Episode #50 Shift Your Mindset to Quit Porn - Dr. Trish Leigh

hey everybody welcome back to the podcast i have zach carter here with me again and today uh zach's been on the podcast before but we want to really hone in today and talk about some coaching concepts that can be really important if you're looking to be successful on this journey so before we do that uh welcome back zach and maybe you could tell people briefly about your background hey thanks for having me back yeah in case you missed the last podcast where i kind of did it more in depth a little background for me i was addicted to pornography at about the age 14 and i'd been addicted for about 14 15 years and i'd spent a lot of time trying to get away from it found out a lot of techniques but finally over the last few years been able to really hone in find some ways to get out of it i'm also a grad student right now at vcu studying counseling and so when i found out about dr lee we got connected and i've been hanging out with her and we've been getting to know each other it's been great yeah great cool thank you for sharing that because i think that's really important to frame for people especially in coaching and we've talked about it before where you know being able to know how to help people through recovery is really important but also to understand the inner workings of addiction and how that shows up in your life and if you haven't experienced that you know firsthand or or practically firsthand like we have um you can't understand that so that's huge that you bring that to the table to be able to move people through it so all right so what we're going to talk about today we're going to stay focused because we like to chat too is we are going to talk about the biggest mindset shift that people need to be able to be successful in this journey because that's what we are here for we are here to help you be successful so what do you think do you have a first point that you wanted to dive in mindset shift right so i think the first one is that people think they're alone in this and they don't have to be you don't have to be alone in this and this is like many addictions it causes you to kind of retreat into yourself and get away from people but one of the things that we're here to help you do is to kind of come out to share the things that you find shameful and what you're going to find is you're going to find no judgment you're going to find people that want to help you we're going to get you connected to other people socially and you're also we're also going to help you grow your knowledge base and encourage you to come out of this addiction and to live the best life that you can live yeah that's awesome and you would think that we planned this because yesterday i recorded a video for youtube that's coming out next week um that is called you are not alone you are not alone to quit porn and i focused exactly on that concept that when you get stuck into this porn habit it's one of isolation and so your brain gets stuck in this loop where it goes back to isolation to feel good and you accidentally neurologically link your brain to isolation and pleasure and so then a really big part of being successful is breaking that link to the screen coming out of it and re-teaching your brain rewiring your brain to connect and that's exactly you know i kind of honed in on more of that in the video so i love that that is what you um just said and just one more thing too is that the program that we offer is based on something called integration theory and i know people love this about the digital program and the way we offer coaching integration theory says we teach you the why and the how so we don't just say do this we say do this because you will understand the whys behind everything we encourage you to do and if you do them and you increase your knowledge base that is the recipe for success so that's really cool very good right i'll say one last thing and then i'll swear sure i was listening to this interview with uh kasparov the old russian chess master and he was saying that you can't compare the chess masters of today to the chess masters of the past why because the chess masters of today were able to build upon what came before them i had to do this by myself for 15 years and try to figure it out by myself you guys don't have to do that i know dr lee and i are here and we have the experience of how to get out of it so you don't have to take 15 years like me we can shrink that down a lot if you do the things that we've been telling you to do seriously you can do it absolutely i love that it used to be on my website i took it off where i'm like i struggled through this stuff you know figuring it out for years you don't have to all you have to do is jump into it and you know there was a lot of pain there was anguish there was hours and hours spent tons of money dedicated you know i didn't teach myself this i studied under some of the we were just talking about this you know off microphone that i studied under some of the most foundational forefathers in the area of sex addiction you know i spent time energy and money doing it and after i did all that i put it into this program you know plus the 25 years of neuroscience and cognitive science before that so that is why i'm so excited to bring it to people because it's like learn from us we've been there we've we've been in the trenches yourself you don't have to figure it out yourself we got out of the church yeah go out of the trenches for sure okay cool what about we have three things that we were gonna share with people so that was number one what about number two number two is that i think you need to shift your mindset to not think it's a sprint and think it's a marathon a lot of guys carry around this regret and the shame and one of the things that you have to learn is you got to let that go you got to say okay i stumbled again what are the aspects that caused me to stumble again and when you're thinking through that it does become a marathon you're like look i'm trying to get mild 26 right if i have to walk if i have to run and sometimes if i have to stumble and sit down i actually ran a marathon once not to get off yes i had an elderly woman pass me you know how shameful it feels to have it you know it doesn't matter because i walked and ran and and crawled if i had to to get there that's what that's what this addiction looks like you have to do whatever you have to do and sometimes you're going to take a couple steps steps back okay yes sweet we're going to work with you to get there but yeah you can't keep beating yourself up think of it in the long term and then each time use the things that you're learning and actually implement them yeah cool awesome uh my sister one time it was a 5k my sister one time was behind the ambulance like the ambulance people were encourager it was a 5k not a marathon and like you know we still laugh about the time that she was it was must have been one of her first five case because she became a pretty you know uh hardcore runner after that and uh just so funny thinking about the time she was behind the ambulance but she did it she completed it you know she didn't give up because the ambulance people were in front of her so i love it i think that's a great analogy i love it and you know that's that's why you need support like i tell people that you know if you decide you're going to run a marathon you don't go for a 26.2 mile run yeah you'll die like most people would literally just like and you'll never do it again yeah you're done you're like i'm not doing this ever again yeah but if you you know i've said it before if you get one of those couch to 5k or couch to marathon apps and every day you get up and you do the work guess what before you know it you're a marathoner and you've done it so but you got to put the work in it's a process it's not an event i love it it's america well and this actually i will say this leads us into point number three for me if you want to transition yeah thank you this is going to be a great thank you all right so the third point is going from a nine a mindset of i'm in this 95 to i'm in this a hundred percent that doesn't seem like a lot in your head you're like a 95 is an a right and a hundreds and a so i basically got it right no you're wrong no you need to go from 95 to 100 and that's what we're here for so going with the marathon example again i knew the marathon was going to be difficult what did i do in order to ensure that i would train and that i would run i committed how did i commit i bought my marathon ticket in vancouver that's where i went to do the marathon it's like 120 bucks that's a lot of money and i spent the money and once you do that once you buy the plane tickets okay you're committed and so you need to figure out what it takes to get you committed to be in at 100 so that you can finish the marathon that you can actually run it and finish it but if you don't get started you're never going to finish the marathon right so you got to find a way to commit i love it that's really cool my husband did a tough mudder once remember those they i don't know if they're still popular but remember when they were really popular and it was the same kind of experience we went with friends uh to canada and everybody was all in on this whole thing so he would get up every day and with him and one of his best friends they'd go to this park and like roll logs and do things that he he never did before then he's never done since because he was training for this date and then the thing is like with coaching what i want people to know is it's a little different than a marathon because the payoff's different in the end so so to bring it back to coaching and why we're here because it is impossible to coach yourself so like when you you you can get the tools but you have to generally have someone help you so like with my husband and his friend you know they became kind of accountability partners they would work out they would keep each other in check they would keep each other motivated to do it the group was there to say okay we're all going to canada so you know you keep training because we've got this thing planned so that you're held to the commitment that you make but in coaching especially when it comes to something as difficult as leaving porn behind as it is for most people what happens is in the coaching sessions what we do is we give you the skills that you need forever so like in a marathon when you're done running a marathon you don't continue to run 26.2 miles all the time when you're done with a coaching program what happens is you've internalized all that so to be very specific and go back to integration theory what happens is you know the why of how you got into a porn habit you know the how of breaking all of those shackles to come out of it then in the end you set this foundation for yourself that keeps you in healthy mood regulation and healthy sexuality you know what you need to continue to do every single day and you have markers that tell you if you're stopping to do those things and so the red lights and the bells go off before you start going down the slippery slope in the end once you're done through the process and generally pro this process is known to to be to take 90 days you know that's what these the kind of the gold standard is so the point is you know in coaching we find out what's going on with you we help you understand it and then we give you the action steps to move forward now the coolest part is one day you show up in coaching and now you tell me or you tell zach you go okay i realize this is happening with me that's self-awareness then you say then i did this which means you've internalized taking new action steps and we're validating that that's so what happens is you know the student becomes the master and so you have that for the rest of your life and then of course we want you to stay with us so in our coaching program we have a maintenance program also so let me just talk real quickly about what coaching looks like if coaching feels good to you you can coach with us weekly monthly and in the end it's quarterly and i encourage everybody to stay in quarterly coaching sessions because you know every three months you show up and you go i'm good i haven't let my foundation break i'm i'm do feeling great this you know if you had a little something stressful happen that triggered an urge we break it down but you're like for the most part i'm good and you put this little fix in place if then three months later again there's been a major stressor major stressors are the things you have to watch out for in the end and you know this happens all the time someone will come on and go you know what my spouse died major stressor major stressor leads you to want to go back because it's the easiest way to get dopamine but if you know what you got to do and if you have us to talk to you're able to move through that stressful moment so it's a really beautiful thing in the end do you have a thought to end on that um not to not to throw it back to you if you don't want to but i didn't know if you wanted to add to that yeah i mean

me having people available in my life to help me maintain is invaluable i i still go weekly you know and there's some some weeks i skip but i go weekly because it's something that i know it's like this is my goal like i have you know i've been told the whole time it's a date of time that's 100 right days turn to weeks weeks turn to months months turn to years but having a day and actually today's my day tonight is my group night um i have something that i'm like okay i gotta make it to thursday i gotta make it to thursday and even if i have a week where i skip it's like okay i have two weeks i gotta make it to that thursday and it's invaluable absolutely absolutely and that's that's why i do with with my program i do quarterly because some people get to the point and they're like i'm good i'm done and like no don't just go back to by yourself especially people who don't have anybody in their world who know they've been struggling with this because for so many people like you know for you you're talking about it openly that makes you the 0.1 you know what i mean like and your wife knows like your family knows that's a big big difference maker most people are like struggling with this in isolation they find us and they can talk to us but we're the ones the only ones they can talk to and so then they move through the process and they are able to come out of the screen but if you don't stay connected you're really at risk for going back to it during those times of stress so that's why i want people to stay connected with us so that's an important thing okay cool thank you for joining me again zach so if anybody's interested in coaching with zach he's opening his caseload and i'm here to tell you it's probably not going to be wide open for very long because we do have a lot of people that are interested and uh we want to make ourselves available to you if you want coaching so if you're thinking about it please give us a call you can go to dr trishly.com uh jamie is our assistant she is really good at figuring out what you need and being able to help you figure out frequency and you know what what's involved so reach out you can also schedule a discovery session on the website where you can have 15 dedicated minutes to be able to move through to see what you really need to be successful so uh okay well thanks zach i appreciate it and i'll talk to you soon bye