Overcoming Porn Addiction

Description

Enough people have asked me for this video that I finally thought it was time to create it. I hope it proves helpful to many. There are wonderful resources online which give a more conventional approach. The info in this video is not meant to replace those resources, but to enhance them. Use the info in this video alongside those resources to increase you ability to break free. You can do it!!

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Check out our online video course, "ReWild Your Mind", for many more methods of cultivating a clear, powerful, and positive mind-set. http://rewildu.com/online-courses/rewild-your-mind-online-course/

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Music is "Ascending the Vale" by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com. Check out his awesome music!!!

Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,porn addiction

Video Transcription

I've had numerous requests to do a video on breaking addiction to porn and I think it's about time that I honor those requests and do a video the reason I haven't been wanting to do this video is that there are already a lot of really good resources out there I know a lot of people are facing this addiction and if you go online you're gonna find people giving not only really good advice on apps on support groups but also giving advice on how our habitual mind works and how we can get break ourselves out of a habit so I'm not gonna go over any of that it's already covered it's out there go and seek those resources if you're having an issue with this there again there's help out there go and find it if that has not worked for you then I'm going to attack this from a different angle that I don't think anybody else has and as usual the thing I'm gonna share today applies not only to addiction to porn but to addiction across the board and gives us insight into our deeper relationship with the culture that we're living in it helps first of all to understand a little bit about what's going on with these addiction mechanisms there's there's a theory that our our minds our physiology whether it is created or evolved whatever your view is that we basically have evolved or been created to have a mind that is keyed in to certain what I'm gonna call in this video peak experiences and I'm not talking about peak experience like riding a wave perfectly when you're going surfing or something like that but I'm talking about these experiences sexuality

violence drama these things that arouse our system in a powerful way and our minds our bodies are designed to react strongly to these kinds of stimuli we're trying to mate it's a very important you know aspect of our of our being and so as soon as that potential is there a lot of energy goes into that if you were walking down a path and suddenly somebody from from a tribe that is an enemy of your tribe steps out then there's going to be a strong peak reaction there where you're going to fight or flee and food is another good example where we if a foraging or hunting

we know that okay there's lots of sources of protein and carbohydrates out here but those sugars finding the honey is gonna be difficult and enough but then getting it from the bees is can be even tougher so that sweetness that triggers kind of a it's a peak experience something that we probably are wired to seek out now the approach I'm gonna take to this for an addiction is a little bit different as I said from I think anything else that you've probably heard before because usually when we confront a problem like this we were given the message that it's inevitable basically that we're gonna have this battle going on inside of us we think this is part of human nature that there's one cat and over here are going like do what's healthy and good for you and there's the other kenton over here that's saying like just you know do what gives you the most pleasure and that those two aspects are battling each other now if that's truly just human nature that's part of us that's one thing but I'm gonna challenge that notion because if you came out here and you lived in the woods at Rewald university for an extended period of time I think you would find that those two voices they don't really exist those two voices are a cultural artifact when we're existing out in the environment that let's I'm gonna say that we were created for or evolved into that if we are existing in that environment that we're not going to have those two voices and I can pretty much guarantee this but if you spent enough months out in the woods you're gonna find that that's not going on inside your head think about it what are the things that we start to have those two voices about it's things like should I watch TV it's things like am I gonna do that movie binge tonight am I going to try to level up on that video game you know and spend the four or five hours that's going to take am I gonna eat that entire cake and the bag of potato chips these are things that are not even available to us in our natural environment out here my mind it starts to slow down it's not dealing with those kind of choices if you decide you don't want to go gather firewood you know if there are those two voices one saying go gather firewood that's a sensible thing and the other one that's saying oh just sit back and chill I couldn't learn pretty quickly that if you don't gather firewood you're not gonna be able to cook your meal you're not going to be warm that night and nature provides direct consequences for our actions so that we very quickly learned that there's really just one voice going on and that's to do what's in every situation now enter in our culture our culture gives us all of these things that feed into that peak experience part of our brain so porn this videos about porn it is taking that peak experience that desire for sexuality for mating and you can literally go online any of you right now and you can have you can sit all day long and watch sexual imagery and you if you're masturbating to that or having your own sexual experiences to that you can have this giant prolonged sexual binge that goes on and on and on there's no end to it and this is not just porn this happens with our drama sense right our natural drama sense is it's this peak experience part of our brain that's keyed into when there's a conflict interaction with another member of our tribe family that we're going to really be there and be present to work out that drama hopefully as quickly as we can but and turn our culture it's giving us movies for instance where we are sitting down to these huge long prolonged you know hour-and-a-half two-hour long dramas that are taking us on a huge emotional roller coaster and if it's a movie binge we can just keep doing that hour after hour food out here living in the woods you're gonna have a pretty basic diet as soon as we get back into civilization as we all know there are a thousand things being offered to us usually hitting that sweet peak experience really hitting that sweet spot and so I can be sitting here just munching cake and cupcakes and cookies and endlessly so here we have our culture and it has designed itself around catering to these peak experiences it's a money based culture this only makes sense if I can trigger those peak experiences and the addictions that they create then I'm gonna have people continue to buy more of my thing if my product does not trigger those peak experiences I'm not gonna be selling a whole lot of it right so so here we have these peak experiences that are on hyperdrive back to porn so the thing is with these hyperdrive peak experiences we never can get enough as soon as we're into that hyperstimulation as we start going up here and we get to this point this point is really no longer good enough to satisfy our cravings we have to move a little bit further up the ladder then everyday we have to move a little bit further up that ladder in order for it to feel like we're getting the peak experience the natural peak experience that that we're after and there's really no end to this we will eat ourselves into obesity and in diabetes we will watch porn until no regular sexual experience is even vaguely interesting and we will watch movies and play video games to such an extent that regular life just seems kind of dull and grey realizing how this is working is important because when we have that background understanding of what that mechanism is then we can say okay I'm aware of this how can I break this mechanism how can I go back to having these natural peak experiences that are satisfactory because the natural ones here's the funny thing

porn it's gonna get us into this hyper aroused eight that seems like it's more exciting and better than this natural state that's down here but the natural state I mean I'll tell you right now a while back I basically cut out almost all of this kind of hyper stimulation I mean I still occasionally watch you know like a Disney movie or something with my my two daughters but I really just don't in take any of that media anymore and what that is done is it's set my mind so that I can really experience those peak experiences again sex with my wife maybe there's more information that you need but to me it is amazing it's unbelievable it's mind-blowing and it's very satisfactory and so there's this amazing peak experience it's wonderfully satisfying and I can come back to that peak experience again and again but I'm not led on this endless quest upwards on a quest that never never ends same with food broccoli carrots those taste sweet to me because I've gotten rid of most of that like processed sugar stuff in my diet I can taste food again and I can have a peak experience of really enjoying food that before a piece of raw broccoli or raw carrot would have just been whatever now it's awesome so bringing ourselves back to these these regular peak experiences is not regular and boring actually enhances our life it makes life more enjoyable so when you're thinking about getting breaking free of this porn addiction you're not gonna lose anything you're actually gonna bring yourself back to a heightened experience of life this brings us to the tool I'd like to share today which if we remember if this is a cultural artifact that we're dealing with then instead of just trying to break the addiction we can go deeper and we can look at what would happen if we recreate transform the culture itself now I'm gonna have trouble transforming the larger culture around me it's kind of a juggernaut it's going on with more power than I can stop myself I can use my willpower to for instance try to cut out all these things and if you try to do this remember it's not just gonna be just cutting out porn you're gonna be much more successful if you really take a look at all of these all of these kind of hyper drive experiences that you're involving yourself in really starting to question do I want to in take these super action movies I mean it's the Avengers or whatever it's so cool but is it really really adding to your life those hyper sugared foods all these things they're triggering the same mechanism inside of us and the more we're feeding that the more we're gonna be susceptible to further aspects of that or other versions of that so you know

deep into let's say super exciting violent videogames that's gonna be triggering the same part of your mind that then is going to say it's probably gonna be easier for you to get involved in a porn addiction what happens remember when I talked about just a little bit ago about coming back to those regular peak peak experiences and there's also the fact that or the realization that in our culture right now it seems like these things the cake the movies whatever it is the video games that it's a reward a much-needed reward because we are a lot of us we're going to work or hear from people that are still in high school and just can't stand it you know we're going someplace during the day that we just do not like and it's not serving us and we we're stuck in these places it sucks we just just like we just dislike it and then we come home and naturally we're gonna want some rest and relaxation we're gonna want to break from that but in the same way I was talking about coming back to those regular peak experiences if we start to cut those things out and we bring ourselves back to more of a soft clarity of mind then we're not going to need those those rewards because our whole day is going to be a reward and with this tool that I'm about to give you you can as as much as it seems unbelievable you can even make going to work at the factory or going to high school into a powerful positive experience here's how we do it we may not be able to change that external juggernaut culture but we can change our inner culture our inner culture is our our soft concept of who we are and how we relate to the larger cultural context so for instance most of us we have been told that we are consumers and so we are a consumer of porn we are a consumer of tape cake and cupcakes well as a consumer our mindset is about consumption and mostly what we're doing if we look at a lot of our lives we're living in a way that we're looking out and saying what shall I consume what shall I consume what movie should I watch which video games should I play or buy what you know what porn am I going to intake and consume now by changing our inner culture our inner concept we undermine all of that and we can switch our actions by switching our self-concept I for instance think of myself as a monk right a forest month my thinking of myself as a monk all these decisions become simple my basis my basic culture the basic things that I consider to be important are forging my mind my body and my emotional self and my spiritual self and so when I think about forging that when a question or a decision comes up in my life it's very easy to weigh it against that is watching this porn going to strengthen me physically mentally emotionally no he's watching this movie going to strengthen me physically mentally emotionally no he's watching this documentary going to strengthen me or help me grow that I might say yes so I'm looking and I'm weighing everything against that basic underlying culture but I have to change my self-concept and so for me I have to get up every morning and say Kenton you are a forest monk that's who you are you are on purpose giving yourself a self-identity that then is going to guide your actions for you it might be something else you might want to be a superhero in training you might want to be a prepper you might want to be a survivalist whatever it is you create a self-concept on purpose we're doing this consciously and then use that to guide your behavior you've got to drill this into your mind because we believe ourselves very strongly to be consumers that's our self-identity right now for a lot of us and even if you have all kinds of other things you do in your life that mentality is probably strong inside of you I know that it has been very strong inside of me but by constantly every day reshaping that then you can start to give yourself a new self-identity step 1 choose a self-identity remember you can riff off this you can play with it you can have fun with it if you start out as a I'm gonna be a Buddhist monk and then you start to discover that the teachings of Christ or more for you then you're gonna it's okay to switch if you're gonna start out of as a survivalist and then you start to think wow more like maybe wilderness educator you know and that's what I want to be my mission then you can switch it's fine

you can switch wildly from thing to thing if you want but the important thing is to decide on something right now that really attracts you and to start to create a self-identity remember that unless you are realized Buddha you have a self-identity right now we have an ego

and it's been given to us by the larger culture as long as it's there be conscious about it create your own think about that write it down take some pictures of yourself in in gotten clothing that fits how you feel and start to think of yourself that way identify yourself that way the more you do that the more it's gonna settle into you again I wake up in the morning I say Kent near a forest monk and I put my feet on the ground it's like as soon as my feet are on the ground what am I gonna do now with my energies and my actions to further myself physically spiritually emotionally mentally that drills it in and we've got to do that drilling in in order for this to set and if you choose something if you choose an internal cultural identity that inspires you and that is going to keep you on a holistic path then you're gonna start to look at some of these things that porn that you're in taking and you're gonna be able to say you know what this just is not serving me and it may be that you're gonna use those tools I talked about in the beginning where you're gonna go back and take the advice to some of these people that are using apps and other things that really help to break these addictions but now you're gonna have this underlying strength because you're gonna know that you are monk survivalist prepper spiritual seeker whatever it is and you're gonna know that that pornography that you're in taking does not accord with that internal culture that you've created and so this is going to give you a foundation in the strength to be able to use those other tools more effectively this can be amazing you guys in many ways it doesn't just have to do with pornography as I said this is gonna cover a lot of areas in your life and it can be very transformative but it's gonna take creativity on your part and it's gonna take some work because there is a strong identity stuck inside most of us that's been given to us force-fed to us it's time to take it back to become conscious and make your own in the comments share if you have created your own self identity if you try this out tools that you use or ideas for strengthening that self identity inside of you how the self identity that you've created has changed or shaped your behavior in positive ways keep this positive inside of you when you create this inside of you do it smart conscious smart make it something that excites you and that you know is going to create positive transformation not just for yourself but for the people around you you can be a superhero you can be a monk you can be an amazing spiritual person you can be so many things don't buy into this idea that you're just here as a consumer you're so much more

it's time to claim it it's time to be it thanks for watching my friends share in the comments look forward to seeing what you write

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