that I want to change, I found the quickest way to do it is to hire a coach. I just really believe in it and it's just so helpful. Is there anything else you want to say about coaching?

Tina: Well, I think that coaching is a huge portion of that success circle. I think it's a vital piece. I don't want people, though, to go away thinking I have to hire a one on one coach. Because for some people that financially just isn't feasible because it is quite an investment. You can get very similar coaching through the Ask a Coach board and through the group calls.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: So if you're financially not able to invest in the one on one, take full advantage of those other avenues that you have by being a member of the program. Because those are going to help you so much, don't discount the coaching portion of what's available to you.

Sara: Yeah, that's so helpful. Thank you. And let me mention too, for those who might not know much about the program, we offer weekly coaching calls where anyone can hop on. And then Ask a Coach board where you can go in and ask and get coached through email. And then there's also the private coaching option, which is what we were talking about a little bit.

For those who are interested in private coaching and are considering, do you have any thoughts for them? Why is that beneficial? And what have you seen with your one on one clients that might be helpful for them to think about?

Tina: Yeah, good question. I think if you are wanting to get really specific feedback, if you're wanting to just be able to have a half an hour every week where you just focus on yourself and you have someone else just focused on you, showing you how you're holding yourself back or opening your mind up to different avenues of success, things that you hadn't considered. Like if you want that super concentrated, one on one attention, and you want your progress to go maybe a little bit faster because of it, that's a really great reason to do one on one.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: And I think those are probably the biggest reasons that I see. Well, and I've had also a couple of clients who, like we were talking about before, they've been in the program for a little while. They've been able to work through, they've loved going through the program, they made a certain amount of progress.

But then they got stalled and they weren't sure why they got stalled and they're not able to see how to move forward. So they're like, “Okay, I need to add in the one on one coaching.” And so I've had a couple of clients come to me that way.

Sara: Yeah, cool. Thank you, that's helpful. Okay, and then let's talk about the last part of the success circle. So again, the first one was the program, that's really knowledge. Knowledge, program. The second is coaching. And the third one is you. So tell us about that part.

Tina: Well, I saw over time that a lot of my clients were thinking that if they just came into the program, that was going to be like the magic bullet that solves this problem for them. And if they signed up for one on one coaching, then that was going to solve the problem for them. Or if they just learned the tools in the program.

If they just had that missing piece, like there's just some missing piece that they needed, that was going to make the difference. But then they were giving all of the responsibility to the program or to the coaching, and then showing up at their coaching session the next week, and saying, “Well, I don't know. I just don't know what it is. Isn't this supposed to solve my problem for me?”

And I was like, this can help you. This is such a vital piece of it, but you have some personal responsibility here. You have to actually do the work and show up and be willing to be uncomfortable. And I think uncomfortable sometimes is a mild word for what we're asking people to do.

Sara: That’s a good point. That's a good point.

Tina: I think it's extreme discomfort is sometimes what happens. Sometimes it is uncomfortable to allow an urge and to not answer it and to try to process emotion. Sometimes it's extremely uncomfortable.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: And so being willing to allow that is the personal responsibility. And sometimes they stopped showing up in the program, they stop showing up for coaching calls, they stop showing up in group calls. So that also, just it's consistency over time, and being willing to see even the smallest amount of progress and keep moving towards that and be willing to move forward.

Sara: Yeah, so the you part is really like how you're showing up, the responsibility you're taking. But then not just the responsibility for doing the work, but the responsibility in your belief in yourself, which is kind of what I'm hearing you say.

Tina: Yeah, absolutely.

Sara: Because we can coach you, and help you, and I can give you all these examples of why you should believe in stuff. But until you're actually willing to really sit down and be like, no, I'm committing to believing here in myself that I can do this, you're not going to make progress until you have that moment for yourself.

Tina: Yeah. Let's just go back to the example with your mom and the snowboarding.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: If your mom had gone to that lesson in the afternoon and she had gone, “I can't do this. I'm not a snowboarder. There's just no way I can make it down this hill.” And she hadn't been willing to try or to believe that it was possible for her. And if she had just looked at the instance in the morning when you left her at the top of the hill, and she had tried to find her way down and it didn't work out so well.

She might be going back to that and saying, “I can't do this. Look, this just happened to me this morning. I can't do this, I'm not a snowboarder. This is not going to help.” But she believed that with the right knowledge and the right person to help her figure it out, then she could get down.

Sara: Yeah, I love that. And it’s so funny. Okay, there were a number of other things I wanted to talk about here, but I don't remember. So let me look. Your belief, your focus. Okay.

Yeah, and one thing that's interesting is there's a balance, right? Because a lot of people too maybe focus too much on the you and it's all on me, and I'm going to figure this out on myself. And getting a teacher isn't really going to help me, learning more isn't going to help me, I just have to be stronger. It's all me. That's just an example of why you need all three parts of this.

If it's just the you, it's also going to be really difficult to make progress. But if you're missing the you, you’re like, “Okay, I joined this program, now it's just all going to be taken care of for me.” That's a big problem too.

Tina: Two ends of the spectrum.

Sara: Yes. Yeah, we want to find the middle ground here.

Tina: Yeah.

Sara: Something that I see people too, tell me if you've seen this. But sometimes people, they say they want to quit viewing porn and there's probably a part of them that does, there really is. There's part of them that does, but then they also join the program as a way to make them feel like they're making progress without actually making progress.

So kind of saying, “Well, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying.” But not really doing the inner work to actually try and to actually make it happen. I don't see this a ton, but I do see this occasionally. Does that make sense?

Tina: Yeah, I do. I also don't see that a ton. I think most of the people that are here, really do want to figure it out. But we do have clients once in a while that will show up and it's like, I think that also they're the ones that want the program to do the work for them often.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: Instead of doing the work themselves.

Sara: Yeah, I guess I just say that for any listeners who, well and I don't know if anyone listening to this wouldn't be in this camp, to be honest. Maybe a spouse listening to this, their spouse might be in this camp. But if you're doing it for someone else and not really for yourself, you're doing it because your bishop says you need to, or because your wife says you need to figure it out, that's not really going to help you.

Tina: And I think those people fall into the camp of like, I'm just doing this so that they'll get off my back, or so that I can feel like I'm worthy at church, or so that I won't have to talk about it anymore with so and so.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: It's like when you are not doing it for yourself, it's going to be a really hard road for you to try to overcome pornography.

Sara: Yeah, you're not going to be able to.

Tina: Even if the person that you're doing it for is so important to you, like a spouse. You still have to find that internal reason of like, this is why I'm doing this for me. And when you do things for you, and you show up with your own willingness to grow, and to move forward, and to deal with things in your life that maybe aren't as healthy as you want them to be, then you show up in your marriage so much stronger.

Sara: Yeah. Yeah, such a good point, I love that. And then for those of you listening who might be spouses, we also offer this one on one coaching to spouses too. And so I actually don't know if I've talked with you about this, Tina.

Tina: I don’t think we have.

Sara: So, yeah, so if you are a spouse of someone and maybe you just want some help, we can help you too. And Tina can help you with that, she's really good at the relationships. And we also have Jessica who's coming in who is really great at the relationship aspect of this.

And then, of course, we have the monthly calls that are totally free if you're in the program, or if your spouse is in the program, with Lindsey, monthly coaching calls on relationships and marriage. So anyways, I won’t talk much more about that.

But I do want to say one thing that has helped me so much with coaching programs, is my mindset and my belief in myself. And I might have talked about this in previous episodes, but I have gotten to the point where whenever I join a program, I decide the result that I want to get out of it, and then I get it.

And I trust myself, I've gotten to this point, I've worked on my relationship with myself a lot, where I really do trust myself to get the result that I want to. And if you're at a point where you don't really trust yourself to do that, come and join the program, we can help you with that. That is probably one of the biggest aspects of quitting porn, is learning how to trust yourself again. That's something you can learn.

But for example, even just a couple this year that I have joined, there was one program that was a $3,000 group program. And the result that I wanted, and I'm going to be a little broad here, I'm not going to get into all the specifics, maybe someday I'll tell a little bit more about this. But the result I wanted was that I wanted to feel empowered about a specific life decision that I was making.

And after just a couple of months, and I think it was like a four or five month program. After a couple of months, I had seen some really big shifts in myself. And from that moment on I knew it was worth it, it was worth it to me. I was like, yes, I'm so glad I joined this program, got just what I needed and everything else is bonus.

Another example is I joined a business program to help me simplify my business. And it was like a 10k investment with just where I'm at in life that was really worth it for me to get 10 hours back each week. I was like, yes, that investment is worth that result that I want.

And then, again, it was a similar experience where after a couple months, even though it was like a yearlong program, after a couple of months I really got that. And I was like yes, that was worth it. Even though I didn't use the whole year of stuff, I got the result I wanted, that was worth it to me. I’m glad I did that and everything else is bonus.

But that really helps me when I'm joining programs, is to decide the result that I want and then I just trust myself and I make sure I'm going to get it. And I do that by first just making sure I trust the program and I trust the container. But the most important aspect of this is recognizing that that result is on me. And no one else can get that but me. And when I'm laser focused in on that result and working on the belief to get that result, it's just like magic.

It's just magic. The container, plus the coaching, plus me, I love that it's called the success circle. I love that.

Tina: I love how you said it's up to you to get the result that you want. And the result you want didn't depend on somebody else doing something so that you could get the results.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: So often we see somebody want a result that has, if you're looking at the model, a result that has something to do with another person, you don't have control over that other person. And I see this a lot in relationship coaching. Like I want to show up this way and then have this person think or feel this way about me. Well, you don't have control over that.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: But you do have control over how you view yourself and the relationship you have with yourself and the way that you show up in a relationship. And that's, like that's your power.

Sara: Yes, I love that.

Tina: That's the most important thing.

Sara: Yeah. It’s so empowering to focus on what you want and getting that instead of relying on other people to get that for you.

Tina: But I love how you said trust the container. Because you could go into a program you knew nothing about, and it would be nothing that was even able to get you the result that you were wanting. But you do enough research to know, okay, this is the right program for me.

Sara: Yes.

Tina: This has the information, the coaching, the tools that I need to help me get this result that I want.

Sara: Yes, totally. Exactly.

Tina: And Sara Brewer’s Overcome Pornography For Good makes a bold, that's a bold claim, to overcome pornography for good. But the tools are there, the pieces are there to help you do that.

Sara: Yeah. Yeah, it works. That's what I tell people. I'm like, it works. These tools work, they always work. They're very powerful and we have quite a few interviews with people who have gone through it if you want to go listen to those. They're called the What's Possible Series, look for any episodes.

Tina: I listened to those. Two of them were my clients, it was so fun to hear them talk about how they got to where they are.

Sara: Yeah. Do you remember who they were?

Tina: Sam and Canon.

Sara: Yeah, okay. Sam and Canon, so go and listen to those two especially if you're considering doing this one on one coaching and you want to hear a specific client experience, they're really powerful.

Tina: Yeah, they were great. Great clients too.

Sara: Yeah, cool. And I love this, this success circle too, it shows clients how they can be the best client too, like for the program.

Tina: Yes, I think when you go into, I do the success circle on the first appointment with all of my one on one clients because I want them to realize these are the different pieces that you need to be aware of that are going to help you to get to where you want to be. So let's not ignore any one of those pieces, let's make sure that they're all there and helping you to achieve your goals.

Sara: Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Very clear.

Tina: Yeah.

Sara: Okay, cool. I love it. Anything else you want to share, Tina?

Tina: I do have one other thing, and I think it's something that really has to be not discounted, is that some people come in and they see results right away and they make tons of progress right away. And other people, I think a lot of people make little incremental progress towards their goal.

And sometimes when they see people that are making progress really quickly, they can get frustrated and think that there's something wrong with them, or this doesn't work for me, or they tell themselves all the things that are then just going to discourage them. And they're going to want to quit and not keep moving forward.

But I know as you keep going and keep looking for those small successes, no matter how small they are, and keep moving towards those, if you just keep going and get coaching when you get discouraged. And do some coaching on yourself too, you're going to get to where you want to be.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: So don't get discouraged by comparing yourself to somebody else. We all want to compare ourselves to somebody that's doing so much better than we are, than we see that we're doing. But I think we all make our progress at the time and the place when we're ready to do it. So let yourself make the progress that you're ready to make.

Sara: Yeah, thank you for saying that. Yeah, that's helpful. I wish I could like draw my board and let you all see it. But that's something that I will draw a lot, sometimes we think the graph is just, okay, here we go, all the way up. We'll make all this progress quickly.

But what it actually looks like is, like you said, those small little pieces of progress and up, and then maybe a little down, and then up, and then maybe a little down, up, maybe a little bit down. We're never going right back to the beginning, we're never going all the way back down. But it is just like this line that's a little squiggly instead of a line that's straight.

Tina: It's not a straight line.

Sara: No, it's not. And that's okay, and that's the process and that's not a problem. And so if we can start with switching that mindset of all or nothing, I talk about this all the time, all, or nothing. We're quitting, we're doing it quickly, to small progress, gathering data, continuing to go, consistency. Making it like easy enough so that you can be consistent at it instead of like really intense for short periods of time and then giving up.

Tina: Yeah, before I became a coach I was a music teacher for many years.

Sara: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Tina: Yeah, I don't know if I ever told you that. But If you have a child that comes to a lesson once a week and then they never do anything from week to week, like they don't actually make progress. You have to be showing up consistently to practice your instrument every day or at least several times a week to make progress.

And it's slow. And sometimes it's frustrating. And sometimes it's really hard. And sometimes it's discouraging. But you keep going. But I think about like, especially for those people that it's taking longer than they thought it was going to and they're seeing success come in really small ways, think about the meta skills that that person is developing as they go through this and stick through not just doing the hard thing, but stick through the time, like the length of time that it's taking.

Sara: Yes.

Tina: And having the dedication to stick through that. And those, like meta skills are things that carry over into every part of your life. So this is not just about overcoming pornography. It's actually being able to do anything that's hard and stick with it and trust yourself to keep going through the process of getting to where you want to be.

Sara: Yeah, so good. That's one of our mantras, this is about so much more, about so much more than quitting porn.

Tina: Yes.

Sara: And I also have this image in my mind of a flower or something growing in the ground. When you plant that seed, you don't see anything, but all the roots are being are growing below it. They're getting deeper, they're getting stronger. And then after a while, that's when you start to see it budding and popping up. 

Tina: Oh my gosh, do you have time for one more story?

Sara: Yes.

Tina: Okay. Do you know about the Chinese bamboo tree?

Sara: No.

Tina: Okay, this is awesome. I love this story. I told this on my podcast because I think it's just such a great analogy for what we have to experience in life.

So the Chinese bamboo tree is really, it's like an amazing tree, but it doesn't grow like other trees do. So like a farmer would plant a seed and it has to have fertile soil, and water, and sunshine. And the farmer will water the seed for a long period of time.

So like the first year the farmer is making sure that it still has fertilizer, and sun, and water. And he doesn't see anything come above ground for a year. And then year two, same thing has to happen. Year three, same thing. Can you imagine watering a seed for three years and not seeing any results?

Sara: Oh my gosh, after six months I would be done.

Tina: Even six months, I don’t think most people would even last six months.

Sara: Right.

Tina: But it takes until five years.

Sara: Wow.

Tina: It takes five years of watering this seed for you to see any growth above ground. But in the fifth year, or the sixth year, it can grow up to 90 feet in six weeks.

Sara: Dang, 90 feet?

Tina: Yes, it's amazing.

Sara: Oh my gosh, I'm trying to even imagine how high 90 feet is.

Tina: The thing is that like all that time that you were watering, it wasn't doing nothing. It didn't just like, “Oh, this person has shown up for five years now, I think I'll grow.” That's not what happens. It's developing these really, really deep, strong roots.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: And that foundation, that root system is what allows it to grow so quickly, so fast, and so high. And if at any time, like that farmer had stopped watering, stopped fertilizing, just stopped caring for it, it would have died. He never would have seen the growth. If they had like, “I don't know what's happening here. Let me dig it up and see.” He would have disturbed the roots and probably killed it.

So you have to just keep on trusting in the process, trusting in the showing up and being consistent that you're going to get the growth that you want. It might just take a little longer than you think.

Sara: I love that example. That is fascinating. And it reminds me of one of my first clients, Koji, where I was just doing like eight week one on one coaching at that time. And all we did was work on his image of himself and shame and the story he was telling about himself. Like, that's really all we worked on.

And then six months down the road he was like, “I've quit porn, I feel so much better. I cannot believe the success I've had.” And the only thing we worked on was that belief in himself. And that just created so much change for him. He contributed all this of his success to those weeks of learning how to do that. That’s what that reminds me of.

Tina: Yeah, I love that. And those are the seeds that you have to water.

Sara: Yeah.

Tina: The seeds of what do I believe about myself? What am I willing to do? How am I going to keep showing up? What do I think is possible for me? You know, those are the seeds that need to keep being watered for you to make that progress.

Sara: Yeah, so good. Oh, so good. I love it.

Tina: I love that story.

Sara: I do too. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with all of us and you just rock.

Tina: Thanks, Sara, you do too. I love working for Sara Brewer Coaching.

Sara: Yeah, I love having you work for me. And then for those of you who are ready to do some one on one coaching, there's Tina, there's a handful of other coaches in there that are just seriously like, and Tina can attest to this, my hiring process is not easy.

I just took it really, really seriously. And really make sure that the coaches that come to work with me have my same values, have same trainings, we've all gone through the same trainings, including just finished up some trauma informed coach training. And then every week I do trainings with them, and we really just hone everything in there.

They're perfect, perfect fits for, if you like what you hear in the podcast, you will love doing one on one coaching with them. And then, of course, when you join there's always coaching with me every single week too. So you can sign up for that at sarabrewer.com/waitlist, and then we'll send out more information on those spots in the next week or so.

Okay. All right.

Tina: Thanks for having me on today, Sara.

Sara: Yeah, thank you for being here.

Okay you guys, have a great week, we’ll talk to you later, bye bye. 

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free training called How to Quit Viewing Pornography Even if You've Tried in the Past. If you like the podcast, you will love this free training. We talk about, number one, how to not rely on willpower or phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography.

Number two, how to guarantee that you won't fail no matter how many times you've tried in the past. And number three, how to feel good about yourself while becoming someone who doesn't struggle with pornography. You can access this training at sarabrewer.com/masterclass.