Your body is a glimpse of God himself, a Theology of the Body. “The human body includes right from the beginning… the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift – and by means of this gift – fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.” That being said, where are you headed sexually? Together, let’s cast a clear vision for our sexuality the way God...
Be Curious About What You Feel
Too many people who struggle to overcome habitual pornography use believe that marriage will solve their problem. “Once I get married,” the reasoning goes, “I’ll have a God-given way to enjoy sex, so I won’t need porn anymore.” But in nearly every case, those who go into marriage hoping that an ongoing problem with pornography (or other unwanted sexual behaviors) will disappear once they’re...
Fragments of You
Looking up pornography, arranging an affair or hookup; these things cut you off from you. Unwanted sexual behaviors are an escape mechanism and their gift is dissociation. When you don’t know how to deal with the hardships in your life, dissociating through distraction can feel like an easy way out. But the further deep you are in your sexual sin, the farther you are walking away from you...
Can Pain Help You Quit Porn?
Early in my recovery from unwanted sexual behaviors in the late ’90s, I remember one piece of advice I received was to wear a rubber band around my wrist and snap it every time I was tempted to lust. It’s actually a practical concept based in Pavlovian research. Through repeatedly ringing a bell just before feeding his dogs, Pavlov’s dogs came to associate the sound of the bell with food, so...
Disarm the Alarm
You’re doing good work to break the patterns. But what happens when your unwanted sexual behavior steps into the room, in the flesh, or comes up on the screen in full color? Alarms go off. Does your alarm scream “Danger” or yell “Go For it!”? Disarm the Alarm. Listen in as Josh explains these alarms; their distinctions, their source, and your response. Your response to those alarms matters...
What to Do When Lust Sounds the Alarm
Pause and think with me for a moment. The last time temptation to give into unwanted sexual behaviors stirred for you, did you hear an alarm? (If you don’t struggle with a sexual temptation, the same can apply to other addictive behaviors.) I don’t mean a literal alarm, but for many of us, we experience one of two alarms, sometimes both. The first kind of alarm sounds, “Opportunity! Opportunity!”...