It is time to rip the cover off what really works to ditch addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and all other kinds of human suffering. No, not sobriety. We're talking the F word here. Freedom. We'll share straight from the trenches what we've learned from leaving our own addictions behind and coaching hundreds of others to do the same. And since it's such a heavy topic, you might as well have a good time while we're at it.
(00:35): And welcome back to the Alive and Free Podcast. Today I want to ask the question, is it lust or is it life? We've been exploring some different things over the past few weeks and months from a lot of different angles. And this is one where I want to challenge what most people deal with. If you go to Sexaholics Anonymous or any of their meetings, I mean the common term porn addiction has been around for a while. Most therapists and counselors will admit that there is no such diagnosis, that it's not a real thing according to evidence-based practices, that it doesn't function like normal addictive behaviors necessarily. But there are some similarities enough that people will talk about compulsive behaviors. You'll know me enough to know that I sidestep all of that and tell you that none of that stuff is real. And all of those diagnoses well may be helpful for a period of time, are useless in the end.
(01:24): And what we really need to do is look at what's going on inside the system. First at the level of the mind generally speaking, what are the thought processes and patterns and behaviors and emotions that are going on, but then later at the level of the body, because that's really where all those things spring from. And so if you go into these other circles, what they've done in Sexaholics Anonymous is kind of remove it from the behavior down into, well, the 12 step programs went to like this is a spiritual flaw, this is a spiritual problem. You have a character flaw. And Sexaholics Anonymous would say that it's an addiction to lust. Now, I don't know how well they define lust. It depends probably on the program you go to the group that you talk to about and whatnot. But in a sense, that is the thing that lust itself is bad.
(02:08): But I want you to consider something like lust itself is what if you've found yourself lusting after anything, after food, after a job. AF is a very, very strong desire to have something that in your heart you don't believe that you can have in that moment. Essentially, that's all that lust is. And a lot of people get hung up on how lust can feel bad, especially when they talk about sexual lust. But in all these things, I think I wanna look more clearly at what's going on biologically so that we can bypass all of this mental shenanigans. So I'm going to tell you a story. It was recently, cuz I haven't had a chance to really examine this in sort of a laboratory setting. Recently I was going out with a couple of friends and we walked into a restaurant and we walked in, walked in behind this very extremely beautiful lady in line, at least from the angle that I saw her at.
(02:56): She was very, very extremely beautiful according to whatever criteria my brain has acquired over the years, yes, some of that was heavily influenced by pornography for a few years. So that's in there. Some of that was influenced by other involvement with dancers and with family members and with faith teachings and so on and so forth. And so there's a lot that goes into what makes one man, one woman attractive. And so I sat there and as I walked in some part of that vision, that person, the light bouncing off of her and the patterns of that light hit my retina. And that passed through the center of my brain, the thalamus and whatnot. And then my brain went into this. Where have I seen this before? Whatever. So there was an initial reaction where my body kind of got caught like, oh no, wow. And there was this burst of life in me.
(03:43): I came alive just a little bit. And then there was this like, oh, that's bad. I'm not supposed to really like another woman. I'm not supposed to be attracted to women. Get that folks, this is how a lot of guys in the environment around pornography addiction particularly, or in many religious circles, feel that their body is attracted to a woman naturally, but that they're not supposed to do that. And that suppression, that fear of it actually creates most of the trouble that they deal with in terms of using it compulsively. Not saying it would all be gone if they didn't have that fear of it. It might still be around in some ways, shapes and forms. There are definitely people who don't have any compulsion compunctions against it and they definitely still act with it in a very open way. But that to them may not be a problem or they may still be reacting against some childhood training.
(04:34): We don't know. And so in 2008 in Psychology Today, there was an article that was written that at first I really didn't like at the time, but that was basically said, look, science. The name of the article was, science doesn't Believe in Porn Addiction and Neither Should You. And Automatically My Argumentative side jumps up. Science doesn't believe in anything, science isn't a person and science doesn't espouse beliefs at all. And scientists all disagree on all kinds of different things. And so when we say science doesn't believe anything, it sounds like it's saying something significant when really it's just somebody trying to use the word science to put across their point of view. So already I was arguing with the article as it went down, it's reviewing some level of research that is particularly looked at, pornography addiction per se, and basically indicated that of all the research that's been done, the highest correlating factor to determine whether or not a person will use pornography or sexual acts in a compulsive or addictive manner is whether or not they have a strong belief that it's bad.
(05:37): Meaning that if you've been taught that that is a negative thing, your tendency to binge or act out or do it in an uncontrolled way grows the more you've been trained to believe it's bad, the mean to, the more likely you are to act in a way that makes it a compulsion for you. Now, is that a hundred percent true? If those of you who are listening to this are like, oh no, I believe it's bad. Does that mean I'm compulsive don't? Right? This is not an attempt to put anything over on you. This is an attempt to look at something that's very, very clearly there. The fear of lust is the thing that I was looking at that day in that restaurant. And so I sat there and I was like, wait a second, I haven't actually looked at this. I haven't had a chance to just have my body taken over for a moment by something like this for a while.
(06:27): And so I wanted to look at it. So I let myself just kind of look at this lady and I'm looking at her face going, what exactly am I lusting? After I found my eyes wandering over to her hand and like, wow, my eyes are scanning. Whether or not she has a wedding ring on. That's fascinating. Why is that relevant information? All of it in my mind, creating this interesting story around greener passengers around, well, if some random stranger finds me attractive and wants me in some physical way, then that will mean that I'm worth something. This was a story I had built up for a number of years. And so when it pops up in this way, it's very, very subtle cuz it just feels like, oh no, I just have an urge and I gotta do something with it. And so I wanted to sit with it.
(07:09): So we picked a booth that was in Eyesight of the Lady so that I could watch her read her book or eat and I would look over and then I would examine inside myself. I know it's probably sounds really creepy, , sorry lady. If you were creeped out. I don't know that she saw or noticed anything, but I was really just using that as an opportunity to see what was going on in my system. And it was a powerful sensation that started with something in my chest and a little bit in my gut. The gut was sort of the fear, like, oh no, and my chest was this opening kind of like, I don't know what's going on, but there's some energy of life in here. My breath had caught, my head had kind of cocked forward. I got a little bit of tunnel vision. You guys know what lust feels like incidentally guys, if you struggle with lust, change your body position.
(07:53): It is really difficult to lust while in a handstand or in a headstand or while lying upside down on the couch or while having your chest wide open while you're leaning on a yoga ball and your arms laid out and your hand back and your tongue hanging up the left side of your mouth and you're in a weird posture. And those are exaggerated notions, but it is really, really difficult to maintain lust because lust itself, like every particular emotion and thought, has a correlating body posture and breathing pattern and everything else. So if you're struggling with it right now, in order to be able to get out of it, you wanna breathe different, you wanna move your body different, and then you can start to have some level of control until you find somebody whether it's me and my team or somebody else who can help you start to retrain your nervous system to not get stuck in those patterns.
(08:42): In my case, I was sitting here watching it so I wasn't trying to suppress it because I wanted to see what was going on and why I was afraid of this feeling inside myself. And so at first my thought was, okay, well I don't not actually as pretty as I thought she was, she's like my brain had created an immediate, immediate fantasy version of the person in front of me as if she was more beautiful than she actually was to me, more attractive than she actually was. And as I looked, I was like, wow, it's not actually the same level of attraction as I thought it was. So then the next thought came, well, what if I use this energy of lust this on my wife? That's how I've always wanted to do that anyway so I can go home. Sure, I've been a little bit excited and whatnot, and then I can go home and be like, honey, let's get connected in sometime maybe today, maybe tomorrow, some other time.
(09:29): Then I can keep this energy here and not just dissipated on other things and not spread it out into the world. Because here's also another observation where you put your attention, you pour your energy, you pour your life into that. So if you put your attention, say on your big toe right now, go ahead and try it. Pay attention to your big toe. It doesn't matter which one notice does the feeling change? Do you get a different kind of sensation in the big toe? Do you notice it at all? What about the other big toe? Do you notice the difference between them? That difference came not because of some weird magical thing, but because where you put your attention, also the energy of that attention goes and the electromagnetic field that's created around your brain and your heart and everything else, and the electrical system in the body alters to match the thought.
(10:16): This may be the mechanism by which the placebo and no placebo effect actually happen in the human system. And what I call them is the human effect, because that's just simply the way the brain works. It's on all the time. Every thought you have changes the electrical field in your system, changes your posture and everything else and your tension patterns. And so here I am looking at that thinking, okay, well if I stop pouring this energy out onto just random strangers and I keep this energy inside myself, what if I use that with my wife and then I build a positive relationship? There's a lot of guys who do this when they find themselves turned on, when they find themselves attracted or aroused, then they direct that energy toward their wife. I think that's a really powerful thing to build a relationship. I've definitely used that in the past and it's amazing, right?
(11:00): It's an incredible way to keep the energy of that creative kind of sexual energy in the relationship. If you or someone you know is looking to drop the F-bomb of freedom in their life, whether that's from past trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction, or any other host of emotional and personal struggles, but they just don't know how or want some help doing it, head on over to the freedom specialist.com/feel better now and check out some of the things we've got in store for you or book a call so we can look at your unique situation and get you the help that you're looking for.
(11:38): But what if your lust is not for people? What if your lust is for food? What if your lust is for money? What if your lust is for that? Well, that's a little bit harder to draw a correlation. Well, let me just use my lust for money on my wife. That's not going to be the same thing. So you gotta identify what is this feeling? But then as I sat with it further, I thought, wait a second. This is a really powerful strong feeling. By then, my whole heart was zinging with this pulsing throbbing pressure almost. And same with my belly. Now it hadn't descended to my groin because I wasn't busy thinking, oh, I really gotta have this, really gotta have this. So none of that energy went anywhere. Here's another observation. What people call sexual energy is literally just a sensation in a certain area of the body that happens to be associated with sexual organs.
(12:23): But if that sensation moves to another area of the body, you no longer experience it as a sexual urge. Did you get that? If that sensation moves to another area of the body, you no longer experience it as a sexual urge. The same thing goes for depressive energy or heart energy or mental energy. If you move the energy of all your thinking down into the body, you no longer experience it as mental pressure. All of these sensations that you're having in your system doesn't matter what emotion they're coming from are thought they're coming from, or external stimulus they're coming from. If you mentally, because you can do it, we did it with your big toe just now start to move those sensations to a different era of your body. You will experience the sensation differently and not the same. So they hadn't descended there for me because I wasn't focused on that.
(13:10): And so I just was letting the sensations stay where they started. So I had this tremendous feeling in my gut that was building and it was like a heat and an electrical zing and a little bit of a pressure. And it was in there. And then there was the feeling in my chest. And I remembered feeling like this before I remembered how many times over the past years I had felt this tremendous pressure inside myself like a buildup of something and the need to kind of release. And that's the phrase guys use when they want a release. I need a sexual release, I need to get this out. And so they use this phrase a lot and they're like, oh man, you just need a release. That's all that happens. And they go and they have a great release from emotional tension. They have a great release from all these other things, but it's a dissipation of a buildup of energy and that's all that it is. And I thought to myself, why am I afraid of having energy in my body?
(14:06): And what came up for me was the reminder of what we talked about last week, the fear that if that energy came all the way up, that I would just be like a bull in a China shop, that I would be outta control, that I would be some weird pervert running around wanting to have sex with everything or that I would lose control and be lost in work, or that I would be some greedy money hungry business person or that whatever it was that if I had in my, from my life particularly that if I had this buildup of energy as a kid, you're supposed to be seen and not heard sometimes, right? Depends on who raised you and just the general sense that you're too loud and that's not appropriate and you're hurting people's feelings and all of the things that kids do. And then they learn to shut themselves down and to boy and to get rid of all of this extra energy and to dissipate it with food and with television and with ice cream and with candy and with activities to go wear themselves out so that they can sleep so that other people will be happy with them.
(15:05): So this fear of life energy inside me, where did I learn to be afraid of life? My whole life? Every time anything I did that was just excitement that got on people's nerves was an indication that I need to not live so loud. I need to not live so boldly. And so what's the natural thing to do? Dissipate that energy. What are fast ways to dissipate it? Ever heard of a food coma? Cram your face full of stuff, it takes a lot of energy to digest food. All of a sudden, boom, you've dampened down your energy. Go have an argument with somebody. Go scroll through Facebook or YouTube so that all your energy is spent processing this new information and producing dopamine hits and all of this other stuff. And then balancing out your system from that. These are all ways to shut down the amount of life inside of a person.
(15:54): But if you and I were to look at a child, the reason they are so radiant and vibrant is because life is full bore on them. And as they grow, their radiance in their skin even starts to die down. The radiance in their countenance starts to die down because they've learned to dissipate their energy with thoughts and with emotions and with worries and with struggles and with future career plans and with food items and with experiences and all of these different things. And yet still teenagers tend to have a life in them. And then college students tend to seem to have some lust for life that's not there. And you notice I call this episode lust or life not lust for life, but then as a person ages, you see that energy disappear and it's always surprising to feas to see somebody in their seventies or eighties who looks like they're in their fifties.
(16:44): Why do we associate age with it with this amount of life? Because we notice that over time people have learned more and more ways to dissipate the amount of energy that's in them. So here I was sitting in a booth in a restaurant asking myself, wow, what would happen if I stopped getting rid of the energy that's in my life? What if it's like a sword that you fold it in on itself, you become aware of it and you keep it within, and then every time you fold it in on itself and hammer it in, then there's more and more layers of steel that makes that sword more and more capable of cutting sharper and sharper more able to do its job until it becomes something utterly different than the aura. It began with. What if the reason that humans struggle with happiness and health and wellbeing and living in limited ways and not even being able to access some of the legendary capacities that ancients used to be able to do.
(17:40): What if the whole secret to that has been that we have learned to get rid of our life energy that we've learned to dissipate it, that we've learned to pour our life into things outside of ourselves instead of turning it back on the inside and allowing it to build and flower into something new. So as I finished at the end of it, I was asking myself, is what I've ex experienced, was it actually lust or was it just life? See, cuz what I was afraid of was the actions that would come from dissipating that energy. Does that make sense? I wasn't actually afraid of the energy itself necessarily. I wanted to get rid of it cuz I thought I needed to, but it was not like the actions that came out downstream, the out of control actions that came downstream, whether that was sexual in nature or food oriented or business oriented, or running my mouth or getting in an argument or whatever else it was.
(18:34): Those were all downstream effects from the initial fear of having too much energy and feeling like I needed to get rid of it. And that came from a misconception that came from a small dishonesty, that came from the idea that a person shouldn't have this much energy in them, that they need to get it out, that they need to release it, that they can't handle it within their system. I'm here to tell you that when you allow that feeling, that sensation to build inside you, but that you don't allow it to just build inside of your sexual centers and build inside your mind as a worry, oh no, I gotta get rid of this. Oh no, it's a matter of time. Well, you've already had the feeling and then, but if you can see that it's just simply nervous system activation that you got a free gift.
(19:20): I got a free gift that day. Like I've told people many times, I walked in a store and something made my body come alive and instead of dissipating that life on something else, to turn it inward and allow it to soak in straight into the center and to build inside of me, then becomes an entirely different experience. And there's a level of peace and joy and ease and bliss and happiness and wellbeing and all the things I've talked about for so long that just shows up on autopilot when all of the energy we've spent dissipating life in our thoughts and our worries and our concerns about ourselves and our complaints about work and our complaints about politics and the food we eat and everything else. When all of that stops being drained and life builds on the inside, it doesn't lead to being out of control.
(20:07): It doesn't lead to self-destruction, it leads to life, it leads to happiness. It leads to happiness of the kind that can be sustained forever because it doesn't have to be the bombastic happiness where you're jumping up and down on the bleachers all the time because your team won the Super Bowl. It's a kind of happiness that just allows you to be content everywhere without having to have a facade, without having to fake a smile, just content as yourself and purely at peace. That kind of happiness comes from reducing the amount of energy leaks and drains that happen by all the things we've been pouring our lives into unconsciously. So today, as we wrap up, just consider this. What if you're dealing with sexual stuff? What if it's not actually lust? What if it's just life and for everybody? What if instead of pouring our lives continually into the emotions we're feeling and everything else, we back up and we allow that energy to stay inside, not by being dishonest, not by stuffing in emotion, but instead of running around coping and running around doing all these different things. What if we allow that energy to stay inside and blossom in a different way instead of constantly giving our energy and our life away to things that will never return it back to us? What have you been doing? What have I been doing that has been draining life? What have we been unconsciously doing? And do we want to keep pouring our lives into that? There is the question.
And that's it for today's Alive and Free podcast. If you enjoyed this show and want some more freedom Bombs landing in your earbuds, subscribe right now at wherever you get your podcast from. And while you're at it, give us a rating and a review. It'll help us keep delivering great stuff to you. Plus it's just nice to be nice.
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