[00:00:00] The reason porn is like an old friend is that same kind of environment can be created in new seasons of life. Different settings, different situations. And if we haven't learned how to do the story work of in pursuing emotional health in real time, then we're going to be blindsided and probably fail again in the future. A couple of years ago, I went out our back door to pick some peaches off our peach tree. I had a couple of kids with me. We grabbed some boxes and we had been excited because we have five peach trees on our property and we've been learning how to care for fruit and take care of them, and that here they were fully grown and we were looking forward to fresh peaches. But as I left the door, my wife called out to me and she said, be sure not to pick any ones that are green still. And it's a very simple comment, but something inside of me, it felt like a jab. And it kind of triggered very familiar emotions for me.
[00:01:06] And it reinforced a soundtrack in my mind that I had been learning to live with. Even even though I had done a lot of processing earlier in life, I had addressed father wounds in my life, there was still this subtle soundtrack that would show up every now and then. In this episode, I want to show you how to navigate, first of all to recognize those soundtracks, but then navigate through them in real time. If you've been following with us, we're going through a series of learning what it means to be free from pornography for real. In the first episode, I talked about how porn is like an old friend. Even when we go through seasons of life with real, genuine victory and freedom, it doesn't mean that pornography is gone for good necessarily. There may be times where it shows back up. And in the last episode, we talked about how the reason it shows back up is because there was an emotional environment that had been created which allowed us or. Or gave us the excuse to violate some fundamental values that we held. And we were willing to pursue this.
[00:02:25] This pleasure that truly doesn't satisfy. Actually, we went into that for a little moment because it. It seemed to offer us something that nothing else in the moment was offering us. And that the reason porn is like an old friend is that same kind of environment can be created in new seasons of life. Different settings, different situations. And if we haven't learned how to do the story work of in pursuing emotional health in real time, then we're going to be blindsided and probably fail again in the future.
[00:03:03] And so in the last episode, I introduced a framework that my Counselor has taught me. And that is the internal family systems framework where it recognizes that we have an exile part, a managing part, and a firefighter part. And the exile is the childhood wound or the void, the experience we had in our young formation that sent a message of shame.
[00:03:33] And that shame is what we have inadvertently created patterns in our life of how we avoid that shame. And that leads to the managing part. The managing part of us is the part of us that we've discovered, hey, this manages that shame. If we put this part forward, then we don't experience the shame that we did in the exile part. But ultimately, we all discover that even the manager doesn't work. And that's when the firefighter part shows up. And that's the gross, compulsive, harmful behaviors that we do. Like looking at pornography. It comes in and it's just going to alleviate the pain or it's going to numb the ache, or maybe even the thing we're feeling is a sense of purposelessness and the erotic excitement of pornography and the secrecy and so forth. Any sort of adventure feels like purpose for a moment.
[00:04:36] And the thing about the firefighter is that ultimately it only creates more shame. And so there's this crazy cycle that we go on. And a truly healthy person is someone who's wholly integrated, who can identify when the exile is feeling itself again, who can I, who can observe and see how I tend to try to manage this and maybe what patterns, what firefighter things I have allowed into my life. And I bring all of that, my whole self, to the Lord and let him speak truth and healing over me. And I, I would like to, in this episode, show you what that looks like to bring that to the Lord and then how it has changed my life and how it can change your life and help you be able to process in real time what it looks like to walk in emotional health.
[00:05:36] And even when there's moments of failure, how that doesn't have to be viewed as a setback, but can give us information of other areas of our life that still need the gospel to be preached and formed in our being.
[00:05:52] My name is Asher Whitmer. This is unfeigned Christianity. We are on a journey of becoming a people who are theologically anchored in Jesus and emotionally healthy so we can love and disciple others well. And one of the things that a piece of my story that I found overlaps with a lot of folks is the area of sexual wholeness and sexual sin, particularly the kind that is addictive.
[00:06:19] Obviously, I wrote about it in my book Live Free How I got into pornography as a young child and then struggled with it throughout my youth and then found real, genuine freedom in working through father wounds and discovering a sense of purpose. In this series, I'm diving in a little deeper. I'm 10 years removed from that portion of my story and there's been new new experiences and areas of life where the old friend has showed back up again and the value and the importance of continuing to pursue emotional wholeness throughout all of our lives if we're going to be whole and healthy humans who genuinely glorify God.
[00:07:10] So if you're just joining us, I encourage you to go back and watch episode one and two. They'll be linked in the descriptions below.
[00:07:19] But one of the things I want you to be familiar with is that we often can live with this impression that freedom from pornography or unwanted sexual behaviors of any kind is not having the temptations again.
[00:07:38] And that's not necessarily freedom. Will you go through seasons of life where you don't experience temptations 100%? If you're in a season of life where you're experiencing constant temptation, it sure doesn't feel like freedom. Right. Are there folks who experience a miraculous overnight lifelong freedom from pornography? Yes.
[00:08:03] But one of the things we want to be careful about is that we don't create an expectation based on some rare stories.
[00:08:14] The reality is that most of us are will bump into the temptations again.
[00:08:20] And if we're not ready to navigate, if we don't understand why we gave in in the first place and why we experience those temptations, then we're probably just going to continue to fail.
[00:08:30] And so through this series, I want to reframe our understanding of freedom from being never experience temptation again to knowing what to do when the temptation arises, knowing where to take our whole self when we're re triggered. That's what we're getting at and that's what we're pursuing.
[00:08:53] So why was my wife encouraging me not to pick green peaches? So triggering to me.
[00:09:00] Well, here's the thing.
[00:09:02] A soundtrack that I have lived with.
[00:09:06] It began early on in my life through a wounding experience.
[00:09:11] And there have been large seasons of my life where I genuinely didn't feel like I was living from that soundtrack.
[00:09:19] But I found that when I go through trials and when I go through tough times, that soundtrack can resurface. The old friend kind of comes around and tries to remind you of what you were like before. Right. And he wants to be friends with you or she wants to be friends with you. Whatever Gender. We want to give this friend this analogy. And when we listen to it and dabble in it, then it just recreates that same emotional environment that causes us to start looking at porn, right?
[00:09:50] And here's what that soundtrack was for me. You don't have anything of value to bring.
[00:09:57] It's as simple as that.
[00:09:59] This message is communicated in multiple ways through critique of my work, through ignoring what I've done.
[00:10:09] And here's the thing about wounding experiences that forms the exile part of us is most times the person who wounded us didn't even realize they were wounding us.
[00:10:23] They weren't intending to.
[00:10:25] Some of us have experienced genuine trauma in life and the thing that happened to us was inherently evil.
[00:10:35] And that compounds the depth and the agony of the wound that we experience and find healing from. But most of us still experience a sense of wound or a void. And it came from someone who by all other measures is a good hearted human being. But we are a broken people.
[00:11:01] Paul says in Romans that even those of us with the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we feel the bondage to corruption that all of creation is under.
[00:11:12] In James, we're exhorted to confess our sins one to another, so that you may be healed. We are a broken people and we're gonna sin against each other. That even means parents to children. And so the goal should not be to never try to hurt each other.
[00:11:33] The goal should be being conformed to Jesus and humble enough to acknowledge the fact that I'm a work in progress. And when I have hurt someone, to be attuned to that and to seek repair.
[00:11:46] And then when we've been hurt by others, to be attuned to that and acknowledge the way that is shaping the narrative we play in ourselves and bring all of that to Jesus.
[00:12:01] So here's what that looked like for me as we went out to pick peaches. You're probably listening to this story and thinking it's so silly. Like, why does your wife reminding you not to pick green peaches trigger this idea that you don't have anything of value to bring? Right. I look back at that story and think the same thing. Because my wife and I, this has been a joint venture to learn how to care for fruit. We have grapes, we have peaches, and we have apples on our property. And before moving to this property, we, we had not done any sort of gardening, let alone fruit tree care. And so we've been working at this together and researching together.
[00:12:42] Of course, my wife and I are going to shout back and forth to each other in reminders of what we've been learning in this process.
[00:12:51] But I was going through a very dark season of life. It's not my wife's fault.
[00:12:57] I don't know that it's anybody's fault. It just was a season of life.
[00:13:03] And in that moment, I didn't know why I was going through it. I still wish that I would not have had to go through it. But one of the things that God used through that process was causing me to realize anew, or come flat on my face again, my need for Him. I'm guessing all of us experience these seasons of life where we grow in knowledge and maturity and maybe some slight puffing up, and then we go through testing and experiences that allow us to either be humbled or maybe we end up digging in our heels and living out of our pride. I don't know. I don't.
[00:13:52] I don't know exactly why we go through dark times like we do sometimes, but I was in the middle of that, and I was feeling really isolated and as though I genuinely didn't have anything of value to bring. And so this final thing coming from the closest person to me was just another jab in the side.
[00:14:15] And as I walked out the door, I felt all the familiar reactions from rising up that I wanted to do. And just for clarity's sake, I'm going to demonstrate to you a success story of processing in real time how to do story work and how to navigate an experience like that in an emotionally healthy way so that there isn't further pain and agony. But the sad truth is there's been a lot of failure, too.
[00:14:47] And there's times where we have to go back and repair. It includes an apology, but it also includes open and transparent conversation, maybe with our spouse, maybe with a close friend, another family member of some kind, where we're honest with each other about what hurt, why I reacted the way that I did. But then also where we give them the opportunity to share how our responses hurt them.
[00:15:17] So don't feel like even within this work of doing story work and pursuing emotional health, that somehow the goal is to avoid the pain and the hurt and the failure. Because we are broken human beings, the goal is just to learn how to do it. So whether it's in real time, before the damage is done or afterward, we realize we've caused damage. We can take ownership, ownership and go back and process it in a healthy way. As I went out the door, a couple of things, familiar ways of responding started floating to the surface. One, I wanted to slam the door. I don't know how you are, but we probably all feel that tendency at times whenever the message for you might be different than that you don't have value to bring. But whatever triggers that soundtrack may cause us to kind of just want to storm out, right?
[00:16:17] Another thing is that this was in a familial context and I found myself tempted to go into the cave, metaphorical cave, of where I know I'm valued, right?
[00:16:34] So for me, that's in work, in accomplishing things and getting things done. That's something I know I've got this task ahead of me. I can do it even. I've noticed, even in the age of social media, the rise of looking at likes or comments or positive feedback or negative feedback, all of that can play into this notion of, like, oh, somebody thinks that I have value to bring, right? And if I leaned into that, I would be trying to manage the exile. And ultimately that's going to fail. And when that fails, maybe somebody really dislikes something I said or a post that I share doesn't get enough likes, or maybe I don't quite get work done enough on time enough, or maybe I do get the work done, but somebody at my job has some criticism or so forth. Ultimately, the thing I'm leaning into to manage the exile will eventually fail, if for no other reason. The fact that nobody else that I'm looking to to manage my shame realizes they're responsible to manage my shame because they're actually not. And it's an internal thing that's going on that I'm looking to other people or other things to somehow keep me the exile.
[00:17:50] And when the manager fails, that's when the firefighter shows up. And we often might feel kind of blindsided or like it just takes over and we can't control ourselves. And here's how that shifted for me. First of all, as I was tempted to slam the door, I took a deep breath and I walked out the door. I was silent. I don't know that I responded to my wife. And in love and care, I would have. Yeah, thanks for the reminder. Whatever. There's a number of ways I could have responded, but I was still kind of processing in real time. And maybe one of my kids was walking out the door with me. And so that caused me to hesitate further, to not slam the door. I'm not going to pretend that I'm so righteous I just left the door. But. And to my memory, I did not slam the door. I remember walking out and immediately Starting to process.
[00:18:49] Why is this triggering me like that? And because it was so simple, it's easy for me to see. Like, that's a simple encouragement, right?
[00:18:58] She's not trying to wound me, but it felt all the same.
[00:19:04] It brought up the same feelings, and I start processing through.
[00:19:10] And that's when actually, in full transparency, I couldn't really figure it out.
[00:19:15] I ended up bringing that experience to my counselor, and he helped me kind of walk through. He's like, what. What.
[00:19:23] What were you thinking or feeling in that moment?
[00:19:27] And I knew that, you know, I kind of verbalized. Well, it made me feel like an idiot, as though I didn't know anything. And. And he helps me kind of see how. Well, that. That's a similar tying to the old message. You don't have anything of value to bring, right?
[00:19:44] It's like, oh, yeah. So that's reawakening that message. And so I feel like I have to defend myself or protect the shame. What if there is something of value?
[00:19:56] And then he walks me through this process of like, what would you like Asher to know? It's always a little weird to talk of yourself in the third person, but it can also be helpful because we encourage other people in ways that we don't necessarily encourage ourselves internally sometimes.
[00:20:17] And as we talk through that, he's like, well, yeah, what would you want Asher to know in that moment?
[00:20:24] And I expressed. It's like, no, you have a lot of things to bring to the table. And in a way, my wife is leaning into me wanting to do this together, and so to invite that and receive that. And this is a partnership. It's not a declaration of my identity or my worth. And one of the things that my counselor has said multiple times is that shame causes us to mistake questions or simple observations as declarations of value.
[00:21:02] Shame causes us to mistake questions or simple declarations. And he always used the example of if his wife was gone for the day and he was taking care of the kids, and she would come home from the day, and she would say, hey, what did you feed the kids while I was gone? Because that's a question. And it spoke a message of shame, as though he doesn't know how to take care of his kids. She was just not wanting to feed them the same thing that evening. Right? It's very simple, but it tapped into the shame that he felt. And for me, that statement of, hey, remember not to pick peaches that are green. That's just an observation. It's simple. But because of the shame of the Exile self that Asher was living in, in that moment that I don't have anything of value to bring, it caused me to mistake that for a declaration of worth, as though I'm not. Don't have any worth. And so through that process, then we look at scripture and what does God say about my worth?
[00:22:06] What does God say about us as human beings, as his children?
[00:22:12] Our worth isn't found in what our peers think of us.
[00:22:17] Our worth isn't found in what we do.
[00:22:21] That's one of the biggest lessons I've had to learn, is that my purpose doesn't derive from the thing that I'm doing.
[00:22:29] Our worth comes from whose we are.
[00:22:33] And so being able to reground myself in the truth of God's perspective of me, not only does that light the load, and it lifted that in that moment, all of a sudden, I'm no longer bound by this tense animosity towards my wife. In fact, we're able to then talk about it later.
[00:22:55] Sometimes I realize, after doing that work, I realize, like, this is such a silly thing.
[00:23:01] I'll apologize to my wife without ever apologizing to her, right? Like, hey, I'm sorry I took that so personally. But she didn't know in that moment, she didn't necessarily know that I took it personally. So for me, it's just in, in some ways kind of a mental reframing and, and a willingness, a freedom then to lean back into my wife.
[00:23:22] But especially if there was lashing out or feedback that I gave that was also hurtful, then we do have to talk about it. Or if it's something that we've noticed kind of nagging us over and over again, it, it can be valuable to, to bring that up. But having done that work alleviates all the pressure, all the emotional pressure so that I can talk about it. And we're like, hey, I know, I know you weren't meaning to say this, you weren't meaning to communicate what I took from it, but when you said xyz, I heard so on and so forth, and that's why I responded that way. I'm sorry, that's not what you were saying.
[00:24:07] That's not what you were meaning. I'm sorry for lashing out the way that I did or for shutting you off or whatever.
[00:24:14] Maybe there isn't something we need to apologize for in that moment, but we're just leaning into intimacy and connection because ultimately that's what we're all longing for, is connection and for intimacy, intimacy with our spouses. If we're married, but all of us long for intimacy with someone.
[00:24:35] We're designed. And the complex nature of human beings is that we are designed to be naked with God.
[00:24:44] Adam is walking around naked with God, but he's also walking around naked with Eve.
[00:24:52] And they had no shame. And I think what we can take from that is even more broadly than the sense that somehow mankind is designed for marriage, which there's certainly that element there as well. Adam and Eve become one flesh, right?
[00:25:12] That's how humans are reproduced is through the covenant of marriage.
[00:25:17] But more broadly, in Genesis, what we're seeing is that Adam and Eve or mankind are made for intimacy with God and with people, and you can't separate the two. And that's why emotional health is so crucial, because spiritual connection with God is one thing, but then to have connection with another person who's just as fallen and broken as I am, that's quite a bit more challenging, right? That's why we have the story of forgiveness where you had the king who forgave this tremendous debt over his one servant. Well, then the servant goes out and strangles the guy who owes him just a small little debt.
[00:26:06] And that's the relationship that we as humans tend to have with each other, where we have this huge debt against God, and God has extended forgiveness to us, but then we go and hold each other to these really small debts.
[00:26:23] Obviously to us in the moment, they feel really big.
[00:26:26] But we've lost sight of the debt that we've owe God, the one that he forgave us from. And yet somehow we're supposed to experience love and unity and connection with each other as a part of growing in intimacy and connection with the Father. And you cannot do that.
[00:26:50] You cannot do that. When you're looking at pornography, you're bound.
[00:26:55] It's like in Isaiah when he's talking about there's no one to save Israel for all the men lay at the head of streets bound by nets when we have given ourselves over to pornography and unwanted sexual sin, we're bound by something. We have an inability to go and truly lean into the world around us the way God designed us to, because there's compromise deep in our soul. But even more broadly than that, we can't have connection and healthy leadership and healthy community without being emotionally healthy. That's why story work matters. And that's why it is a conviction of unfeigned Christianity that we need to be people who are theologically anchored in Jesus, but also emotionally healthy so that we can love and disciple others. Well, I believe we cannot genuinely love well if we are not both theologically anchored and emotionally healthy.
[00:28:04] This is why I have a part of the Patreon membership of Unfeigned Christianity. I have developed the Formation Circle, which is one of the tiers where, yes, there's a lot of resources and, and extra benefits that you get, but it's also the tier where we get monthly group mentorship calls together and we can be shaped and formed together in community as we begin to process what it looks like to be theologically anchored. And we grow in theology and spiritual formation, but also in emotional health within that community. I have the Live Free Mentorship program. As a part of the Live Free Mentorship program, you go through the Live Free course. You get a free copy of my book Live Free, if you don't already have one. And then we walk through the course. It's a five month program where we unpack your story and you're able to dig into your own journey. What led you into pornography or other unwanted sexual behavior, and we can begin to do the story work to help you find emotional healing. I want to be clear that I am not a professional counselor. I have been counseled. I continue to be in counseling with a professional therapist. I've also taken some training to learn some of these things as well. But I'm not a professional counselor. Rather, I am a mentor. I facilitate this journey together even as you're going through your journey and doing your own story work and realizing you may need professional help yourself, which I highly encourage. But I understand that can be expensive sometimes, even though it's worth the investment.
[00:29:55] But one of the things that we process through is, is how to know what a good counselor is and how to find one. The Live Free mentorship program is $30 a month, but for right now, you can get it 20% off when you purchase an annual membership that's essentially giving you two months free. And it gives you the full access to all of the Formation Circle as well as everything within the Live Free Mentorship program.
[00:30:24] And for a limited time, the first five people who purchase an annual membership get exclusive access to a webinar I did on lessons I've learned about sexual illness since writing Live Free. It's a bunch of stuff that I would put in if I updated the book or rewrote it today.
[00:30:44] The next cohort is opening right now. I'll be sharing more details in the next episode, but if you want to be sure and secure your spot, go ahead and click the link in the description below.
[00:30:57] This work really matters to me, not only because it's part of my story, but also because I'm reminded again and again how much of a need we have for emotional health within the church.
[00:31:12] And I realize that you may be needing exactly what I'm offering here and yet not have the resources to join a cohort like this.
[00:31:23] And if that's you, please reach out, because we will work to get you involved and to get you help, even if you can't pay.
[00:31:32] $30 a month is already significantly cheaper than professional counseling or other programs.
[00:31:41] But I don't want money standing in the way of you getting the help and the freedom you deserve.
[00:31:48] So feel free to reach out to
[email protected] and say, Hey, I. I'd love to join the Live Free Mentorship program, but I don't have money right now and we'll get you in. And if you know of somebody who could really benefit from this series that we've gone through or the Live Free Mentorship program, please share it with them, pass it on to them so that they can begin taking the journey toward wholeness as well.
[00:32:15] Thanks for coming through this series with me. Until next time, Grace and Peace Sam.
