If I can just try and harder yeah , yeah , I've chewed this one a lot and and or fill in the blank If I can just , if I can just count the number of days , if I can just find the right book or worksheet , if I can just join this group , If I can just and and .
What we know from working with lots of women is that sheer willpower alone , just relying on that try harder mentality , isn't enough to get to the deeper roots of things . And and it , it .
It feels like a setup which is what is so hard to see that it sets up with this kind of mentality that it's all up to me to get out of it , and when I can't , or or if I fall , then it's all my fault .
But both and swinging back and forth from from the two of those it also is , is a setup of putting yourself on this higher pedestal to fall from and and I can say , swing back and forth between those it gives .
It gives people this false idea that I have to get to this certain level or I have to clean myself up enough before I come to God , when really these are the exact places where God is wanting you to invite him into , as counterintuitive as that might feel , these are the very places where God wants you to invite him in , so that he can not just get you out
of , but walk you through . Walk you through into greater freedom . And one of the one of the reasons that we know that this is a myth is because pornography hijacks the reward system of your brain , that it trains the brain to respond to self-pleasure .
So we want you to know that this isn't meant to be a cop out , but the truth is that you didn't get here on your own , so getting out is gonna need some help too . Mm-hmm , Right , so what do we suggest ? You were shaped by people , circumstances that led you to manage your world in this way .
You have a whole story that brought you to here , and so it'll take more of that people and circumstances to lead you out of it , and maybe this brings up some feelings , Maybe it brings up some relief , Maybe it brings up even some anger or frustration . We hope that you can find some compassion for yourself in the midst of it .
Can we policy even there , yeah ?
It talk about being kind to yourself in this process . Like , how many times have we heard people just beat themselves ? Oh , relentlessly and endlessly , because they didn't know how to be kind to themselves in this . Yeah .
Yeah , yeah , this myself up a little bit more . If I can just try harder , I should know better . Right More to this and to open handed and saying , okay , god , I'm here again . Where do I go next ? Can you be with me here right now , in this moment ? Maybe we can even just do that right now .
Tense yourself up and feel that , feel that reliance on yourself , feel that tension in yourself and then open your hands , take a deep breath and then open them up . What a difference , what a shift . That's kindness . There's just significant difference there , and we'll do that again and again and again and again .
As many times as you've had those thoughts up coming down hard on yourself is as many times as we'll release it again and come back to be in open handed . So we hope for tonight , this moment right now .
We hope for tonight and we hope , moving on from here , that we can come from a place not of condemning , not of conviction , but of honoring your story without shame and bringing a whole heap of compassion for yourself . So what does this look like in real life ?
We have a story of Julie , this young woman who was struggling with pornography and masturbation , and she was experiencing additional shame because she was attracted to women , and in her family not only was sex not talked about as a baseline , but also same sex attraction was something that could get you disowned from your family .
So Julie thought if I just pray more , if I serve more at church , then my issue will change . And when , when that didn't work , she became anxious and helpless and in further isolation . So she reached out to us here at Regeneration for help and through that her perspective started to change .
She could talk more freely about her struggles without feeling shame or condemnation . That alone is a huge win . She started to shift , realizing that this white knuckling , striving approach wasn't working for her .
And while she understood there were things in her life that she wanted to change , there were also things in her life that led her to choose ways of coping like this in her world .
And she understood that she wasn't trying to get out of taking responsibility for her choices , but understanding this was key to her , to understanding what her heart needed on a deeper level .