How To Transform Your Triggers: The F.L.O.S.S. Method (Part 1)

We edited that down to give you the teaching here , so that you can understand what's going on in your brain and body when you get triggered , when you are feeling sexually tempted to go back to porn or masturbation with fantasy or any other unwanted sexual behavior . What if you could turn those moments from threats into opportunities for transformation and healing ?

That's what you're going to learn today . It's called the floss method and , man , this is one of the most powerful tools I've ever developed . Then , later this week , we're coming out with an extra bonus episode which will show you what it looks like to use the floss method with a real situation . So stay tuned for part two and enjoy .

This workshop is a taste of Husband Material Academy , the all-in-one program for Christian men outgrowing porn . It gives you the individual coaching , the group , coaching , the community and my entire video course walking you through every step of achieving lasting freedom from porn . So if you go to joinhmacom , you can enroll now .

We have a 60-day guarantee so that if you have no intention of paying for HMA and you join and you ask for a refund within 60 days I'm totally cool with that You'll get all of your money back . We want to help men heal and HMA is the best way . We know how to do that . So you can go to joinhmacom the doors are open .

Here's what you can expect today . I'm going to lead you into action , because we learn by doing so . You're not just going to be sitting back passively . You're probably going to want a notebook or something to type on or some way to take notes here . I'm not providing a lot of worksheets . Those are available in Husband Material Academy .

I'm just going to be walking you through this process step by step . Each one of these sessions will go through part of the HMA course . Session one is called Transform your Triggers . Transform your triggers . How old were you when you first encountered porn ? Let me know in the chat 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , second grade young , right ?

Some of you are saying older , and that's okay too , and really , when I use the word porn a lot of times , that's me using a word that can encompass a wide variety of sexual experiences , including masturbation to fantasy , including maybe sexually acting out with another person . When did that all start for you ?

For the vast majority of us , we did not get on this sexual cycle as men . It all started when we were boys , and that is why everything at Husband Material comes back to the boy . That is why everything at Husband Material comes back to the boy . You have to heal the boy , to free the man .

How old were you when this started to become an issue in your life and what was going on in your life at that time ? Remember when you were that little boy or that teenager . What was happening for you Emotionally , what was happening for you relationally ? There's a story . Our sexuality is always connected to our unique stories . Imagine yourself at that age .

Picture yourself when you were going through those things . How do you feel toward that boy ? In one word , put this in the chat how do you feel toward the boy who was first exploited by porn or who first encountered sexual arousal in a secret way ? How do you feel toward him ? Disgusted , I feel sad . I feel shame , heartbroken , compassion , grief .

I see a lot of you guys saying you feel sad . Yeah , I feel love , I feel frustrated , feel protective of him . I think he's a sissy . Such a wide variety of responses . Some of you might be angry at that kid . When I was processing this with my 12 year old self , I wanted to kill him . I wish he didn't exist . I wanted to annihilate this boy .

At least a part of me wanted to . And however you feel toward him is valid . Maybe you feel distant toward him , maybe you feel disappointed in him . Remember , all parts of you are welcome here . This might be the most important thing .

I say all day your freedom from pornography and unwanted sexual behavior depends on your relationship with that boy and how you treat him and how you feel about him , because porn may have been the safest place in his life . Porn may have been the deepest connection to his heart . Porn may have been more trustworthy than any other person .

And for you to heal , for you to detach from porn , you need to become someone who can attach to the boy instead of porn and replace it . You need to learn how to listen to him , you need to learn how to love him and you need to learn how to lead him away from porn , which is his sexual abuser .

And you need to become the person he always needed but didn't have . Some of you may still feel like that little boy . The truth is , you are not him , but he is a part of you and today you're going to learn how to heal that boy , how to get to know him and , ultimately , how to grow up into a sexually , spiritually , emotionally mature man of God .

That's what this is about , because when you feel the urge to use porn or masturbate to fantasy , that little boy is coming up . He's screaming for attention . He is not the problem , but he is the one who's often in the driver's seat controlling things when you find yourself pulled into that cycle to sexually act out .

So it's not the mature , adult , rational part of you that struggles with porn . It's a much younger , more emotional , vulnerable part of you . It's not your logical left brain , it's your right brain , which doesn't have a sense of time . You can feel like I'm that little boy again In this session . Transform your Triggers .

You are going to learn what's happening in your brain . What exactly does it mean that that little boy is showing up ? It's not just a new age idea , it's neuroscience . It's called implicit memory . Implicit memory is re-experiencing something as if it's happening again .

So when I'm feeling lonely , for example , it's not just a 32-year-old loneliness , it's a two-year-old loneliness or a 12-year-old loneliness . Sometimes our emotions don't age and we get stuck in the past , and that's what happens Our sexual development gets stunted .

What we're doing now in Husband Material Academy is finding those places where we got stuck and resuming the process that got interrupted . So here's what you need to do ultimately in order to be free from porn you need to learn how to regulate without it . Porn is not ultimately your problem , it's your solution .

That's why I say porn is a pacifier , and so if you find yourself in pain emotionally , it could be a low-level pain , not too much to deal with , pretty easy to manage , or it can be a pain that feels intolerable , like I can't deal with this right now . That's when porn has power over you . It's the pacifier to relieve pain .

Also , sometimes we experience an incredible amount of pleasure . Some person is not just sexually attractive , but they feel irresistible . A specific type of porn doesn't just seem oh you know , that's interesting but it's fascinating and it has a grip on you . It has a magnetic pull .

When you find yourself in intolerable emotional pain or irresistible sexual pleasure , that's how you know you're being triggered . A trigger is any event that creates an automatic reaction . We can't control the triggers , but we can control what we do with them . We can choose how to respond when we're triggered .

In this session , you're going to learn how to respond to your triggers instead of react to your triggers . This is going to be an exercise taken from Husband Material Academy , unit 2 , called the Floss Method .

I'm going to teach you how to transform your triggers from enemies that cause you to sexually act out into opportunities to heal , to grow , learn about yourself . And this exercise and this tool I'm going to teach you is called the floss method . I don't know how you feel about flossing your teeth . Personally , I dislike it .

I much prefer brushing because we can just stay on the surface level . I don't have to go into those deep places , and most porn recovery is just at the surface level . It's not getting down into the deep , dark , hidden places where things are stuck . That's what flossing does .

When you floss , you access the deeper , hidden , darker places where food might be stuck in between your teeth .

In the same way , the floss method allows you to go into the deep , darker places in your brain and find what is hidden in there , what is driving you , even if you're not aware of it , so that you can take it out into the light and so that it doesn't get infected and so that it doesn't create more problems . Here's the FLOSS method .

Floss stands for F-L-O-S-S , and I'm going to take you through it . This is part of the HMA course I'm teaching you right now . The F in FLOSS stands for fear . The F in FLOSS stands for fear . My favorite college professor once taught me that underneath every sin there is a fear . I think he's right . But I'm not talking about fear as an emotion .

I'm talking about it as a bodily reaction , and there are five different types of fear reactions in your body Fight , flight , fawn , freeze and flop . There's probably more that I keep discovering as I learn about these things .

When you find yourself having the urge or compulsion to sexually act out , there is some kind of fear that you are experiencing , because if you weren't afraid of anything , you'd be fine , you wouldn't need to act out , you wouldn't need to fantasize .

If you're able to tolerate the sensations in your body , you can let them in , let them pass , but there's something that you're afraid of , there's something that you're avoiding , there's something that just feels intolerable or irresistible . So I'm going to put up on the screen a summary of these different fear reactions .

Up on the screen a summary of these different fear reactions , and I want you to think about the most recent time when you were triggered , when you were feeling the need to use porn or to sexually act out and identify how your body was reacting . You may have multiple reactions here .

So you see , the fight response is that feeling of the need to power up , frustrated . It's that aggressive energy , whereas the flight response is also very , very overwhelming . But it's not I need to power up , it's I need to get away . There's an anxiety . It's like , oh , I'm going to run away from these feelings .

I'm going to run away from this situation because I don't want to deal with it . The fawn response is one that's often overlooked . It's the sense of I just need to please this person , I just need to get on their good side , I need to get in their good book , I have to make sure that they like me .

I can't tolerate them disliking me , needing someone's approval , needing someone's affirmation , anxiously adjusting myself , bending over backwards to try to be good enough or meet the demands that are being placed on me . The freeze response I just can't , I can't .

And this one is also like very charged up , but it's frozen , you're immobilized , you're like a deer in the headlights . Flop is also immobilized , but in this one , instead of , instead of powering up , we shut down . So you know what ? I just give up , numb , collapsed , disconnected . The flop response is the one that most often precedes a relapse into porn .

When fight , flight , fawn and freeze are just not working or can't take it anymore , we resort to flop . When our brain is overloaded , when our system is overloaded , it shuts down . That's when porn has the most power over us . So I want to check in with you guys , when you are most likely to sexually act out , what's happening in your body ?

I see a lot of guys saying flop . That is the most common one that comes right before acting out . Acting out can be a way of trying to feel something exciting after feeling nothing , or it can be a way of trying to feel nothing after being overwhelmed .

Elvis says unfortunately , I'm a master of all these , and actually I would say fortunately , you have all these abilities Because , especially when we were boys , we needed these . We needed these different things in order to survive . If you're unsafe , you need to get away . Someone's attacking you , maybe you need to be aggressive .

If something's overwhelming , maybe the most wise thing you can do is just to stay still and freeze . And if there's nothing you can do is just to stay still and freeze . And if there's nothing you can do about what's happening in your life , the most brilliant survival strategy is to flop .

Go somewhere else in your head to find another world better than the one you're in . That's the F of floss . What's happening in my body ? Notice those fear reactions . And then , secondly , the L stands for lie .

In those moments when you are triggered to sexually act out , what is the lie that you believe about yourself in those moments ? Now I hesitate to use the word lie because oftentimes that thought going through my head was actually true at one point .

For example , if the lie is I don't belong , well , maybe there was a time when I really didn't belong and that actually was true . The point is , when you feel that in your body , what is the thought ? What is the message that comes with it ? Because there's always some kind of lie .

My college professor told me , under every sin is a fear and under every fear is a lie . So tell me some of these lies that come up for you guys . The lie is that I'm bad . No one likes me . Things will never change . I don't fit in , I'm evil , I'm alone , I'm worthless . I can't change . What's the use ? I deserve to be punished .

Oh , I'm not good enough , not worthy . I'm too old to change . I'm stupid . I don't deserve my wife . I'm no good . I'm abandoned . I'm defeated . I'm incompetent . I'm not man enough , I'm not capable of handling this . I saw someone else say underneath every lie is a hurt . That's pretty good . We're getting down below the surface .

We're getting to what's really going on in our hearts , because the sexual urges are not just about your penis , they're about your brain , they're about your heart , they're about your body . That's trying to tell you something . Now , why would your brain be going into these fight , flight or freeze fawn or flop mode ? Why would it be telling you these lies ?

There's a very , very , very good reason Because your brain wants to help you heal . It wants to help you heal . But as long as you're just taking that and trying to deal with it sexually , you're going to stay stuck . You have to find out what is my body trying to tell me , what is my brain trying to tell me and where do I need to heal ?

This F and L step sets you up for one of the biggest breakthroughs you'll ever have in recovery . The O of FLOSS stands for origin story . Every trigger tells a story . They're not random . They are there for a reason . We may not know what that reason is , but the more we learn about these things , they always make sense . They really do .

And the way that you figure out . Okay , what is the story behind this trigger ? How is my brain trying to help me heal ? It's trying to point out where you've been wounded . It's trying to point out where you've been hurt . It's trying to point out what is going on within me that I need to see , that I need to feel .

Here is the question that allows you to find out what your origin story is . We're on the letter O of floss . Ask yourself this question . O of floss . Ask yourself this question when have I felt this way before ? And I'm going to invite you to think back to that F fear reaction in your body . What did that feel like ? What was the lie that goes with it ?

And when have you felt that way before ? For example , you feel flight and you feel like I'm not good enough . Okay , when have you felt that way before ? Have you felt the need to escape or run away , feeling like you're not good enough ? And just open your mind up to whatever comes to you ? Don't think too hard about it , just become aware .

This is a way of taking your implicit memories , or your body memories , and bringing them into the light , making them explicit memories that you can work with , that you can change , because as long as you're not aware of what's going on , you can't change it . As long as you don't know what's happening , you can't do anything about it .

All right , I want to give you some time and space right now to ask yourself okay , this feeling in my body and this lie that I believe about myself , when have I felt that way before ? You might want to write it down . You guys are doing such good work right now . This is how you find that little boy . This is how you discover where you need to heal .

This is how you go deeper . This is how you change your brain and heal your heart . Now there's more complexity to it . This is just one tool , one way of getting into the depths rather than just staying on the surface , and these are simple questions you can ask yourself when you're emotionally struggling or you're sexually tempted .

What's happening in my body , what are the thoughts that go with those feelings , and when have I felt this way before ? Now there's value in naming a one-sentence version of when I have felt that way before , and there's a ton of value in writing out the bigger story of those events and experiences and sharing them with other men .

That's what we do in Husband Material Academy every week on Trigger Tuesday and later during the session , we're going to be showing you what it looks like to actually process these stories . Once you have that origin story , you have an opportunity to change your relationship with it and to change your relationship with that boy and sexually acting out .

Essentially , what you're choosing to do is ignore the boy , neglect the boy , choose to shut him up rather than listen to the story that he wants to tell you . Many of our sexual recovery strategies amount to fight , flight or freeze right . Like you know , try to fight against my sexual temptations or just run away from them , or try to , you know , ignore them

, pretend they're not there . What I'm asking you to do is something very different from all those fear reactions , instead of fighting or fleeing your sexual thoughts and feelings . I'm asking you to face them , face the stories underneath them , and then to respond in love instead of fear . Perfect love casts out fear .

Now , how do you respond in love when these memories come up for you ? How do you respond ? With kindness , curiosity and compassion rather than condemnation , criticism , putting a little sexual solution onto it . That's what the first S of floss is about . So , f-l-o-s-s , the first S is sadness . Sadness , many of you said you feel sad toward that boy .

When you're sad , your heart opens up . You can't be sad about something or someone without loving what you have lost . So when you allow yourself to experience sadness , you're allowing yourself to love the boy , to love this part of you that feels weak , that feels not good enough , that feels alone . Sadness can be interchanged with grief , mourning , lament .

Jesus said blessed are those who mourn , for they will be comforted . If you want to experience the comfort and kindness of God , you must allow yourself to grieve the ways that you have been harmed , you've been wounded . So in the moment you discover that origin story , you may feel the need to distance yourself from it . You may wish that it never happened .

I want to invite you to see if you can try on a little bit of sadness and I want you to see if you can enter into what that boy is feeling and maybe just take a moment to imagine him again , to imagine that little boy , maybe in the story that came up for you or when he first encountered porn , and I want you to picture him in your mind .

Can you see him ? And if you can look into his eyes , okay , when you look into his eyes , what do you see ? When you listen to his heart , what do you hear ? Can you allow yourself to feel what he may have felt ? You guys are saying ? He's so lonely , he's powerless , he's confused , confused . I see his uncertainty . He doesn't know who he is .

I see longing . He just wants to be loved and accepted . I feel his anger . Good , he's hurt , he's confused , he's lost . He wants to be led . Yes , yes , I see him saying I need you , yes , and today he has you . He has an adult who loves him and cares for him , and that's you . He's afraid , he's in pain , he wants a guide .

He deeply wants to be a good kid . So this is what I'm talking about the fourth step of flaws Allowing yourself to open your heart in sadness . This is essential , absolutely essential , for healing .

And in Husband Material Academy we have you spend time with a picture of yourself as a boy , and that's one of the themes throughout the course is coming back to him . And there's not just one boy , really , there's many . It's more like an orphanage .

You've got your infant self , your three-year-old self , your six-year-old , your nine-year-old , your 12-year-old , your 18-year-old . You know All of them are within you . You're not just how old you are , you are every age you've ever been , and our goal in doing this work is basically to be the age that you really are and to care for these younger parts .

Now , the last S of FLOSS stands for surrender . S of FLOSS stands for surrender , specifically surrendering to the truth . So remember , there was a lie that you identified earlier . After you allow yourself to experience sadness , to enter into the pain of your story , the suffering , the grief , then finally you have a chance to speak the truth .

And this is not speaking the truth in a hostile way , in a militant way , to try to correct or fix what you're feeling , but rather to surrender to it . So , instead of fighting an exhausting battle , you're befriending this boy and surrendering to what God says about you , surrendering to who you really are .

So I'm going to go through the whole FLOSS acronym one more time for you . Floss stands for Fear , lie , origin Story , sadness and Surrender , surrender . This last step , surrender , asks you to declare a truth . It's probably the exact opposite of your lie . So what truth will you choose to believe ?

What truth will you choose to believe about yourself instead of the lie ? Put it in the chat . Usually it's some kind of like I am , or I can statement I am loved and accepted . I am worthy . I am loved by God . I am safe . I am chosen . I belong . God will not throw me away . I am seen , heard and loved . I am made in God's image .

I am clean and pure . I am awesome . Yes , I am loved and forgiven . I am strong . I can handle my emotions . I don't have to run away from them . I have a father . God loves me and wants me . I am accepted . I am not defective . I am a man . I am God's beloved son In me . He is well-pleased . Woo-hoo , awesome . I am valued .

The past does not have to direct my future . I am worth loving . I am as much of a man as others . I am a treasure . I have the power in me that raised Christ from the dead . I'm capable , not powerless . Guys , this is so good . Notice how this affects you , because sometimes we can use these truths in a way that is actually bypassing our feelings .

But in the floss method , you're not getting to this last step until the very end , until you've allowed yourself to go deep into your brain , deep into your heart , find what's in there , bring it out to the light .

And now , when you speak the truth , it means so much more and it can set you free when you bring more of yourself to that truth , more of your story to that truth . So this is one tool that can really help you outgrow porn .

It transforms your triggers because now , when you get those really strong sexual thoughts and feelings or those emotional reactions that just feel overwhelming , or you just want to numb out and escape life , now you can interrupt that process and do something different . Those triggers are like time machines .

They take you back in time , but instead you can actually like okay , hop in the time machine , see where it's taking you and then recenter yourself in the present . Another way to say it is that every trigger is a trailhead that can lead you on a journey . That journey is about healing .

Believe it or not , temptation can actually become a gift because it can teach you so much more about yourself and allow you to experience the truth in a way that maybe you wouldn't if you weren't tempted , way that maybe you wouldn't if you weren't tempted .

I want to acknowledge that when you are really triggered in the moment , your access to the thinking part of your brain , the prefrontal cortex , responsible for moral judgment and impulse control , is compromised . Your access to the thinking part of your brain is compromised , so you probably won't think to yourself oh , I should use the floss method .

So it's helpful to have some shorthand tools that are a little bit easier to just plug in than the floss method , which is a lot bigger process , as you can see . You know this could take half an hour to really go through the whole thing . I want to give you some shorthand tools instead of just the floss method .

One of them is to simply say to yourself hello , childhood , I'm feeling unworthy . Hello , childhood , wow , I am really , really drawn to that sexual person or to that type of porn right now . Hello , childhood . And that's a way of establishing that connection with the little boy , so that the little boy is not controlling you . He's in relationship with you .

He's connected to you . That's where it all starts , so that instead of being aroused , you can be with your arousal . So instead of being anxious , you can be with your anxiety . Say hello , childhood , that's a little tool you can use . I call my inner child , little Drew , so I'll say hello , little Drew . Hi , little Drew , what's going on ?

What do you want to tell me right now ? What do you need me to know ? Try it out , see how it affects you . I have another tool that I teach in HMA called BOA .

I realize it's a little bit arrogant to name a tool after myself , but I do that so that you can remember it , and I'm putting a link into the chat here where you can watch a free video lesson from Husband Material Academy at another time , and it is unit three , lesson two , I believe , maybe lesson three and you can get it at husbandmaterialcom slash HMA dash

preview . And this will give you just this video of the HMA course with the BOA method , which is something that is a lot easier to use in the moment . I mean , floss is bigger , boa is smaller . If you want to watch that whole video , go to the link husbandmaterialcom slash HMA dash preview .

You now have some new tools in your tool belt that you didn't have at the beginning of this call . You got the floss method , you got BOA , which you might want to check out later , and then you got Hello , childhood Triggers do not have to be tyrants . Triggers can be trailheads for healing and learning and growing . The floss method empowers you to do that .

What evil has used , god can use for good . Evil has used your sexuality to harm you and others . God can use your sexual thoughts and feelings to show you so much about yourself and to love you in a way that changes things , in a way that frees you from the power of pornography . I'm going to open up some time for Q&A .

We are going to take a little five-minute break for Q&A here and then we are going to do a demo where we process one of my personal stories that's very connected to a lot of my emotional triggers and sexual triggers and that will be featuring a few of our other coaches . All right , I'm going to see the questions here .

Where does the fear of loneliness fall ? That sounds like flight right , running away from loneliness , perhaps . How can fawning lead to a relapse ? Okay , let's say you have a friend or a girlfriend or a potential girlfriend who you are obsessing about . You can't stop thinking about . You know , does this person actually want to be my friend ? Does she like me ?

Does she not like me ? And you just can't stop thinking about it and you're trying so hard to be the person that you think they will like . That is exhausting , that is extremely stressful , that is a fear reaction . That is very natural , yet it's unsustainable and eventually that's going to lead you to a place where you just flop , you just give up .

I can't handle this anymore . And you turn to some kind of counterfeit or some kind of symbolic sexual version of what you were wanting from that friend , or from that girlfriend , or from your wife perhaps . So that's an example of how fawning can lead to a relapse . I see some of you guys saying , oh my goodness , that hits home about the fawning right .

Yep , that might be why I'm struggling with acting out as I'm approaching a relationship that's getting serious . Exactly right , we're just kind of skimming over the surface of this , dan says . I'm struggling to figure out what my lie is . How can I dig deeper into this ?

Would definitely recommend digging deeper with one of our certified husband material coaches or husband material academy . But even if you don't have the lie , you can still ask okay , what is my body experiencing , what emotions are coming up , and when have I felt those emotions before ? When have I felt that way before ?

And oftentimes , as you look at the story , the story will then show you the lie . You know , the story will show you oh , I thought I was a monster because my dad called me a monster . And so it doesn't always work in the order of F-L-O-S-S . Yet that's a helpful structure .

Josh says that I mentioned we should face our temptations and triggers , not fight or flee from them . Curious about how to reconcile facing temptation with fleeing from temptation , as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6.18 . Okay , fleeing temptation is extremely important , like in the moment , but you can't keep that up forever . You can't just constantly be fleeing .

It's unsustainable . So at some point when you have re-established safety , when you're separated from porn or separated from the person that you're tempted to act out with , then you can face it in a safe environment , get out of the tempting situation and then , in a safe environment , face it .

And when I say face it , I'm not saying , you know , watch the porn or look at the person . I'm saying face the part of you that feels the temptation , and we'll get more into that in the next session .

But you need to not focus on the sexual stimulation itself , but focus on what is happening within me that wants to go there and that changes everything Josh says . How can I overcome not believing the truth about myself ?

Session three and four we're going to do that because oftentimes we know the truth in our head but we don't feel it in our bodies , we don't feel it in our hearts , we don't experience it . So you actually need to experience the truth , not just intellectually assent to the information .

The truth has to hit you physically and emotionally to make a difference and to liberate you from the chains of pornography . And you're going to see exactly how that happens later today . If you're feeling anxiety or if you're feeling shame or apathy about this , thank you for being willing to become aware of those feelings , to mention them .

I would strongly recommend getting more support to process this . Hma is one way you can do that . Come in the chat and let me know how was this first teaching for you ? Awesome , okay , great stuff , encouraging , a little overwhelming ? Absolutely yeah . And that's why we're not just hosting this workshop today and then leaving you alone .

We're giving you a way to continue with HMA .

Some of it doesn't resonate , that's okay . Thank you for being honest about that . These are tools that are not going to resonate with everyone . I'm giving you some different options so that you're more empowered . This is practical . This is profound . You got to dig into your struggles without shame .

Awesome Frank says I've had many therapy sessions and no one has ever addressed my younger self . Man , it breaks my heart . That's why we're doing this . Dave says I'm finally getting a sense of what inner child work is really about . Awesome Michael says super helpful , I can implement this immediately . Okay , great Thanks for watching .

Come back for part two of this episode , where you will hear what the floss method looks like in my life . I'm going to share a vulnerable story that's deeply connected to my sexual and emotional triggers , and you'll see what it looks like to process all of that in a way that might bring you to tears and it might deepen your healing .

If you love this and you want to continue , go to joinhmacom and always remember you are God's beloved son . In you . He is well pleased .