“When our skills of self-regulation are well learned during childhood, they feel as if they come naturally, as if we always had them. When they are not well learned, we may reach to sources outside of ourselves to provide the sense of calm and good feeling that we cannot achieve on our own, or to recreate that sense
of calm that we remember having as a small child.” – Dr. Tian Dayton
Here’s an important question about sexual struggles that men don’t often get clarity about: Why do I keep failing to keep my resolve to stop this
behavior? In other words, why is this area of struggle in my life different from so many others? Why do I keep falling back into the behavior I resolved to stop?
This Renewed Man program offers help at a variety of levels for men dealing with this
dilemma. Just think about the keys we’ve looked at already in this program:
- Key 1 – Daily Connection to Commitment – many men struggle because they’ve not established a habit that helps them reconnect to their values and commitments EVERY DAY.
- Key 2 – Environment – many men struggle because they’re trying to live with purity in an environment filled with distractions and temptations, and they’re setting themselves up to
fail.
- Key 3 – Community (overcoming isolation) – many men struggle because they need more outside support and accountability, and they’ve never developed deep enough relationships with others who could help them
- Key 4 – Redirected Desire / Transmutation – many men struggle because they haven’t learned how to channel their sexual urges into energy that they can then refocus on other interests and tasks.
- Key 5 – Emotional
Awareness – many men struggle because they aren’t aware of, and therefore aren’t dealing with, snowballing negative emotions, and wind up turning to unhealthy and destructive habits in order to buffer themselves from these feelings.
This week we’re introducing another huge issue for many men. In fact, it’s possible that for you, this might be THE most important issue.
It is certainly the core issue for people whose struggle becomes a full-blown addiction. Put simply, the issue is this:
Unresolved Issues from Our Past
If a man has unresolved trauma and hurts from his upbringing, he will struggle to maintain healthy resolves around something as powerful and easily accessible as artificial sex.
Whenever challenges in his life trigger those old wounds, he will reach for something to soothe or distract him … and that “something” will often be pornography or other forms of artificial sex.
Many men who struggle with sexual temptations are able to develop self mastery in this area with clarity, commitment, support from other guys, and the basic behavioral strategies we outline in this program.
But not everyone.
For some men, the roots go deep. They need to look in their hearts, and reflect on their history, in order to understand why they can’t “just stop.”
They can’t “just stop” because the experience of looking at porn and masturbating activates high levels of dopamine, and then a flood of endorphins after orgasm, and they have come to depend on these brain chemicals to help them deal with pain and stress that they began experiencing at a young age. They turned to sexual behavior as a way to deal with trauma that was too
much to bear. And now, in spite of their resolve to stop, they keep doing it.
