Root-level thinking

We live in a weird world.

One where people are rather obsessed with treating symptoms instead of causes.

Nevermind if your headache is caused by horrible posture and weak musculature, just pop a pill and forget about it. Then pop another one when the pain comes back...

And heck, it's hard to blame people.

Of course we want things to be easy and quick.

Especially in this fast-paced modern lifestyle we're all part of.

So we're all guilty of this kind of symptom-treating thinking at some point.

But one of the most important things I realized during my recovery process where I was working on quitting porn and turning my shit around so I could become the kind of man I felt and knew deep down I was meant to be...

Was that treating symptoms wasn't gonna cut the mustard.

And that's what I used to do.

Installing web blockers, trying to have people hold me accountable, avoiding women for fear of getting triggered.

Who wants to live that way? And still not have it work?...

Seriously.

Turns out there were deeper problems that needed to be addressed for me to find freedom and move on from that soul-draining, intimacy-ruining, cyclical chapter of my life.

A primary one of which can be summed up in one word:

Escapism.

I had trained my brain for many years and from a young age, to respond to my own internal discomfort by reaching for various forms of stimulation. It was a pattern that was so deeply ingrained, I truly had no awareness of it for years. But once I realized it, I knew it had to change.

Because as long as my response to stress was to load up porn or do any other self-destructive behavior that had a net-negative effect on my neurochemistry, confidence, and wellbeing...

I'd just keep on spinning around

in that cycle of self-destructive coping

mechanisms that were holding me back.

Spoiler alert:

Life is always going to be stressful.

There's always something coming around the corner that we'll have to overcome (or maybe succumb to, if we aren't careful...).

So if there's one big lesson I'd like to share, it's this:

You've gotta fix the root of the problem, which for many guys, is simply escapism.

It's an absolutely essential step in freeing yourself from any kind of addictive, compulsive behavior - whether it's porn, nail biting, or booze.

I had to learn how to create healthier coping mechanisms.

Which can be summed up by 2 questions I repeatedly asked myself...

"What am I feeling?" & "What can I do about it?"

A process that one of my clients, A, has been applying very successfully.

He just told me the other day:

"I had some big car issues I needed to take care of. Had to process that [because usually this kind of stress would have led to a relapse] and take care of what I can control right now, and hopefully take care of the rest of it when the house sells. It's so nice to be able to process things out instead of ignoring them and checking out🙌"

Which illustrates the point beautifully, I think.

By consciously processing his stress, he was able to break out of the escapism loop that typically would have sent him back into the clutches of porn.

So yeah.

Break the escapism loop.

Then staying clean becomes a heck of a lot easier.