Episode 3: Fixing the Root: Identity

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. 

Hello, welcome to our episode today. I’m so excited and happy that you're here. I just finished the most delicious piece of pie I have ever had. And I had COVID earlier this year and my taste is still kind of gone. And so I can't taste it in its fullness. And I'm so bummed about it. But what I could taste, I was dying.

It's this lemon pie. One of my friends on Instagram posted about making pies and bringing them for Thanksgiving. And I was all in because I needed a pie. Plus, I love everything entrepreneur, I just want to support all my friends who want to start businesses. And that's what she wanted to do, is start a pie business. And oh my gosh, worth every penny. It was so delicious.

It's the day after Thanksgiving right now. I don't know when these episodes are actually going to be posted. I'm shooting for January but I don't really have a specific plan yet. As soon as possible to get it to you guys, because I know there are a lot of you who want this and who are waiting for it. But that's kind of what I'm doing right now. I'm still tasting this pie in my mouth, and it was so delicious.

And on that note, let's talk about identity. We're talking about fixing the root of your pornography problem and really diving into your identity. Starting to see yourself and become someone who doesn't struggle with pornography. Because in order to stop wanting pornography, you have to become someone who doesn't want pornography.

In order to stop struggling with pornography, you have to become someone who doesn't struggle with pornography. And you have to stop seeing yourself as someone who struggles with pornography. And it's a process because identity change doesn't just happen overnight. But it's something that we have to consciously do.

If we are not consciously choosing our identity, everything around us will choose it for us. If we aren't constantly choosing our identity our circumstances, our life circumstances will choose it for us. We don't want that. We want to choose what our identity is.

So the process to overcoming pornography for good is not just about not looking at porn or learning how to process your urges, like I teach in my free training and my program. Or learning exactly what to do in hard moments. It's about becoming someone who doesn't want porn.

And that's why this work is so much deeper than you might have thought. And it's really fun. That's why this work is so life changing. And it's not just life changing like, “Oh, now I don't have all these results of looking at pornography.” But it's so life changing because you learn how to change your identity to become a way better version of yourself.

And then you can apply that everywhere else, not just the pornography. Once you learn how to do it here, you can apply it anywhere you want to. Whether that be a job that you want, or a career that you want, or who you want to be in your family, or how much money you want to make, or just your whole identity. You can learn how to change that.

And pornography is an amazing, amazing way to learn how to change that identity. And if we look at it that way, we can almost look at this as a blessing, right? We have a pornography habit we want to get rid of. That's amazing, this is giving me a great, great opportunity to learn how to do this, this identity change. It's going to change your life.

Okay, so how do we have an identity change? And I want to share a story with you. It's the story of the Golden Buddha. I don't know if any of you have heard of Evernote or use Evernote. It might be a little bit of an older program. Anyways, I love Evernote.

A few years ago I started writing down stories in Evernote. So if I heard a story, I would just put it in Evernote so I could go back and use it when I was teaching or giving talks. Now that I'm coaching, I use it a lot. And this is one of the stories in there that I totally forgot about but I love.

So I want to share with you the story of the Golden Buddha. So in 1957, a group of monks needed to relocate a giant clay Buddha statue from their temple to a new location. They needed to relocate this statue because their monastery was being relocated or something. When the crane lifted this massive Golden Buddha, the weight of it was so tremendous that it began to crack. Imagine lifting up this giant clay Buddha and it just begins to crack.

The head monk, who was concerned about damaging the sacred Buddha decided to lower the statue back to the ground and cover it with a large canvas tarp to protect it from the coming rain. Later that evening, the monk went to check on the Buddha statue, he shined his flashlight under the tarp to see if the Buddha was staying dry and noticed a gleam of light shining through the crack in the clay. As he took a closer look he wondered if there might be something underneath the clay.

So he ran to awaken the other monks and with a chisel and hammer they began to carefully chip away the thick clay from the Buddha. As they knocked off shards of clay, the little gleam grew brighter and bigger. After hours of chiseling the monks stepped back and stared in awe at the site before them.

There, in front of the monks stood a solid gold Buddha. Can you imagine? Can you imagine you have this clay Buddha that is beautiful and sacred and then it starts to crack and underneath it is a solid gold Buddha? Can you imagine discovering that?

So historians believe that the Buddha had been covered with clay by Thai monks several hundred years earlier. After realizing their country would soon be attacked by the Burmese army, these Thai monks covered their precious Golden Buddha with an outer covering of clay in order to keep their treasures from being looted by the Burmese.

Unfortunately, all the monks were killed in the attack. But their well-kept secret of the Golden Buddha remained intact until its discovery in 1957, hundreds of years later.

The author who wrote this that I got this from said, “The story is dear to my heart and reminds us that underneath our thick layers of clay there lies a beautiful and magnificent Golden Buddha inside each of us just waiting to be discovered and celebrated.

Initially to protect our treasure, we build an outer layer of clay. Over the years, we unconsciously slather more layers of clay with our limited beliefs, superior ego, patterns, and life experiences continuing to endure a lifetime of suffering. Piece by piece, you can unveil the real treasure that lie underneath your outer shell.

With faith, courage, and diligence you have the power to chip away the layers of clay that are imprisoning your true essence, your beauty, and your worth. Consciously you can then know the greatness of your soul, manifest your dreams, and live a life full of abundance, joy, and bliss.”

I think that is the coolest story. I used to work in residential treatment centers. And one of the therapists there would use it and talk about it with the girls and I loved it.

So principle one here that we want to take away is that at your core, you are gold and you do not struggle with pornography. Okay, and that's doctrine. That's like LDS doctrine is at your core, you are a spiritual being. You are a son or daughter of deity. And you are gold. At your core your Spirit does not struggle with pornography.

What is keeping you from displaying that person are the pieces of clay that you've put around yourself in an effort to protect yourself metaphorically, of course. Maybe protection from disappointment, failure, embarrassment. So this clay that is keeping you from being this person who doesn't struggle with pornography, it shows up as limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs are beliefs that you have that keep you from quitting the porn. So sometimes my clients, they go through the whole process of bringing down the over-desire, they're doing really good and then they start looking at pornography again. And that's usually because of limiting beliefs that they still need to get over. Because they'll just start looking at it and they'll be like, “Wait, I didn't really even have an urge. I don't really even want this. Why did I start doing that?”

So some of these limiting beliefs that might keep you from becoming this person who doesn't want pornography is, I'm not strong enough. It's too hard to quit. It takes too much effort. I like pornography too much. It takes a lot of time. I will miss out if I don't view it. I need this until I get married. It's normal to want pornography.

So some of those might sound like they're just true, but they're not. And this is everything, they are not. They’re beliefs that you have. We've taken a lot of time and tried to debunk the belief that this is just something we're going to struggle with forever. But do you realize that quitting pornography is hard is a belief too? That's not necessarily fact.

And here's the thing about beliefs, especially limiting beliefs, is we find evidence for what we are thinking and for what we believe. So we think that it's just something happens and then we believe that. But it's actually the opposite. So we believe something, and then we see evidence for that.

So if you believe that it's hard to quit pornography, you are going to see evidence for that everywhere. And you're going to create that for yourself too. You're going to see all the people struggling. You're going to see all of your urges as really hard things to handle. If you believe pornography is easy to quit, it's easy to not look at pornography, then you'll find evidence for that.

And it's a bit of a process to change these beliefs so that you actually believe them, right? They're called beliefs because you believe them. If you don't believe them, they're not your beliefs. And that's why having someone to talk about it and a coach to help you through that is really helpful. But we see the world through our beliefs. And so if you believe, “I like it too much, I'll miss out if I don't view it, I need it.” That's the reality that you're going to create for yourself.

So just like the story of the Golden Buddha, to become that person we have to chip away and break down our beliefs. So it's hard, it's hard to quit porn. Maybe it's not, maybe it's harder to be in a pornography habit.

How is it way harder to be in a pornography habit than it is to quit pornography? I would argue that it is so much harder to feel out of control than it is to not look at pornography. So much harder to have all the effects of the pornography and all the effects of not being able to trust yourself and feeling bad, than it is to not look at pornography.

I don't have time. Right? Do you recognize that that's a limiting belief? Is that true or possible that that isn't true? I don't have time. Is it possible that you don't have the time not to quit pornography? That pornography takes up too much of your time? Maybe it takes less time to quit the pornography than it does to be in a porn habit. It totally takes time to be in a porn habit. It's normal to want pornography, maybe that's not true. I need this until I get married. Maybe that's not true. I will miss out if I don't view it.

And some of these, we say out loud, and you're like, “Oh, yeah, I don't believe that.” But then you kind of get into it and you get into your beliefs a little bit and you have the urges, and you recognize that you kind of do believe these things. And you are telling yourself these things, right? “I will miss out if I don't look at it. I will miss out on some escape. I will miss out on some pleasure. And I need that pleasure.” Those are beliefs that will keep you looking at pornography if you don't address them.

I want to share with you one of my favorite stories of one of my favorite clients, okay? Koji, you should be able to go and watch his story on my website.

He ran Iron Mans, which is crazy. Does anyone here run an Iron Man? If you run an Iron Man, make sure you come and tell me on my Instagram page, or email me or something because I just need to know if more people do this than I realize. I think it's the craziest thing in the world. Like I can't even imagine.

So if you don't know what an Iron Man is, you run a marathon, you swim 2.4 miles, and you bike 112 miles, just in one go. Crazy. I can't even imagine running 10 miles. And running a marathon, swimming two and a half miles, biking 112 miles, crazy.

Anyways, so this is what my client did. He did these things. And he was working on a pornography habit that he had had for a long time. And what he talks about is this moment where he said to himself, “If I can just learn how to run an Iron Man, if I can do this, then I can quit pornography. If I can do this, I will be strong enough to quit the pornography.”

What happened is he did this. And he got really, really good at it. He competed in championships. But he didn't quit the pornography and he still couldn't quit the pornography. And he beat himself up about it. He was saying, “I should be strong enough for this. What is my problem? What is wrong with me?”

Anyways, that's when he found me. And that's when we started working together, when he started changing some of his beliefs. And one of my favorite things that he said to me is, “I learned that I had the beliefs to run an Iron Man. But I didn't have the beliefs to quit the pornography.”

And we worked on those and it changed everything for him. Everything. So go and watch his story if you want to hear more from him. He talks in it, it's awesome. It's on my website, sarabrewer.com.

So the question here, the big question that will help you quit the pornography, that will help you change your identity so you are not someone who wants pornography anymore, the question isn't how can I stop looking at pornography? What do I need to do differently? But what do I need to believe in order to stop viewing pornography? What do I need to believe differently?

Let me give you some ideas. Maybe, “I am in control of my emotional life. My life will be more exciting without pornography.” And let me tell you, this one is true. This one is true, you will be less numb, you will have more time, energy, desire to do exciting things in your life, your life will be more exciting without porn.

Maybe some other beliefs that you want to adopt is, “People can stop wanting pornography, which means I can too. Nothing is wrong with me. I am capable of this.” This might be one that you need to grow into, but you can start practicing. And maybe, “I am worthy. 100% worthy, right now, in this habit. And because I'm worthy I know I can beat this.”

A little side note here, some of you listening to this podcast, are experiencing an intense, intense amount of pain because of your shame around the pornography habit. And I know this is true, because I get a lot of messages on my Instagram account about this.

And I get a lot of messages from wives, or girlfriends, or boyfriends whose partner is experiencing a lot of shame, and they hate it. They hate what it's doing for them. And so listen, if this is you, if you're experiencing a lot of shame around the pornography habit and you just feel awful about yourself, you need to go download my free training right now.

I made that training with the RN who came home and got back into pornography habit in my mind. That's the person I was thinking of when I made that training. This person who came home, got back into pornography habit and just feels terrible about himself and is stuck in a shame cycle of, “What's wrong with me? Why am I doing this? Why can't I fix this?”

There's a whole video there dedicated to overcoming shame. It’s so, so important. For you to become someone who doesn't struggle with pornography anymore you must overcome any shame that you have. And shame, remember, is this idea that there's something wrong with me. Guilt is I did something wrong; shame is there something wrong with me. That's from Brene Brown, I love her.

Okay, so a little recap. In order to overcome the pornography for good we need to have an identity shift. Which means we're not just going to stop looking at the pornography, but we're going to start believing things that will help us not look at pornography. And we do that, we have that identity shift by discovering our limiting beliefs and by breaking them down.

This is the work that we do every single week in our coaching calls in my program. If you're interested in that, please come and join. I would love to have you there. I want you to know that at your core you are so much more than you think you are.

And I know you hear this. And you might be thinking to yourself, “Okay, yeah, right. That's cheesy.” That's what I used to do. But it's true, you are so much more than you think you are. And as you work on changing your identity, as you work on overcoming the pornography. As you work on all these skills that you will learn in my free training, that you will learn in this podcast, that you will learn if you join my program, you will learn how to reach that person. So fun, you guys. It’s such fun work. Thanks for being here and we'll talk to you next week.

To celebrate the launch of the show. I'm giving away some really cool stuff to you, my listeners. Three listeners will win a $50 Amazon gift card and one listener will win an adult electric scooter.

All you have to do is subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. This allows me to get my message out to more people who need it and it will enter you in the giveaway to win a $50 Amazon gift card or an electric scooter.

Go visit sarabrewer.com/podcastlaunch to get information. That's Sara Brewer without an H, S-A-R-A brewer.com/podcastlaunch, all one word, to get all the information on how to enter that giveaway.