Today's message comes from the Renewed Man Boot Camp. Renewed Man is a systematic teaching and coaching series designed to help men grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually ... developing the essential character quality of "self-mastery." Even though this community is created for men, the principles are universal -- women will
benefit from these insights as well.
We build this teaching around 12 Keys, and this week, we're focusing on key 4: REDIRECTED
DESIRE. Here's how we put it:
Redirected Desire - We accept our sex drive as a
powerful, God-given energy, and are learning how to focus and redirect it towards things that are positive and purposeful, when we choose to do so.
Here's one of the daily messages from this week's teaching series. I hope this will help you:
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The main thing to understand about sexual energy is that it is a drive … it unleashes powerful creative energy. It’s not evil, but when it’s not controlled, it can be destructive. By refraining from overindulgence or
practicing outright abstinence, you can use this creative energy (which wells up and has previously been used towards sexual ends) to maximize your potential in every area of your life.
You can generate success in your professional life, work on your fitness, and/or build deep, loving, long-lasting personal relationships. You can grow personally, professionally and spiritually. Sexual energy is analogous to crude oil in that it is valuable, powerful and an important
resource — but to maximize its power, you have to refine it. Only then can you use its power to fuel productive and constructive creation in your life.
In the video overview of this topic, I made the point that, while there are a lot of books, articles, and videos out there that deal with this topic, there are not many that I recommend for participants in this program. If you’re interested in pursuing this topic, the one book I most recommend is “Sexual Energy Transmutation: The Secret Path to Health, Wealth and Genius,” by Jay Onwukwe.
In the book he says this (and note that he's focusing on men, but these principles apply to women as well):
“Whenever a man is enthralled by a woman, and he wants her, a certain state of mind activates in that man. That state of mind is very potent; as it draws out the very best of the man’s attributes of keen observation, imagination,
courage, tact, persistence and creativity, into a coordinated battle plan to capture and possess that very object of his desire, the woman, even if for a fleeting moment. An intense desire activates mental activity towards its actualization.
“So strong and compelling is the drive for sexual contact that men risk their prestige, reputation, relationship, business, and even life, just to indulge in it. When driven by this motive, the mind of man invokes a super-ability
for extraordinary action. This same state of mind can equally be used to achieve any other goal upon which it is directed – including wealth creation and accumulation.
“It is therefore imperative that this natural but tumultuous sex drive must not only be understood, it must also be controlled, reined-in, and given balanced and dignified expression through outlets that enrich and uplift the total Man.”
In this program, our focus is not on
trying to get you to deny or repress your sex drive. That doesn’t work over the long term. Our focus is rather on helping you to understand and appreciate this drive, and learn to focus it — or “re-channel” it — onto other pursuits.
NEXT ACTION
Today’s action is to let yourself think about your life from a big picture perspective.
FIRST — Think about all
the time and energy you have been spending on sexual thoughts and practices. How much time have you been spending: (a) looking at pornography (b) mindlessly surfing around in non-pornographic, but arousing web sites and social media places … just surfing around because you know that you’ll find certain things that are stimulating (c) cruising around on dating or match-making sites (d) spending money and time at strip clubs or massage parlors (e) flirting with — or just giving special attention
to — people simply because they’re attractive and/or sexually arousing. How many hours a week of your time do you think this has been taking up?
SECOND — Now also think about the time spent in guilt and regret … in the aftermath of some kind of sexual fantasizing and activity. After wasting time in these pursuits — especially if it culminated in masturbation and orgasm — you then need some physical, emotional, and spiritual “recovery time” to get back up
to equilibrium … to feel good about yourself, to feel close to God, to be energized about pursuing your dreams. Along with this, if you are married, think of all the time, energy, and relationship pain you’ve had to go through because your partner found out about something you did … and helping her work through her feelings of anger and hurt.
If you are single, think about the time and energy you’ve been devoted to stressing out about how to relate to
women in healthy ways, and of any relationships that have been lost because of your sexual behavior.
NOW … imagine you had all that time, energy, and creativity to devote to some other kind of pursuit that you want to have! How amazing would your life be? How much more time would you have? How much energy and confidence would you have?
That is your birthright.
That is what God wants for you. Power, energy, drive,
focus … all these qualities that form the bedrock of meaningful and purposeful living. These are things that get lost when our sex drive takes over and pulls us down its destructive paths.
What if you can’t really identify any significant loss of time and energy?
If you did not identify much pain and loss in your life related to your sexual habits and experiences, please note: this is really
significant. You are blessed. Don’t pass over this too quickly. It’s worth a high-five to yourself, and may be the occasion for offering a prayer of thanks.
Many men I know and work with are dealing with tremendous amounts of guilt, regret, shame, and painful loss because of this issue. And many, many more men are setting themselves up for pain, loss, and regret in the future … because of patterns they are allowing to get set up in
their lives in this sex-frenzied world.
Keep going through this process and avoid all that pain and regret!
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Would you like to go "all in" and join the Renewed Man Boot Camp? It's a 12 Week Immersion in these principles. You'll get these daily teachings, a weekly video on one of the 12 Keys of Being a Renewed Man, and access to a support group and/or a coaching group that I
lead.
Find out more about the Renewed Man Program here.
