Episode 141: Season Break & Suffering vs Pain

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 141, Season Break & Suffering vs Pain.

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 this week’s episode. I recently got back from Dallas for a mastermind with the school that I was certified in. And I went there and I went to this specific event to get an award. I got a really big award that I’m super proud of. I got a Two Comma Club Award and there were just three of us out of, I think there are thousands of people certified in this school. And there were three of us that got it this year. 

And it was a big deal. And I was so excited about it. And I feel really, really proud of me and my team and what this means about the impact that we’re having in the world and what this means about all the people that we’re helping and all the great resources that we’re putting out, and just what this means about Overcome Pornography For Good. I’m just super proud and super excited about it. 

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll see my social media manager, who is also my executive assistant and does all the things for me, she’s absolutely amazing. She messaged me and she said, have fun on your trip, please post. Please post about what you’re doing and post about your award. I’m like you want me to post about my award? And she said yes. 

She said, yes, posting about it shows you’re dedicated and qualified. I’m like, okay? Anyways, it just was a little uncomfortable for whatever I think people are going to make that mean or if I think people are going to judge me. It’s just so funny what our brains do, how they are so afraid of judgment. They don’t want to share anything, even anything good. That’s how I feel, especially on social media. I get a lot of gross comments on social media. 

And so I was like, okay, I’ll share to show that I’m dedicated and qualified. And so it kind of became a joke throughout the week when I was sharing stories, just being dedicated and qualified. Look, I’m dedicated and qualified. Look, here’s my award, I’m dedicated and qualified. 

But anyways, it was awesome. So fun to get that award. And a really cool moment, I totally manifested it and worked my butt off for it. So really cool. I’m very happy about that. 

So the other big news is that we’re going into a season break. I have done 141 episodes and we are going to take three months off of regular programming. So I am not going to be doing any more episodes until January 1st. 

Now, we are still going to have brand new content for you every single week. They’re going to be short episodes, five to 10 minutes, and they’re going to be my coaches or I answering Ask A Coach questions. And when those are released I’ll talk more about what those are and give you more details. 

So we will have short little episodes every single week for the next couple of months until we get back on regular programming. But yeah, so I guess this is officially the end of season one, if we want to call it that. Not every season that I do is going to be 141 episodes, though. I’ll probably do three months on, three months off, three months on, three months off and do Ask A Coach episodes. 

I think you guys are going to love the Ask A coach stuff. They’re short, simple, easy to integrate, easy to apply. They’re going to be great. And I want you to use this opportunity, this season break opportunity as an opportunity to start integrating the things that you’re learning, okay? 

There is a difference between listening and learning, and application and integration. So you can sit here and listen to someone teach you how to snowboard and talk to you about how to snowboard or watch a YouTube video where someone’s telling you, “All right, here’s how you strap on your snowboard. And then when you start going down the hill, you get on your heels and dig your heels into the snow. And then to go toe side, go to your toes and bend your knees.” Right, and you can hear them explain all of this stuff. 

That’s going to be very different than actually getting on a snowboard and going down the mountain. You can learn all the skills, you can be a master at understanding how to snowboard without actually knowing how to snowboard if you never integrate it. 

And so listening to the podcast is beautiful. You can learn all these things, have all these breakthroughs and these moments of intense clarity and then there’s opportunities to integrate and actually do the work. Actually do that belief plan. Do the learn and move on. Get the help you need, like going down the mountain with an instructor. 

If you’ve got an instructor next to you, you’re going to learn how to snowboard. You’re not going to learn how to snowboard by just listening to a YouTube video. Going down the mountain and trying to do it by yourself, you’ll eventually get there. But it’s going to be a lot quicker, a lot easier, you’re going to fall down a lot less, get a lot less bumps and bruises if you’ve got an instructor going with you side by side helping you out. And so that’s what the program is for. 

If you’ve been telling yourself that you can do it yourself and you’re just going to keep working on yourself, but you’re not making progress, that’s probably a sign you need some extra help. So whether that’s with us or with someone else, find someone that you trust that you can go and do the work with, okay? 

And so if you want to come and use this time to really start integrating and start coming to coaching calls and start doing program work, come join us, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. There is a really big difference between understanding something in your head and then really getting it into your heart, body and soul. 

So yes, we need to learn the skills of urges. We need to learn the skills to move on. We need to learn how to process emotions. We need to learn all those great skills, but we also need to understand concepts and have deep inner healing work take place in our heart, body and soul, not just in our head, right? 

We can understand in our head that we don’t need to feel shame and all these things, but when you really are doing the work, really diving into the work, really doing the belief plans, really doing the work laid out in the program, meditating on it, sitting on it, trying hard to believe it. That’s when you get it heart, body and soul and it’s very, very, very different. 

I just had a really powerful – I won’t go into detail. But I had a really powerful experience with this recently where I’ve been learning something and trying to integrate something in my life. And then I got it heart, body and soul and it changed everything. And I was like, oh, this is such a simple concept, right? Like boundaries or I can’t even remember. Like, this concept is so simple, but I really get it in my body it feels so profound. 

That’s what I want it to be like for you. Yeah, you’ve heard all this in the podcast. And it’s profound in your head, but when it gets into your body, that’s extra profound. So let’s start doing that integrative work. 

Okay, one last thing I want to share with you today before we go into our season break is this idea of suffering versus pain. And this is something that was a topic in the mastermind I just went to. And I thought, oh, this would be so great for my listeners to hear from me again, if they haven’t heard it in a while. 

So there is pain, which is the emotion that you feel, and suffering, which comes from avoiding the emotion that you’re feeling. So for example, you’re feeling lonely and that’s painful. The pain is loneliness. Now you can feel the loneliness or you can go into suffering, which is when you try to escape the loneliness. 

That’s going to look like pushing the loneliness down. Telling yourself you shouldn’t be lonely. Repressing loneliness. Doing things that can help you not feel lonely, like viewing porn, like distracting yourself with substances, like watching tons of TV or whatever things you might do to buffer. Now that creates suffering. Suffering is not worse than the pain. The suffering of escaping the loneliness is not worse than the pain of just feeling the loneliness. 

Another example, let’s say you want to put yourself out there. You want to start a business, you want to start dating, whatever that is, you want to put yourself out there and you know other people are going to see. And so the pain that you’re feeling is embarrassed. Self-conscious, embarrassed, rejected, you’ve got that pain. 

The suffering is going to be trying to avoid the pain of embarrassment and rejection. Suffering can be by hiding and not doing what you are saying that you want to do. Not doing what your heart is feeling called to do. Feeling shame about it, feeling unfulfilled, that suffering is more painful than the actual pain. 

Trying to escape and not feel that emotion is going to be more painful. That’s why a lot of us, we’re not really filling our lives with good things. Our lives aren’t fulfilling to us. They’re not big lives that we feel like we can have. It’s because we’re spending so much time trying to just avoid pain. And what that does is it leads to suffering. 

I think that’s a big reason a lot of us are depressed and anxious is because of all the suffering that comes from avoiding pain. And guess what? The result of trying not to feel, the result of trying to escape pain is worse feelings. If you are trying to escape feeling embarrassed, you’re going to go into suffering. And then guess what? You’re going to feel shame, depressed and all these other feelings. 

If you’re trying to escape the emotion of loneliness, you’re going to feel worse feelings. There is no escaping feelings, okay? So you can learn how to process and sit in feelings. Or you can avoid those feelings, create suffering and feel worse feelings. 

It’s the same with anxiety. If I’m really worried about how my event is going to go at the end of the month and I’m sitting here worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying, it’s because I don’t want to feel rejection or embarrassment or failure of that event. And so I’m trying to worry myself out of that. Guess what? I’m still feeling worry. I’m still feeling stress. I’m still feeling fear. It’s not actually getting rid of the emotion that I’m trying to get rid of.  

The main point here is that the result of trying not to feel emotion is that you have more feelings, and typically worse, more difficult feelings when you’re trying not to feel. So in order to decrease our suffering, we have to feel harder. We have to feel more emotion. We have to feel deeper and go into all of that emotion. 

So yes, I’m willing to feel embarrassed. Yes, I’m willing to feel shame. Yes, I’m willing to feel lonely. In order to decrease suffering, I am willing to feel all of the things. 

Okay, you guys. Have a great week. We’ll still be around next week with a short Ask A Coach episode. But regular podcast content will resume the first of January.  

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.