Accountability Apps

Three key components of self confidence and why you need to cultivate and build them into your life.

13 Jan 202017min

Relationships As I work with men and women, and their spouses, I find that one of the biggest issues that comes up is how pornography use affects their relationships. one thing that I often see and one thing that happened in my own relationship was that my wife thought that for her to be happy she needed to control me and my pornography use. If you haven’t read that story go back to my blog and check out the one titled, “My wife used sex as a way to try and control me and I wanted her to” Lots of wives and husbands do this to varying degrees, especially when their spouse isn’t behaving in a way that they want. This is the rules part of all our relationships. We have all these expectations of how our relationships should be. As I have learned and grown from a pornography user and now as a coach, something that each of us has to learn is that our relationships are just one thing. They are our thoughts about another person. If you have ever had a boss you can’t stand but someone else loves them, you know what I am talking about, even if you have never thought about it this way. Another good example of this is our ward bishops. They can be figures that are beloved by almost everyone, but there are some that we just don’t get along with. And we also have ideas about who they should be and how they should behave. As an example of how we think people aught to behave, When I was a young man I attended a youth conference where there happened to be a tv on in the lobby showing some Saturday night live reruns. In my house we had never been allowed to watch SNL because my parents had opinions about it. But there, in that lobby I saw a member of our stake presidency Julian Breillatt watching and laughing at SNL. Now, being the know it all teenager I was, I said something about how I was surprised he was watching it. and he responded that he loved SNL and thought it was very funny. Incidently, a number of years later, this same good man was the temple sealer who married my wife and i. My thoughts about what a member of the stake presidency should and shouldn’t watch were a manual of sorts for this man. But at that moment, I learned that I didn’t have to believe everything I thought about how others should behave. I could just let people behave without having to judge them as fulfilling some arbitrary set of rules that I thought. Our relationships with others depend solely on our thoughts about that person. What I thought about president briellatt watching snl could have been that he was a bad person and that I would never value anything he ever said again as a spiritual leader. Or, as was the case, I didn’t take his behavior to mean anything other than he was a man, doing the best he could. And when it came time for him to officiate in our wedding, I was happy to have a man who had been part of my life for many years there to officiate. When it comes to spouses, this same lesson can and, I’ll say, probably should, be applied for the sake of everyone’s happiness. Specifically, when it comes to pornography use, oftentimes, I find that spouses feel it is their duty to hold their loved one to a certain standard. And when that standard hasn’t been met, they are to punish, cajole, withhold affection from and judge the other party. So, in my relationship with darcy, I know that my relationship with her depends on my thoughts about her. My thoughts about her depend on my expectations of her and how well she meets those expectations. I also can’t have “love” for her, but that I have loving thoughts about her. Because, as we know, our emotions and feelings are generated by our thoughts. So, when I think about her lovingly, I feel love. I also know that I can’t be mad at her. I only have thoughts that create the feeling of being mad. I make me mad. Just like when I used pornography, she, her thoughts, were what made her mad.

6 Jan 202011min

How to solve any problem: 5 key elements. I love all the great feedback I am getting about the podcast, thank you. Some of you make it the first thing you listen to each Monday morning to start your week out right. Somebody reached out to me about this week about the podcast from two weeks ago about falling forward and asked how they can get better at that. And said, they were feeling stuck and didn’t know how to put that into play in their life. So, let me just take a moment here to remind you that you can hop online at zachspafford.com and set up a free mini session. I will help you out, let me hook you up. There is a link for the work with me button so you can just take advantage of that. I’ll also talk to you about options that you have if you want to keep working with me if you choose. My spots are filling fast, so I am thinking about opening up a group coaching program as well so more people can get better at the self mastery that we all are striving to work on. It is gonna be amazing Whether you are interested in working with me or not, I’d love to do a mini session with you and help you out, so don’t hesitate to go there. So, today, we are going to talk about how to solve any problem by understanding 5 key elements. All of the coaching I do stems from the model, which was developed by my mentor brooke Castillo, the owner of the life coach school She is a woman who I really respect for her work in helping people others work on how to become a better person and better at being the person that you want to be. I also work with a really amazing coach jody moore. Who is my friend and a coach who brought me the model before I knew really anything about being a coach and is now my instructor at the life coach school. I have yet to find a problem that this model will not work on. So, if you think you have one that this model doesn’t apply to, then, sign up for a mini session and let’s give a test run and see. The idea of the model is that everything we deal with in life, pain, suffering, negative emotions, all come from something other than our circumstances. The traditional way of thinking is that circumstances make us feel bad. The model shows us that our feelings come not from our circumstances, but from what we think. That our thoughts generate our feelings. So let’s start at the beginning of the model. The “circumstance” of our model. Let’s just define that. a circumstance is a fact, it is what we consider the indisputable facts of the case. They are things that we don’t control and cannot change directly. Some examples of this are, the weather, other peoples, behavior, our past. What do I mean that it is a fact, so this is something that is not up to interpretation and everyone can agree on. For example, if you said to me, ‘I’m addicted to pornography’ that would not be a circumstance. That is a thought. If you say to me, “at 2 pm I looked at pictures” that is a circumstance. It can be, essentially, proven. It isn’t subjective or someone’s opinion. Everyone would agree with it. Your car is a circumstance. weather is a circumstance. Other people’s behavior is a circumstance. You can’t control them. The second part of the model is your thinking, your thoughts. I want to define what I mean by your thoughts, because I use this in my coaching a lot. This is a pivotal point in your ability to understand not only who you are, but also how you can change what you believe and think to become who you want to be. Firstly, thoughts are sentences that are constantly running through our minds. This is essentially the conversation we are having with ourselves. Sometimes we are aware of our thoughts, but often, because of how powerful...

30 Dec 201918min

4 ways to keep your cool and be happy at Christmas. Christmas is a time of excitement and expectations Trees, lights, presents, food. Also a time of difficulty for lots of people who struggle with depression, addiction, loneliness 1 – don’t expect others to be different than they normally are. - Today is our oldest’s birthday - He didn’t get out of bed when I called him for his 5 am swim practice - He threw a tantrum when I tried to get him to complete his chores. - he was demanding of my phone. - He was the same him that he always is. - 2 – don’t expect yourself to be different than you normally are. - I woke up this morning with a pile of things to get done - I did not start doing them until well after 1 pm - By Christmas morning I will get as much done as I can – I might fail - I am not yet the person that I want to be - 3 – be prepared to be disappointed. - You might not get the gift you want - Your kids might not take the picture that you want with the smiles and looking at the camera - Your parents or in-laws will probably still be who they are, so they will probably be exactly the same people they are on other days of the year - Be prepared for someone to say something rude - Recognize that you won’t be able to change anyone this holiday season – despite what you may want 4 – remember that your thoughts are what create your feelings. - Thoughts are the cause of all our emotions. - For me this has always showed up in terms of what people say. - I have observed that for me, when someone says something, it can easily be interpreted differently by me than it is by someone else. - You can take the thoughts that come and use them the way you have - Or you can create deliberate thoughts that serve you better - You have to program those thoughts into your brain and into your life with repetition to build a new neural pathway that is stronger than your old thought - - Here are some thoughts that you may want to try on this holiday so you can feel the way you want to about the time you get to spend with your family o Everything is as it should be o It was meant to happen the way it did o You/he/she is exactly as you/he/she should be o Love is always an option o I’m responsible for everything I think and feel o No one can cause an emotion inside me o People are allowed to behave the way they want o I am enough o Nothing has gone wrong here.

23 Dec 201924min

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16 Dec 201911min

- Opposition in all things - How often do you think you will feel good? – what percentage of time? - What percentage of time do you think that you feel bad? - What does it mean to resist feelings? - When you resist feelings, you are not only denying yourself negative feelings that may serve you, if you feel them to their fullest for a short period, but you are likely also not able to feel positive feelings that may well serve you too. - 50/50 rule is that half the time, no matter what, your life is, no matter who you are, you are going to feel negative emotions. - We often feel like there is something external that is going to make us feel like we have “arrived” - Truth is, that the guy who makes a million dollars a year has just as many down days as a guy that makes $35k - The woman who weights 125 has just as many down days as the woman who weights 250 - We want to think that we will not have negative emotions because negative emotions are bad in our mind and that means that there is something wrong with us. - It is a lie that people who have x don’t have negative emotions. - Negative emotions are part of the package of opposition in all things. - What negative emotions are you trying to avoiding when you are buffering with pornography or other things? - What negative emotions are you creating when you buffer with pornography or other things? - What positive feelings are you reserving for when you overcome your pornography use?

9 Dec 201913min

I can’t keep going like this. Darcy caught me. I had been looking at inappropriate pictures on my company laptop when she thought every thing with my pornography problem was behind us. We were suffering through a really difficult miscarriage and I was turning back to the old things that made me feel better whenever I was feeling less than good. She was furious. She threw that laptop down the stairs, along with some laundry detergent and my dignity. I was caught. Being caught is a terrible place to be. There is not a thing that you can say that really makes it better. There is not a thing that you can do to make the other person trust you again in that moment. It is the point where you feel your absolute worst while someone stares at you feeling your absolute worst. It is the dream where you find yourself standing in front of the entire class in your underwear, except you are in real life feeling just as exposed and the other person hates you for it. This was the moment that I broke my wife. The woman who had, up to this point seen me as an amazing husband. When she tells this story, she talks about me being the guy that our friends would tease because I was always up, changing diapers, putting kids to bed and helping with the babies. I think I am that guy, in part because of my pornography problem. I think I am that guy because, at least in some way, I am trying to make up for being rotten and broken on the inside, so I make myself look awesome and helpful on the outside. At least to my wife. At least until I got caught. What is terrible, is that getting caught in this moment was not the moment that I can tell you that I changed and started getting better. This was not that moment. This was a moment that made me get worse. This was the moment that made me turn inward and become more sneaky. Made me stop allowing my wife to see the real me. I stopped sharing Zach Spafford, vulnerable, loving husband. I started being a character in my own marriage. I became a guy that never failed at anything. I would mess up at work. I wouldn’t tell my wife. I would mess up with pornography. I wouldn’t tell my wife. I would be stressed. I wouldn’t tell my wife. I would be depressed. I wouldn’t tell my wife. That moment was the moment I turned inward. I became a perfect guy outside as best I could so that she wouldn’t have to deal with my weakness because she couldn’t handle it. I’m not proud of it. But it happened. This is true for so many people that I work with. What if my spouse is never going to be ready to forgive me and be my partner again in every way? The truth is, you need to be honest with your spouse. Not because your spouse deserves your honesty, although there is an argument to be made there. Telling the truth is about being the person you want to be. Building the person you want to be is about being conscientious about behavior that brings us down, and tears down our sense of the greatness we have within. So, I want to talk about building you. This is the topic of today. I told that story because I didn’t get that I wasn’t becoming someone. I was building someone. Tony robbins has a documentary on Netflix called “I’m not your Guru”. There is a lot of swearing. Near the end he says something that struck me deeply, he said, “I constructed Tony Robbins,” “I created this motherfucker standing here.” When we create, construct or become the person we want to be, it isn’t an accident. It has to be done deliberately. 1. Determine the virtues you want to have Benjamin Franklin, Early on in his life he deterimed 13...

2 Dec 201913min

This podcast is for pornography users and their spouses. Today we are going to talk about boundaries, and specifically, what they are, what they aren’t and how to set boundaries that you can be happy with so you can move forward into having the relationships you want to have with the people around you. This is really for you couples who are dealing with pornography and are looking to create boundaries that will help you grow and improve your relationship, rather than separate and divide your relationship. In discussing this I recognize that it is not always the man who uses pornography and not always the woman who needs to set the boundaries but I am going to probably stick to those lines for the sake of simplicity in this discussion. But know that I understand that, even though I will talk about husbands or men as the pornography user and wives or women as the boundary setter. Also, you can use this to set boundaries in any part of your life, not just with someone using pornography. If you need to set a boundary with your mother-in-law that she calls before she comes over, these principles apply. Just discussing it specifically in relation to pornography because I want to give you tools to help you in that struggle. I’m also going to note here that boundaries are a key component of any healthy relationship. So if you think, “I can’t set a boundary around this issue because that is going to cause my marriage to break up” or some other very difficult or unpleasant consequence is going to happen, you may be right. You have to be willing to set boundaries knowing that there may be unpleasant consequences and this may create a rupture that could be difficult to repair. When you set boundaries, you’re are choosing between feeling unhappy because you don’t have a boundary, which could be a long-term situation where someone walks all over you and setting a boundary that you have to maintain, which may cause some short-term unpleasantness through difficult interactions with the person who may not want to respect that boundary in the beginning. What is a boundary? Effectively, a boundary is a line in the sand that you choose to say, this line isn’t to be crossed. We have boundaries everywhere in our lives and society. Your home has a boundary that you expect people not to cross. For my father-in-law, his house boundary is not just the outside edge of his yard, but if you park on the street in front of his house, he will go out and ask you to move your car. That is his boundary. Inherent in a boundary is the idea that, if you cross this line, I will do x. In the case of a pornography user, in my case, my wife had a boundary that if I used pornography, she would not choose to be intimate with me until she was ready. That often meant that I had to wait until she initiated intimate contact, even holding hands or a kiss. Some of you listening to this might be saying or thinking, That’s not fair, my wife can’t withhold her wifely duties from me. Or maybe you’re the wife and you think, I can’t not take care of my husband’s needs, then he will act out more. Maybe. That is for you to decide, because when you set boundaries you are setting them for yourself. When you set a boundary, you are taking care of and protecting yourself. So, if you are the wife thinking, “I have to take care of my husband’s needs and give him sex whenever he asks for it, even if he just used pornography” that may be ok with you. But, if you feel like you are being used, or manipulated, or are resentful as you do this, then I think it is time to set a boundary. Because you are not protecting yourself and as a result you are doing something that creates bad feelings rather than build up the relationship. So, you need to be really clear about what your boundary is. Most of us have a boundary that we will not allow anyone to hit us. That is...

25 Nov 201926min