Overcoming Pornography is not About Getting Rid of Everything

If you’re anything like me, in your quest to eliminate pornography, you probably have tried to eliminate everything. You might have gotten rid of your phone, blocked all the apps, given over your access code to someone else, tried avoiding certain shops at the mall, not gone to the beach. Those are the physical things. Mentally and emotionally, you might have tried to eliminate urges, run from your emotions, suppressed your sex drive, and generally worked to stop feeling, sensing, or thinking about anything to do with pornography or sexuality. In all the avoiding you’ve done, I want you to just think for a moment and ask yourself, has it really helped? What I mean is, has it helped you become the person you want to be? Has it helped you grow and love and triumph in your life? If you are anything like me, or any of my clients, the answer is very likely, no. I’ll admit, each of those techniques, may have helped you succeed at distancing yourself from your last pornography session. They may have been helpful in slowing down the number of times each week, month, or year that you turn to pornography. But, there is a good chance, that if you’ve been suppressing your life to avoid pornography, you’ve been suppressing your happiness and growth on the way. In Acceptance and Commitment Coaching, there is an idea called experiential avoidance, which is about utilizing certain methods, processes, or techniques, to avoid the real and sometimes unpleasant experiences of our lives. The problem with experiential avoidance is that when we avoid the bad, we are also avoiding the amazing, wonderful, and deeply joyful experiences of our lives. Here’s what I mean. If I suppress my emotions so that I don’t feel sexual in order to avoid pornography drawing me in, I also am suppressing my wholly appropriate and deep desire to be intimate with my wife. As a result, there is a good chance that something will give eventually. It may be that my suppression will work for a time, but will power always runs out and then what happens? What has happened to you when you’ve pushed down the feelings and temptations for a long time? An analogy that I like to use is that of a beach ball at the pool. If you’ve ever tried to push a beach ball under the water, you’ve found that you can control it as long as you concentrate on it. As long as you manage it actively. But, eventually, your mind may wander, you may become distracted, you may have to deal with something and boom - out of the water blasts the beach ball. Our emotions, feelings, and urges are like that. In trying to avoid them, we push them under until there is a moment when we no longer have the capacity to control them. That is what experiential avoidance looks like. We avoid certain experiences for as long as we can and then they overtake us and overwhelm us and we lose control. In addition to losing control, we’ve also lost out on so many beautiful, amazing, experiences that can enrich our lives and help us feel the fulfillment we have been seeking. Imagine being at the pool and spending your entire time focused on pushing that beach ball under the water and keeping it there. When others offer to play a game, you’ll be busy. When someone wants to engage in meaningful conversation, you’ll be distracted. When your family wants to grab a quick picture with you, you’ll be somewhere else. As I’m writing this, it occurs to me that there were moments when I would take my eye off the ball, like Christmas or birthdays or vacations and I found that I gave in to my urge to engage with pornography. I would become engaged in the everyday life events and make mistakes in my quest...