Porn Recovery (3 Stages) + a Brain Hack

porn recovery three stages i'm dr trish lee let me tell you all about it okay so porn recovery is not for the faint of heart it is indeed a journey but albeit a journey that is worth taking so i am going to move you through the three stages that can get you from where you are to where you need to be today in this video and i'm going to give you the one most helpful tip that can almost ensure that you make it into stage one and from stage one into stage two from stage two into stage three where you ride off into the sunset so stay with me okay stage one is generally by far the hardest stage of all this is the stage where you have to think about what got you here in the first place and if you've seen my other videos or if you've looked at my blog post at drtrishley.com you will know that i liken pornography consumption to a hijacker who has literally hijacked your brain so envision that you're sitting in your car and somebody jumps in boots you out of the driver's seat into the passenger seat and takes off do you have any control of that driver absolutely not so if this happened to you the first thing that you would have to do is to figure out how to get control of the car that is stage one you need to figure out how you're going to gain control so unfortunately stage one is usually filled with negativity frustration and anger those are actually symptoms of a a raging porn habit those come along with being sucked in and hijacked by porn so it can be very difficult for a person to help himself at stage one so as i'm sure you've seen and is cliche is that the hardest step is recognizing that you need help and i know from my experience that many men can justify rationalize and minimize their habit so many men tell themselves that the reason they watch pornography is because they have a high libido they were blessed with a high libido that my friend is unfortunately not true the polar opposite is true what is usually true with people who get sucked into a porn addiction is that there is childhood trauma in their in their teen years or before that there's either verbal physical or sexual abuse in their history and they have a family that had some level of dysfunction don't we all right don't all families but have a level of dysfunction that included some neglect and unfortunately that left you susceptible to then seeking self soothing in a different way and that is likely when you discovered pornography or sexual acts or anything like that that is how the big strong habit happens not your extra male libido i am sorry to tell you but moving on that goes into the justification rationalization and minimization this is just the way that i am this is just what i do this is i'm a sexual being that is the hijacker talking talking to you and what you need to realize is that's not your voice that is the hijacker's voice telling you that it's okay that he's driving by the way it's not and i'm gonna tell you why at the end of this video okay so moving right along what happens in stage one stage one you probably are beginning to feel a world of hurt in your existence so you might have problems at your job because you're watching pornography during your work time or on your work computers you are not working when you should be and instead you are engaged in your habit that could be the same thing in your family life you're kind of mia because you're checking out um what happens to your brain is it is driven to go back for more and more and more porn so what that takes you out of is your work your family life and your hobbies so that begins to disintegrate perhaps your partners found out and now you're lying to her the reason you are lying to her is because you're lying to yourself you are telling yourself it's okay that the hijacker is driving i'm cool with this for right now this is just a little habit i have to relax after a long busy day a hijacker's driving your car that's not cool okay so moving right along you may have shame and anger and frustration and i'm sorry to tell you that even if you don't feel like you have shame at the root of the addictive cycle is shame and in a different video we will break down the difference between guilt and shame guilt is you feel bad because you've done something bad when you've really been engaged in a porn habit for a long time and it's escalated and maybe you've crossed some moral boundaries you now start to have shame which is i feel bad about myself and that leads to secrecy which keeps it in the dark and so you lie to your partner because honestly you're just lying to yourself so you may lose touch of what is real and what is not real surrounding the issue and a big thing that people like to do is to compartmentalize it like to put it in a little box and put it over there so that they don't have to deal with it that is stage one stage one means you have to get that box you need to bring it over you need to open it and yes it's gonna be like ripping a band-aid off but you need to open it and you need to share it with someone and go here's my box look what's inside of it i need help and that is the essence of stage one so find someone in your world that you can talk to hire someone i'm here for you if you need me find friends find a group there's lots and lots of support out there if you want it and i know finding it is the hardest step and i'm here to help you if you need that because what happens in stage one is isolation and seriously the way out is through you have to come out of that isolated state find somebody to confide in science find somebody to connect with and they will help you move through the opposite of the habit or the addiction is connection to the world and that's what we need to reestablish okay so how can you gain some momentum you need to have some small wins so if you take those action steps you will start to rewire your brain in the right direction and what that will look like is it will be you'll ebb and flow it's never a straight line you'll have days of wins and days that are a struggle that is okay start racking up the small wins and rewarding your brain for them not with pornography with something else you need to reward your brain because when you reward your brain you will move forward in your journey now the number one tip that can seriously help move you through these stages to success is to train your brain for success neuro training and coaching is just the fastest and easiest and most effective way to unwire the pattern that has gotten you into this position and begin to rewire it for the healthy optimal pattern so again you might see in another one of my videos that the brain pattern that craves the stimulation of pornography is one that is running too slow and one that is simultaneously stressed out so it needs to be calmed down and stimulated at the same time we need to change that brain pattern and make it the optimal brain pattern that is happy to exist in the real world without these high levels of stimulation brain training can take you from a to b faster than unwiring and rewiring it through your behaviors behaviors rewire your brain also so we're also going from for that aspect as well so we're doing from the bottom up that's we use your brain we use your behaviors to rewire your brain and the top down we train your brain so your behaviors come online faster too that is how you succeed don't forget that because if you've tried before in the past and you have not succeeded that's the difference that's likely what you didn't do it needs to be included in your program so that you can move through these stages okay so let's see now in phase one when you're moving into phase two you may need to learn about the brain mechanisms that are happening in here so that when you understand that it's a hijacker and it's not you when you understand that that voice isn't yours that's the addiction i like to think of addiction in any sense as a uh uh there's two people in there literally and if you've ever felt this you know what i mean that there's you the healthy version of your brain which probably shines through sometimes and the longer and longer if you're going decades with this habit that version of you will stop shining through so there's likely two versions the version of you that is the healthy version and then the addiction or the addicted version and that those two will battle for control and it literally goes back to your brain mechanism so when you learn through hopefully through my channel and through my blog posts you will have a better understanding of what's happening internally because the whole point is to grab control of your brain boot that hijacker out um okay so now let's talk about phase two stage two in pornography recovery is you the time for you to be able to thankfully expand your strategies so in stage one we're really talking about a ritualized routine what you want to do is to create a routine where you are moving through your days avoiding your habit you want to avoid your danger zones and start establishing a new routine and start unwiring the brain and start rewiring the brain and when you get to stage two this is exciting because you can feel it a little bit you can feel that optimal version of you coming back and that should motivate you to keep going from now you've gone through all their frustration you've made the decision to get help and then you can feel your brain relaxing a little bit that is what we are looking for so what we want to do is expand your strategies to now include new habits and i'm sure you've heard me talk about habit replacement before so now instead of just thinking about how you're not going to do your old habits what i want you to do is focus on your new habits and again in three areas so we're talking about your work your relationships and your hobbies so literally write them down what are some exciting things that you could focus on in your work what are some exciting things you could do in your relationships whether that be with a partner or spouse with some friends with your children all your relationships because likely all of them are suffering and most men don't even know how much their world is suffering until their brain is backed out of this addictive cycle and the sun shines a little bit and you're like whoa i really haven't been present here and enjoying any of this for a long time so set a goal within each one of those what you're going to do in your work to latch onto latch your brain onto something positive and purposeful because it will help you get up and it'll help you have something else to focus on same thing in your relationships and your hobbies so you find your one big goal in work and get excited about it find one way to engage with the people in your life in a fun way and find that hobby if you haven't done it in five years dust off your bowling ball and get back out there okay so you're gonna instill your new habits and that's gonna start moving you through stage two now what about setbacks setbacks are likely to happen hopefully you can have the strength to be able to move through them without giving into the urges or the temptation but likely you're still going to have some and if you approach it this way i know in the moment it might not feel good but all of those are opportunities to succeed and what that means is if you're tempted or if you have an urge that's your brain going this is me hijacker uh you know what i felt you lean over and try to grab that steering wheel i would like the steering wheel back so you have a choice to say okay hijacker here you go here's the steering wheel run me off the road into devastation or you can say no way hijacker you're out push that hijacker out the door jump into the driver's seat and grab the wheel now what happens if you do that you are sight you have just had a win so those are the small wins that you want to celebrate and you can celebrate them but you got to get through them in the in the moment you have to have a reaction that becomes a response when your reaction is no longer a knee-jerk reaction to give in you can have a more thoughtful response and then you can make a better decision and i want you to remember if you're training your brain your brain has a larger capacity to make a better decision it can do it now it can make the decision where it might not been able to do it before you started brain training that is how we help you succeed so then now you're in the moment you make a better decision you need to reward yourself reward your brain i'm highly suggesting sea salt dark chocolate caramelettes those things are just absolutely divine they're to die for what i definitely don't want you to do is watch pornography because also in this stage what happens is the hijacker convinces you that you've been in the driver's seat for a little while but he's in the passenger seat you didn't boot him all the way out of the car he's in the passenger seat and you know what he says he goes let me drive for a little while you deserve it you deserve a break from driving you you know let give me the wheel for a little while you can handle this i know a lot of men want to test their resolve to see if they can handle a little bit of porn let me tell you you can't it's not you testing you it's the hijacker so stay in the driver's seat reward yourself get some dark chocolate don't let temptation set you backwards now let's just say you have and setbacks will occur and if you have a setback then you need to learn from it this is another great learning opportunity yeah it sucks a little but it is a great learning opportunity in that you can analyze okay what was happening that led me to the setback where was i what device was i on what is the thing that triggered me and how can i avoid that in the future and likely you're gonna need to work with someone a professional on that to move you through the aspects of your setback but in stage two that's when you can make the gains for the long haul because you're in a better spot your brain's in a better spot and yeah you slipped up it's a slip slips are different from relapses slips are i messed up once and i'm gonna learn from it i'm gonna make sure it doesn't happen again i'm gonna change whatever aspect led to that slip relapses are you let yourself go down that slippery slope again so if you slipped up something went awry you need to analyze it so you don't go down that slippery slope if you don't analyze it get a sled my friend because you're probably going down okay now watch out for that backwards rationalization so you remember at the beginning when i told you that the reason it's so hard to get into stage one and actually get help is because the hijacker is telling you this is no sweat dude this is my habit i was born that way i've got a high libido i'm minimizing rationalizing justifying what happens now as we move into stage three is that there's backwards rationalization like i've got this i haven't acted out in a long time i'm totally in control right now but what i need you to realize is this is the test as you're moving into stage three is okay so maybe you haven't acted out in a long time but check your mind check the mental chatter that's going on up there is are there still tons of sexual thoughts are there still lots of mental urges are you sexualizing people are you sexualizing movies is your mind on sex if it is that hijacker's still in there so you need to take check of that because there's a concept of dry drunk where an alcoholic doesn't drink they're abstaining but they haven't changed the wiring in the brain to unwire it and rewire it so that the mental thoughts that lead to alcoholism are no longer in there it's the same idea and you may not be able to fully un wire it because that's part of the journey but what happens is you if you have lots of mental chatter in there there's a lot more work to be done so don't fool yourself don't have backwards rationalization if you've not acted out for a while physically if there's a lot of mental stuff going on it is time to hunker down and to get some more help keep using the brain hacks for success along the way and you can do that mentally you can check if you have a lustful thought and if you do you need to deliver a consequence not a reward okay so resist the urges keep using the strategies keep rewiring the brain in stage three now why should you bother why should you bother with any of this who cares it's just a porn habit who cares there's one word there's one reason that you should care and you know what it is it's called neuroplasticity neuroplasticity means that if you don't take care of this now it will get worse neuroplasticity is our best friend if we're doing all the right stuff it is literally our worst enemy if we're doing all the wrong stuff and the more you engage in a pornography habit the more the hijacker is taking control of your brain and what that will do science shows that it will shrink your brain who wants a shrunken brain just about nobody it will shrink your brain and it will lower your neural activity and what that does is it makes it so that you won't be able to think you won't be able to focus you won't be able to produce you won't be able to interact well with other people you'll be moody and angry and frustrated most of the time so your relationships are going to tank you won't be able to engage in the life that you want your libido will in fact go down there's erectile dysfunction your sexual life is going to crumble and all you will have left is pornography so keep that in mind that's how neuroplasticity is going to use porn to crush you now if you gain control guess what it's your best friend now your brain's going to get stronger it's going to get healthier neuroplasticity shows that you can unwire this and rewire it for a strong healthy brain for the rest of your life which means you're gonna age well you'll be able to think you'll be able to remember you'll be able to perform your relationships will improve you'll have fun you'll be happy that's why you need to do it okay hope this helps you out and remember control your brain or it'll control you

Channel: Dr. Trish Leigh, P*rn Brain Rewire

Views: 369,009

Keywords: porn brain, brain on porn, porn recovery, how to quit porn, what porn does toyour brain, porn addiction recovery, porn and brain, porn withdrawal, dr. trish leigh, trish leigh, doug weiss, heart to heart

Id: csxGGuOVH6o

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020