Episode 153: Ask a Coach: Why You’re Stuck

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. 

Kat: Hey, everyone, it’s Kat here with another Ask a Coach question. So today’s question is sort of a variation of a question that I’ve been hearing from a lot of people in a lot of different places in the program. And it’s this question of, I’m feeling stuck, what do I do? And so we’re going to talk about that today. And if you’re feeling stuck, this is the podcast for you. 

So I want to talk about it in three parts. And so I want to talk about why we say this, what it actually means and then how we get out of it, which is really the most important part, which is why we’re asking the question in the first place, right? Like, I’m stuck, what do I do? 

So, first, let’s talk about why we say this. Why do we say that we’re stuck? And the short answer and the boiled down version of it is really, it’s an excuse. It’s just an excuse so that we can indulge in where we’re at without changing anything. So it’s this cycle that we get into. So notice that. Like, notice that, oh, I’m using this as an excuse, because that’s going to really help you to move forward to the next thing. 

I like to put it in the same category as when we say things like, I don’t know. For instance, if someone was to ask you, oh, well, how are you feeling about that? And we just answer with I don’t know, I’m not sure. It’s because we’re indulging in the unknown and we don’t have to change it if we don’t really answer the question. 

And so noticing that’s doing the same thing as like when we say that we’re stuck, we’re indulging in where we’re at. It’s like this thought/feeling loop that we get stuck in. I have this thought that I’m stuck. I’m not feeling great about it. And instead of moving on to the action line, we just stay in the thought/feeling loop. Okay? So notice that that’s what’s happening there. That’s why we say this. It’s not true. It’s just a way to make an excuse and indulge in staying there. Okay. 

So first, that’s the first thing. The second thing is what it actually means. And when I say that, I want you to really ask yourself that question. What does that mean to me? When I say that I’m stuck, what am I talking about? What does it mean? I want you to use very precise language because when we talk in vague terms, then we don’t really get to the heart of it. 

So be precise. Be specific. Tell yourself where you’re at. It’s just like on a map, if we have a destination and we know where we’re going, yet we don’t figure out where we currently are, you know, like the map at the mall. Like you are here, this is how you get to that store. It’s really going to be hard to get to that store if we don’t know where we’re starting. 

Asking yourself this question helps you find out where you are on the map, the star that says you are here. That’s what we’re finding when we ask ourselves what does it mean to me when I say that I’m stuck? It means that I continue to look at porn even though I don’t want to. Okay, now we can see, oh, yep, here I am making that choice instead of over here making this choice. Okay, this is just where we’re at. 

It helps us to stop indulging in that so that we can see. Okay, so that’s the reason for this question. If you’re having a hard time, I want you to think about if I weren’t allowed to say that I’m stuck, how would I describe this? How would I tell somebody where I’m at, if I couldn’t say I’m stuck? What would it sound like? What would be the description that I would give? 

Okay, so do that for yourself. What does it sound like? How can we make this into very factual things instead of just this vague, I’m stuck? So we’ve talked about why we say this. We say it because it’s an excuse. And what it actually means, you’re going to dig in and find out what that means for you so you can find out where you’re at because we need to know that so that we can do the third thing, which is how to get out of it, which is we take some action. 

We use action to disrupt the current cycle that we’re in. That current thought/feeling loop that we’ve gotten stuck in, we want to move past that by using some action to disrupt what we’ve been doing. So just like in the model, we have our thoughts and our feelings, and we stay stuck in that when we’re in this I’m stuck – Isn’t that funny? – I’m stuck loop. So we’re going to move past that by taking some action to disrupt where we’ve been. 

And so if your next question is, what action do I take? I don’t know what to do. The shortest simplest answer is, it doesn’t matter what action you take, do something. It might be that you decide you want to start processing an urge. You might find out like, oh, I’m not processing my urges, that’s where I’m at on the map. And in order to get to the place where I overcome pornography, I need to start processing my urges. So I’m going to start taking this action to move in that direction. 

Maybe it’s that I want to start giving myself self-compassion. Maybe I’ve been putting off doing some learn and move-ons about some slip-ups that have been going on. I’ve been sort of ignoring them. So I keep saying I’m stuck, but it’s just because I haven’t addressed them. So maybe I need to fill out a learn and move-on. I need to take some sort of action to move me in that direction. 

So we’re going to start taking some action. And sometimes, I want you to know that when we’re looking at what action to take, sometimes it’s not doing more like, oh, I need to add an action to start doing. But maybe it’s that we need to cut something out. Maybe we need to stop doing something. And that’s not an inaction, it’s just an action that we’re taking to stop doing something that we’ve been doing. 

And I don’t know what that sounds like for you, you get to decide this. But this is where you can start playing around with like, what action could I take? Now that I understand that I’ve been indulging in this excuse that keeps coming around and I’ve been very precise in where I’m at and the language of what it actually means. I’m not stuck, this is actually where I’m at. And these are the actions that I’m going to take or stop taking, either one of those will work for you. 

That’s how you get unstuck. We start taking some action. We start doing some things that get us closer to wherever that goal is, wherever it is that we want to be. If you have any questions about this, if you’re struggling with this, please bring some questions more to the Ask a Coach. Let’s talk about your specific circumstances, how we can help you to feel like you’re not stuck anymore. But do this exercise on your own. Bring that and tell us what you’ve found so that we can help you. 

That’s what I have for you today. You’re not stuck, you can do this. And if you need help, let us know. Thanks for being here today, we’ll talk to you guys next time.

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.