Overcome Porn by Letting Go of Control Thrive Beyond Pornography (Formerly The Self Mastery Podcast)

Episode 192Zach Spafford: I'm Zach. And I'm Darcy. We're an LDS couple who struggled with unwanted pornography in our marriage for many years. What was once our greatest struggle and something we thought would destroy us, has become our greatest blessing in trying. Our hope is that as you listen to our podcast each week, you'll be filled with hope and healing and realize that you too can thrive beyond pornography and create the marriage you have always desired.
Welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. We're so glad you're here and we believe in you.
Hey everybody and welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. This week I wanna talk about control. You know, I used to think that I just needed to control my thoughts and that my wife, Darcy w just needed to help me control my urges by having sex with me and then, you know, and making sure she was checking my web browser and holding me accountable and punishing me when I fail in that process.
I was letting go of control of some things that I needed to take responsibility for, and then I was also working to control some things that aren't controllable. Today we're gonna talk about controlling the right things to create a life beyond pornography so you can thrive and overcome pornography for good.
But before we do that, I want to invite you to come and see a free class on how you can quit born in just 12 weeks. I'd love to be, love to have you there. I'd love for you to watch and in and ask all the questions you want. I will answer every question that you have. I will help you start solving this problem today.
Go to z spafford.com/. Free call and you can join for free. It's a great opportunity to just figure out, okay, what do I need to do next? Okay, so let's break this down into two aspects. What are the things that we can't control and we need to let go of, and what are the things that we can control and need to take responsibility for?
So starting with the things that we cannot control, one of the very first things that we need to understand is that there are two types of control strategies, external strategies and internal strategies. External control strategies are really good for external problems, things that are outside of you that you can physically see, touch or feel, and that if you move halfway around the world, would gen generally stop being a problem.
External problems are things like the story of pot's wife. Joseph serving in the household of an influential Egyptian leader caught the eye of his boss's wife, and now through willpower and motivation, he could physically distance himself from POT'S advances physically.
Once removed from her physically, not succumbing to her advances becomes somewhat easy, becomes not really a problem because from a, from a living, my moral standpoint, I don't see this person and therefore I don't have to worry about whether or not she's gonna seduce me. It's pretty simple. The problem with these kinds of strategies is that willpower and motivation are really short-acting solutions.
That only work on what are called finite problems, and I've talked about finite problems on the podcast before, but your brain. Is not a finite problem, and it's not a short-term problem. It's not a finite or short-term part of your life. It's the only thing that you get to take with you everywhere and all the time.
External strategies are things like distracting yourself, leaving the situation. And not going into the situation in the first place to name a few. So you can see how what you're doing right now with pornography might be a little bit like that. You know, you might be leaving situations early, you might be distracting yourself from things that your brain might not think is good for you in the long term, but might feel good right now.
And you might just be avoiding going to certain things like the beach or whatever. Let me give you an example from one of my