On this site, we cover a number of strategies to overcome lust and temptation, especially in the sexual area. For example, install an internet filter, establish accountability relationships, charge your phone in another room, go off the grid for long periods of time, and transmute sexual energy into other non-sexual pursuits, like school, work, relationships, hobbies and creative pursuits. These “dos” and “don’t dos” are important, especially starting out. However, if we dig a little deeper, we will find at the root of every porn or sexual problem, a corollary problem of belief. Our beliefs motivate our actions and dictate what we consider to be “normal” and “natural” and “abnormal” and “difficult.”
For a long time, I had the deep-seated belief that it was unnatural for a young guy in his 20s not to have a sexual outlet. This made my struggle for sexual integrity a lot harder than it had to be. However, when I changed my belief from “This is an unnatural, uphill battle to,” to “This isn’t all that hard,” “I don’t have to be bullied by my sexual urges,” “Many people around the world are doing the exact same right now”—the struggle got easier, and it got easier fast. I went from seeing myself as a victim of my sexual desires to a powerful agent capable of acting with conviction.
Today, I’ve transcribed a simple, but powerful clip in which JK Emezi, Founder of Porn Reboot, talks about the importance of changing one single belief in the porn recovery process. Many people have asked JK, “What do I do about my strong sexual urges?” His answer is simple “Nothing. You do nothing.”
Emezi contends that we have been bombarded with the messaging our whole lives that we have to act on our sexual desires. This, he asserts, is simply not the truth. People in committed monogamous relationships, monks, soldiers, and single people pursuing sexual integrity make the choice every single day not to act on their sexual impulses. Changing the belief that we have to act on our sexual urges, (or “be abnormal” or suffer some dire consequences), Emezi argues, is critical to controlling sexual impulses.
Let’s ask ourselves today, what problematic beliefs could be hindering my progress in the area of sexual integrity?
Check out the complete transcript and video below!
One of the very basic beliefs as a human being is that you don’t have to act on your sexual urges. You’re not going to die. You’re not going to lose your mind. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Your body is going to react. Your mind is going to react, but after a while, it realizes that “Oh, it’s not the end of the world. I’m going to be OK. And this is going to pass.”
JK Emezi, Porn Reboot
For more, check out 7 Toxic Beliefs That Keep People From Quitting Pornograph. You can also visit the complete archive of articles on integrity.
Transcript
Welcome, brother. JK Emezi here, Founder and Head Coach at PornReboot.com
Today we’re going to talk about what to do about your strong sexual feelings. Now, I just want to preface this by saying that we’re going to be talking about a belief here. It’s a very, very simple belief, but it’s something that may change the way that you think about your sexual behavior. Now, I often get the question, “What do I do when I have very strong sexual urges or sexual feelings?” And every two or three videos that I release, you’ll see that question in the comment section below.
Or I’ll get e-mails or messages on Facebook on Instagram from guys who are saying, “What do I do about my strong urges? What do I do when I get these sexual feelings, these sexual urges?” The answer is very simple. The answer is nothing.
Some may men ask, “Well, JK, what do your clients who’ve been on pornography and can’t control their behavior with masturbation for over 5 years, 6 years, and so on, what do they do eventually—You talk about all these coping skills, and all of these coping strategies, well, what do they use?”
The truth is once they’ve rewired their brains and they’ve moved on with their lives, they actually do nothing. You know why? Because they’ve become normal. That’s the goal that you want to strive toward. See, there is a false belief that you have, which says, “I have to do something about my sexual urges. I have to take action, some sort of action when I experience sexual urges.”
That’s what it begins with. It doesn’t begin with something compulsive. It began with this belief and, over time, as you acted on the belief, you rewired your brain, and that belief became something that was compulsive. It became a behavior, but understand that it started with a belief, and that belief is still there. It’s just buried deep in your subconscious mind. It’s there, and it needs to be addressed.
That’s one of the things that we do in the Porn Reboot system. The truth is that people are aroused all the time sexually, and they feel and experience sexual urges all the time, all around you. Well, what happened is popular culture, TV, social media, the movies, have given you the impression that whenever people have sexual urges, they do something about it. Think about it. When you were a kid watching movies, what did people do when they had sexual urges? They weren’t shown repressing the sexual urges. They were always shown expressing it.
When you expose yourself to pornography, what happens next? All you see in pornography over and over again are people giving into their sexual urges. There’s no sort of pornography that involves people holding back their sexual urges or controlling it, just sitting, you know, and looking at each other, or just repressing their sexual urges. It always ends up in acting out.
Think about it. If all your life the message that you have been with bombarded with, “As a human being, when you feel a sexual urge, you have to act out on it.” What’s going to happen naturally? Naturally, that’s the way you’re going to act.
There are married people out there who are in monogamous committed relationships, who have sexual urges for other people. It happens all the time, but they don’t act out. There are individuals who have taken a vow of celibacy—priests, monks, and nuns. And they do experience strong sexual urges, but they don’t act on it, either.
All these people, people who are monogamous and in committed relationships, who don’t act out, people who have taken vows of celibacy. These individuals are not superhuman. They’re not individuals who have some kind of crazy willpower. They’re not all that different from you. Neither are they extraordinary individuals. They are people who are around you. Millions and millions of people who are like that. The difference is they made a choice, and they made that choice because they had the right belief, and the belief was that they did not have to do anything when they experienced strong sexual urges.
Maybe that belief began with them when they were young, and that’s the way their family raised them. Maybe it’s something that they thought themselves. Or maybe it was a discipline that they imposed on themselves as part of their training to become a monk, a nun, or a priest.
But what I want to tell you today, and the most basic way—I know we talk about really deep and complex stuff here. We talk about the different cycles. We talk about the porn addiction cycle. We talk about different tools that you can use. We talk about very different concepts, but what we rarely speak about the basics.
One of the very basic beliefs as a human being is that you don’t have to act on your sexual urges. You’re not going to die. You’re not going to lose your mind. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Your body is going to react. Your mind is going to react, but after a while, it realizes that “Oh, it’s not the end of the world. I’m going to be OK. And this is going to pass.”
It is the same with every urge. All you need to do as you go through the reboot process, even though you will be provided with coping skills and coping strategies in the form of the Reboot System, is to deal with a little bit of discomfort now to avoid a lot of discomfort later.
