155 - Recovery Tools: Commitment to Change

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And freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal and relationship issues.

Well, hello there, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us on the Pure Desire podcast and I am your host, Nick Stumbo. And you are listening to episode 155 of the Pure Desire Podcast today. I am joined today by my first time co host, the Harry Flanagan. Father Flanagan, thanks for joining us. Good to have you.

Great to be here. And I've never been a co host, so I'm excited.

Hey, it's only my second time as a podcast host, so it's, you know, take some getting used to. Last week was my first time. Some of our listeners know if they heard the last episode that our good friend Trevor Windsor has not been fired. He's out on some paternity leave as they celebrate the birth of their second boy. Brooks and mom are home healthy and Trevor will be back soon as I'm sure everyone will be glad for. But in the meantime, I get to be the host and Harry is my co host. So Harry is one of our clinicians here at Pure Desire. He is a co author or one of the authors of our seven Pillars of Freedom workbook and he is a huge fan of the Oregon Ducks. And those three things are probably all you need to know about Harry.

Well, you probably nailed me. My wife would probably agree with you, Nick.

Well, we'll hear a lot more from Harry in this episode as we revisit a great tool that we've used at Pure Desire for a long time. But first, I want to give you some quick thoughts. Want to encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. If you're not subscribed already, we want to encourage you to do it, not wait. You can find us on all of the major platforms. And please, while you're there, give us a review. It helps more people see the podcast and it means a lot to us. Second, we want to encourage you to follow us on social media to get meaningful updates and posts from PureDesire. We're on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at the handleuredesirepdmi. Once again, that's earedesirepdmi. And if you'd like to consume our video content, some of our episodes, pieces and other videos are available on our YouTube page. Just search Pure Desire Ministries. And then finally, we want to remind you about the Pure Desire Summit. Coming up in the fall, September 11th and 12th, we are excited to have our first ever international gathering for men and for women. We're calling it an event for Our friends, fans and family. Anyone that's a part of the Pure Desire world and wants to hang out with the team, hear some great speakers, be a part of great breakout sessions. Harry Flanagan will be helping lead one of those breakout sessions. Isn't that right, Harry?

That's right. Although I'm going to give way to my wife. She's going to actually start off our breakout.

Yes. If you want to see the Flanagans do some good work together, you don't want to miss that. So you can sign up right now on our website. If you go to PureDesire.org and then I was told it's a PD summit. PureDesire.org PD summit. Sign up for that. And if for some reason because of the coronavirus, we're not able to do it in person, there will still be a virtual summit. And if you sign up now, we'll transfer you to that virtual summit and discount you whatever money difference it is. So we want you to sign up with confidence, knowing there will be some kind of event. And we believe that it's going to be in person. And by mid September, we're all going to be super excited to hang out in person at the PD Summit. So join us for that. Registration is now open. So, Harry, today we're going to talk a little bit more about one of the tools I feel that's been foundational to Pure Desire Group's maybe almost from the beginning. And that's the weekly commitment to change.

So, Nick, can I reverse the tables here? When you and I first met and you were beginning your healing process yourself, what did you experience with a commitment to change? What was that tool like for you?

That's a good question, Harry. I'm not sure I've thought about that. You know, that's why we give you the questions ahead of time, so you have time to think about it. You know, when I first started my group, I was just kind of that mindset like my counselor says, I need to do this. It's really important to my wife. And so just whatever the curriculum says to do, I'm going to do it. And you know, at the end of every group, the guys would go around and they would make this commitment to change. And you know, I figured out pretty quick it was just to try to highlight what's the main thing you're working on this week and to tell other people about it and to actually do it with some. Something measurable like how will you know if you did it and without overcomplicating it with that mindset it just really quickly actually I would say was one of the tools that made sense to me from the very beginning because like, yep, I can, I'm breaking this journey into something manageable and bite sized that week in and week out I can focus on. And so probably before I even understood the process at all, it was very meaningful to me.

You know, Ted used to say, matter of fact, he probably still does say if we talk to him about it, he talks about ruthless honesty. Yeah, I've heard other people say rigorous honesty. But ultimately, you know, I've had pastors who pastored enormous churches sitting in my office looking for help because they were, they were entrapped with pornography or had other issues going on. And even though they had a great theology, even though they were in the Bible every day and they had different levels of accountability, the truth is, at some point along the way, they started to deceive themselves.

Yeah.

And the commitment to change is a tool that if it's used correctly, like you were doing Nick, it provides the point of the arrow for the changes needs to happen in your life. This is what I need to work on today. But I have a lot of men who find ways to avoid the real issues they're facing because they think the commitment to change is primarily just behavioral and it's not.

Yeah, the point of the arrow. I really like that. And we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. Some of the questions we're going to ask in the podcast. And so as the listeners probably can already tell, the purpose of this episode is all about that commitment to change. It's, it's one of the core tools in a Pure Desire group. And it's part of this series we're doing of revisiting some of our very first podcasts. I think this one was in the first 10 for sure. And so it's been three years since we've covered it and we're just saying, hey, let's, let's freshen it up, let's talk about it again. And for people that are maybe newer to the Pure Desire podcast who haven't gotten all the way back into those first episodes, it gives them a chance to really get their teeth into this significant tool. So, Harry, as we talk about this and just get started, let's go back to the question you asked me. You know, what was my first experience. Try to think about the person that is maybe starting a group for the very first time and they have no idea what this tool or the commitment to change is all about. How you define or explain the commitment to change to someone. Just give us the basic definition of the commitment to change.

A commitment to change is your focusing on what you believe will be your next step in the healing process. What is it I need to learn this week to bring me closer to ongoing sobriety in my life, or maybe to sobriety for the first time in my life. So every week you're looking for a step to take you forward. It may come out of the curriculum itself, or it may come out of your growing self awareness of where you struggle, what you're battling with.

Yeah, yeah. I really like how it's a tool that can be implemented most often for people in the group. It's something they're doing as they end the group for that week. And it's really looking forward to say between this moment and the next time we gather in seven days, what is it that I'm putting my focus and my attention on? And you're spot on that sometimes it's something that came out of the curriculum that I need to learn or grow in, or at other times it's because in a relationship in my life, there's a fire at home or something that is really going poorly and I've got to address it if I'm going to have any chance at health. And so week in and week out changes. But I like the way it's kind of that focal point, say, okay, between now and then, what's the main objective? And I think when we've been caught up, whether we're in the pain of a spouse's behavior or we're wrapped up in some of the insanity of our own addictive cycle, we really need those tools that can help us break it down and not try to fix everything at once. Because that's honestly where most of us started. It's like, well, my life is bad and my marriage is a wreck and I just need to fix it. And we think we can fix it all at once when we can't. I mean, there are pieces of this that are going to take us a long time. And so it's a way of saying, here's what I can do and here's something that realistically in the next seven days I can make progress on if I'll really put my focus into it.

Yeah, Nick, absolutely. But I think that there's a foundational piece that some people miss. And that foundational piece is that this is about the reason we have seven pillar groups is for mutual accountability and support. In a healthy group, everybody's got everybody else's back. So when I tell you that I'm making a commitment to change and here's what my commitment to change is, my expectation is that you're there to support me and encourage me and when I make my accountability phone call to you, that we're going to focus on how, how I'm doing with my commitment to change, improvements that I may be able to make in how I seeking to achieve that completion of that commitment to change. And at the same time, I have your back for your commitment to change. So it really is a relationship builder within the seven pillar group.

Yeah. That reality of mutuality that I'm doing it even as you are doing it can be so helpful because otherwise we can feel like I have to do all these things to change. And no one's story is quite like mine and I have it harder than anybody else. Maybe some of those woe is me lines that we can get stuck in our head. But when I hear that commitment to change from others, and I'll be honest, most weeks I'm hearing another guy say something that's frankly, I feel is harder than what I'm committing to. It's like, wow, he's really facing something big this week. And I can remember like maybe in my story doing that several years ago being at a similar place. But in light of him making that commitment, it does help me feel like, well, then I can, the least I can do is work on mine. If he's facing that I can face what I need to face. And somehow knowing that your, your group members, your friends are out there facing similar things, it just encourages us to keep moving forward at the same time.

Nick, I agree the curriculum or the group may provide it, but it also can be circumstantial. For example, I've disclosed my wife and my wife and I told my wife about my battle with addiction. Now she has told her, her, her family of origin and we're going there this weekend. This will be my first face to face encounter. And shame is telling me all kinds of ways this is gonna, I'm gonna fall on my face, I'm gonna be rejected, I'm gonna be abandoned. How are, how are they going to respond to me? I have all those fears. And so sometimes the commitment to change is the reality of what I'm facing this week. Is there an event that I'm facing this week that is significant to my life and how am I going to not only survive the event, but be able maybe even to thrive through this event?

Yeah. Yeah. So talk our listeners Through Harry. Why is this tool, which it really is, fairly basic. I mean, it's five, six questions long. You can do it one page in your workbook. But why is it such a key or an essential element in the recovery process?

Listen, for those of you who are already in seven pillars groups, you know that this healing process is a marathon. The commitment to change is the tool that we use to keep you focused on what is your next step, how you see your target. You're moving towards sobriety. You're moving towards. For those of you who are married, you're moving towards reconciliation with your wife. Or for those of you who are single or who went through an unwanted divorce, you're coming to reconcile in your own life the man that you want to be. And so this is a tool that's moving me forward to learning how to. And this is really key. I'm learning how to live out my values. Another way of saying it, Nick, would be to say at your memorial, what would you want others to say about you? And there comes, if you think about that, that opens the door for you to come up with, here are the most important values I have in my life, and I want to learn how to live it. You know, but maybe my favorite story, Nick, is I had a guy come into my office for the first time at Pure Desire. And. And, you know, I know it's a Christian organization, so I already knew the answer, but I asked him, hey, do. Are you someone who's contending to be a man of character and integrity? And his answer to me was, of course, yes. And then I said, I saw on his form he had filled out that he was married. I said, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most, how. How much do you seek to avoid confrontations with your wife? And he said, without blinking an eye, he's. And without smiling, he said, 34.

Blowing the scale apart there.

Yeah, he was. And so. But he didn't know he had set me up because I said so. That tells me that. That you are lying to your wife, and you're also lying by omission, by withholding facts from her to avoid conflict. So your practice value is avoiding conflict. That now becomes an obstacle to you becoming a man of character and integrity. And he shook his head. And he was a young man who thrived in the healing process because he started off from the very beginning with being honest about what was driving him. And he had to choose different set of values to live by. And the practicing, the commitment to change. Remember that our deep Limbic system that we've talked so much about it. Pure desire. That limit system only gets changed experientially. Head knowledge doesn't help the healing process at all.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and thank you for using the marathon analogy because you know how much that running analogy means to me. And I can remember a number of times saying to high school athletes when I was coaching that I'd say the only mile you can run is the one you're on. Because particularly if you're in a longer race or workout, we do start to think ahead about how far we have left to go and do I have the energy to get there. And now we're feeling self defeated and it's so far away. And so the only mile we can run is the one we're on currently. And we need to focus on what do I need to do in and during this mile. And when you get to the end of that mile, then you can focus on the next one. And there's a lot of truth to that in recovery that we can look at. Our end goal of this marathon is maybe a healthy family or restored relationships or maybe being back in some career or job opportunity that's been taken away from us because of our behaviors. And if that's the only thing we're looking at, there will become times we get discouraged, like, I don't know how to get there. I don't know if I can ever get there. Or you know, he's so disengaged or she's so angry. How will we ever fix this? And yet if you say, well, what could I do this week to work on me, to keep moving towards the kind of person, as you were saying, the kind of person God's made me to be and that I want to be, and then being honest about that with others so that I can have some real accountability that helps us move forward. And when we get to the end of that mile marker, we look at the next and the next, and I think it's that sort of thing then that we maybe look back after a period of time and can't even believe how far we've come. And there wasn't any one moment that we did it, but it's that week in and week out honoring that commitment and doing what needs to be done that creates long term growth and change.

Yeah. And Nick, you're using the running analogy. And so this is just humorous for me because you know that I battle with a physical illness that keeps me from running. But a long, long time ago, I used to be a cross country runner myself.

I know that. I know.

And I. I ran races against Steve Prefontaine, who at least at one point in time, was considered America's greatest distance runner. And. And some of us in our. In our commitments to change or in our groups compare ourselves with other people. But we're all running a separate race because we're all coming from different starting points. We have different issues to work through as to why, why and how we got stuck in the addiction we're battling with. So. So a part of this healing process is really recognizing I'm. I'm competing against myself. I'm not competing against anybody else. I'm not. I don't. Comparison is. Is deadly to us in this healing process. When you see people's outsides and you compare it to how you're feeling on the inside, it doesn't. It. It doesn't work. And in fact, though, Nick, you and I love to see marriage is restored. And I tell people in the counseling office that Debbie and I have the greatest position of all. We get to sit in the front row and watch God do the miracle of bringing families together and healing. But in the midst of all of that, I tell them that the marriage is secondary. If you don't take care of your why you do addictions. If you don't take care of this and make it a priority for you to get healed for your sake, you're not going to have successful restoration of your marriage anyway. This has to be about you taking ownership of your life to get your life in right order, whether or not in the moment your wife cares or is in agreement with the choices you're making. This has got to be for you.

Yep. Yeah. Otherwise, you're trying to control something that you don't have ultimate or 100% control over. And I think you're spot on that reminder. We're all running our own race, and we've got to be willing to run at whatever pace we can right now and not get discouraged by maybe what's happening around us. So, Harry, how do we go about identifying, you know, the first question on the Commitment to Change worksheet invites us to identify our greatest challenge. Greatest challenge to our sobriety or the what we need to face in that coming week. How do we go about identifying that? Maybe especially if we're early in recovery and it feels like, man, everything's important. I've got to get it all done or I'm going to lose my marriage. And so people might wonder, how do I identify the most Important thing or what I'm going to make my commitment to change about. What kind of encouragement do you give along those lines?

Well, the simplest answer is that we have to begin to recognize what triggers us. Let me give you an example. I think probably the most common trigger is resentment. And so I know that when I'm feeling resentful, that's telling me that I'm. I'm not trusting God. I'm not trusting the significant people in my life. And now I am being driven by anger or judgments I hold against myself or somebody else or everybody in that situation. And so the step forward in healing is learning how not to be reacting to those certain triggers or finding a healthy response to those triggers when they take place. One of the things to look at, Nick, would be the three basics that I teach in the counseling office. The number one sign of an addictive personality is someone who. Who likes isolation. You know, and, And. And it's. It is actually our most dangerous place because addicts love isolation because nobody is looking over their shoulder. They feel safe, but the truth is, they have no accountability in isolation. They're not being accountable to themselves because isolation is when you're running from your life, you're not facing your life. So that's different than solitude. But isolation is the number one sign of an addictive personality. So if you find yourself, you may be very social, superficially, but if you find yourself keeping secrets and living in those secrets, then you're in isolation. Number two is passivity or passive aggressiveness. This is where my sick humor shows up. I say, and number three, I don't know why it's always last. Is procrastination.

Yep.

Okay. Those are the three most common signs of an addictive personality. Isolation, passivity, passive aggressiveness, or procrastination. So those, you know, for example, procrastination, what is it you tend to avoid trying to do?

Yeah.

Maybe it's your homework for your seven pillar group. Yeah. In the. In the counseling office, I ask my clients to give me 30 minutes a day, five days a week. And if they do that for their group and my homework and they don't finish their work, there's no pushback from me. If I. If they're giving me that 30 minutes a day, that then. And they're sincerely seeking to do their work, they're moving forward in the healing process. And we want to take. You know, we have this, especially when we're beginning. You're. You're right, Nick. Everyone wants a quick fix. Every. Everyone who battles with addiction and Wants the addiction fixed yesterday because it'll take the pressure off of me for. For the moment. Yeah, exactly. And so we've got to slow the process down and take one step. So have the guys beginning to identify what are the things that trigger me to act out.

Yeah. Yeah, that's so good. And I'm guessing, like me, there's probably quite a few people even in their car trying to write a little note about those three things. Because it's so true that when we isolate, when we're passive, when we procrastinate, we're just. We're putting ourselves back into that addictive mindset. And so our commitment to change might be to say, how am I going to directly counteract one of these things? For me, a couple of other things that come to mind about identifying our greatest threat or what we need to focus on for the week. I always look back at my faster scale and I ask the question, what is it that was driving me down the faster scale last week? Because that probably needs to be my biggest focus this week. And so if someone was being driven down the faster scale into relapse, well, their biggest question is, how do I avoid relapse this week? What's the biggest change I need to make to not go back to relapse? Or if they were ticked off and being driven by some anger or black and white thinking and say, okay, what was driving that? And what do I need to change to deal with that issue on my faster scale? The other thing I recommend in identifying what's most important, I find so often it comes up during the group discussion. And that's why when I've led groups, and I know not everybody does it this way, which is fine, but in any group I've led, I allow people time at the end of the meeting to actually fill out some of their commitment to change. Because I think something happens when we take the thoughts that have been spinning around in our head and we say them out loud to other people and we hear ourselves saying it, and we hear them saying their truths and sharing their stuff that what's really important right now for us suddenly just. It becomes clear. It's like everything that was hazy starts to come into focus. And I've gone into group thinking, oh, yeah, I totally know what my commitment is going to be. And during the course of conversation and group, it totally changes because I see something much more important or much more pressing, Something that, like you were saying, Harry, that I've been trying to avoid and not being honest with myself about. But in Group, it's clear. It's like, nope, if I'm going to move forward, this is the stumbling block or the hurdle that I've got to face. And so I think for anybody trying to get a handle on this, it's look at what's driving you down your faster scale and listen to what's being shared in group. Listen to what you're sharing, because often you'll be saying the very challenge that you need to really face.

And Nick, I'm right with you. I think having a commitment to change at the end of the meeting is a profound tool. But I want. I take my group one step further. I'm going to one up you. How's that? And that is that I was at the very beginning point, ground floor of starting Pure Desire groups back at the beginning, and I was walking through my own healing, and I was sitting there as a kind of the unofficial assistant to the fellow who was actually the first Pure Desire pastor at East Hill Church. And we were trying to figure out how many phone calls to make. And the group leader said he pulled out of there. He says, how about three? Let's just try three. And because we took that and put it on paper, everybody's committed that way for 20 years. That is exactly right. And the truth is that if isolation is the number one sign of an addictive personality, I have everyone in my group have a scheduled maintenance phone call with everybody else in the group every week so that nobody is going to be isolated. And I teach them about this. The more important phone call is not the maintenance, but when I find myself triggered.

Yeah.

And so I can't. But I can't be. I can't make a commitment to change about what triggers me if I'm unaware of what triggers me.

Yeah.

So. So for this healing process, at the very beginning, it is taking the time to begin to assess what are the things that happened in my life that pushed me to act out? Am I feeling shame? Is it. Is it shame? Is it the fact that my wife was critical of me? Is it that. That my. My parents were controlling and I'm. And I had. And it led me to a secret life. What is it? And so it's beginning for you to begin to take in the opportunity to examine what are the things that have taken place in my life that have led me into the. Into this addiction? So, because. Because if we. If we don't know we're being triggered, we're going to end up acting out again. But when we have a trigger and we have men Waiting for phone calls from us because they know that I'm committed to call when I'm being triggered. And that includes in the group finding out who's available at 3:00am you know, and believe it or not, I've never been in a group where there wasn't somebody available.

Yeah.

Willing to take a phone call. So, so, so in all of the work that we do is it's, it is a growing sense. The healing process begins with a growing sense of self awareness and it's going to come over time. You're not going to all of a sudden be fully aware, but listening to what you're. The other men in the group are saying. Yeah. I can remember writing in my, my back in the original four minute only journal, somebody, you know, Bob said something and I realized, hey, that's me. I wrote down Bob's comment because I realized it was for me. So I was learning from the other men. Yep.

Well, and that's the value of what you're saying. If everyone in the group is contacting everyone else, you're going to become a lot more aware of your own triggers because you're interacting with people regularly and you're hearing about theirs. And in that mutual support, those things become clear. So I think there's a lot of wisdom behind what you're saying.

So the commitment to change is not, is not a tool that I merely use on myself. I'm going to use it. And when I'm making my phone calls, I'm saying to you, hey, Nick, remember my commitment to change this week is to make all of my phone calls this week because, because I know isolation is too dangerous a place for me to be.

Yeah. Yeah. And understanding those triggers like you've been saying. So tell us a couple, you've already given several, but give us a few more examples of commitment to changes that have been common for you or with men you're working with in group. Just for people who might be new to this, give a few more examples that might trigger them to the kind of commitment we're talking about when we say make your weekly commitment to change.

Besides triggers, I made reference to circumstances. Be thinking about the coming seven days between now and the next time you're with your group. Is there an event that's taking place that you think is going to be a difficult event for you? One where you could be, could be triggered, you know. And listen, I've had men who found it difficult to go to church because they have a few women that they've been objectifying. So they have to sit in a section of the church where they're not going to visually have those women in eyesight to do this. So for them, going to church, even something as healthy and wholesome as going to church is a trigger. So you have to. The commitment to change is a mini safety plan. What do I need to do to keep myself safe when I'm in this environment? That is a dangerous scenario for me. What am I going to do? So you're looking for external triggers. You're also looking for internal triggers. You know, I said resentment, but some people may recognize I'm ticked off. You know, I find myself being judgmental of other people. Or when I'm really. When my self talk is ugly, when I'm just really beating myself up emotionally, that's going to justify me ultimately acting out again to feel better and just restarting the whole cycle again. So paying attention to what your self talk is doing. You know, we have a download something that I wrote this that we can download from our resource center called a mind download, where you are literally give yourself the pen and you don't do any editing. You just start writing down all the thoughts you're feeling until you feel like there's nothing more. Put it in a drawer for a day and pick it back up and look at it. Well, if you find yourself being really judgmental of yourself in a certain area or judging somebody of its significance to you, then you say, you know what I think this is? This may be a commitment to change. Or as you and I have been talking about is. Is we're magnifying the importance of the seven pillars. Meaning, because I'm. It's not. It's not seven pillars by itself is just informational. You taking it and applying it to life, to your life, be makes it allows it to become transformational.

Yeah.

And that's the goal of pure desire. That this, that we're helping every single individual and every single couple transformed to walk down what Debbie and I call the healing path. We're walking down this healing path and we think we're going to be walking down the healing path until we finally see. See Jesus face to face.

Yeah. Yeah. And what you just said is true of women's groups to a betrayal and beyond of unraveled of our college groups. Like if all you do. Because we get that people say, like, well, can't I just buy the workbook and go through it by myself? And it's like, no, Information doesn't transform us. It's the connection and the community. And you Know, in my own life, as I think about commitments to change, I try to keep in mind that we're holistic beings. And I try to ask the question, like, where am I really lacking? Am I lacking this week? More in the spiritual area? And I know this is all connected, so it's not like we can just pull these apart. But I think you understand what I'm saying that, like, is it a spiritual deficiency right now? Is it relational? Is it emotional? Is it mental? Is it physical? Because if I can identify really where I've got a deficiency, then I can make my commitment there. And so my commitments to change will often be things like, this week, I'm going to review my personal guardrails each night and in my phone calls, report to a group member how I'm doing on them, or if it's relation with my wife. I'm going to focus on planning and executing a date night and getting us out of the house on Friday night. It could be that I need to spend more time with my kids and spend time doing things they want to do and not just having them do things I want to do. It might be, am I slowing down to journal and to write down things I'm grateful for and kind of reset myself more in that internal emotional, spiritual area. Is it my mindset? Am I having a positive mindset? And so I might make a commitment to change, to meditate on a scripture verse or a personal promise every morning for a couple of minutes as I start my day, just to get the word of God and my heart and mind. And so in just those, you know, five, six examples, those are all different areas of life. And that's something I'm always looking at is how do I say where. Where am I weak right now? And what would it look like to address that area?

And for that to happen, Nick, for that to happen, I think those are all great. You, you. We have to remember Jeremiah 17, 9, where. Where Jeremiah the prophet says, there's nothing more deceitful in all the earth than the human heart. And there's a lot of guys who will say, who will. Will almost every week say, well, I need to be reading my Bible more. But, Nick, you and I have had pastors who have incredible skill set in their lives, and they're coming to pure desire because they've been entrapped. And there's a lot of times where we deceive ourselves in this process. So a part of this healing goes back to, at the very core is understanding that it's our emotions that drive Us. And if you aren't in tune with your emotions, that doesn't mean that you're just recognizing them. But for most guys, emotions are centered around mad, sad and glad. And I had a wife say 47 emotions because they were all listed on the same page. And she says 47 emotions. Well, that's a start. And we have to learn how to sit with our emotions to let them. Emotions are there to inform us, never to be decision makers. The only time we get emotions are to be a decision maker is fear. When there is imminent danger, it takes over the mind and we run. We don't even realize that we're doing it. It's built in by God into our lives for safety. So learning how to sit with emotions and let them inform us what is taking place. And most people tell us that, Nick, that there are two kinds of emotions, good emotions and bad emotions. And the truth is there, I classify four emotions. There are the emotions that are sought after. I really want these emotions like joy, passion, excitement. For you, a father of several children, ESPs, you know, and then there are the comfortable emotions, like I'm relaxed, and the uncomfortable emotions like anxiety and stress and the painful emotions of being rejected, abandoned, shamed, all of those emotions. But they all do the same function. They inform you about the condition of your heart in the present circumstances you find yourself. And if you aren't learning those, you're flying blind in life and you're going to run into a mountainside somewhere, you're going to crash if you don't become aware of those emotions. And all you have to do is pick up David's work in the Psalms and discover the immense variety of emotions that David experienced as he was processing his life while he's sitting there as a young man or a boy in the fields shepherding.

Yeah, yeah. The emotions that then we're prepared to face, I think is part of what the commitment to change is doing. In fact, that's the. You know, the next question I had for you is looking at the commitment to change. Once we've identified our greatest challenge, it invites people to think through what's their double bind? Like what's the fear they have to face or what's going to happen if they don't face this. And I have found for many, many people in groups, it's a part they kind of get hung up on, like, I don't know, or it might be difficult for them to identify that double bind. And so last week's episode was all about the double bind. But we want to kind of dig into that a little further here with the commitment to change as someone is facing that challenge or whatever they're going to work on. What kind of guidance do you give them in really identifying and working through. Through the double bind that they might be facing?

Yeah. I think, Nick, that people have to get as pragmatic as possible. And so all of the men and women I've counseled are going to know what I'm about to say backwards and forwards, because I really emphasize this. So let's say that, Nick, you're battling with procrastination. What's an area that historically you battled with pro. Procrastination in Everywhere.

Wait, let's see. I tend to put off ambiguous things like writing projects, sermon prep, because it's hard to have a defined beginning and end because it, you know, you're never sure how long it'll take. And so I can push those off.

Okay, so what's the painful consequence if you continue to push off your writing assignments?

It doesn't get done. I have more anxiety, you know, more stress about what I didn't do. I might even have shame beating myself up about why didn't I do that? Now I'm feeling behind that can lead to anger. I might take out that anger on other people because I'm feeling the pressure of it. Did you want me to keep going? Yeah, with this one.

Okay. And so let's do this. Let's do the other side of the double bind. Okay. What is the painful consequence of your not giving into procrastination? Actually doing the work?

Yeah, I have to face it. I have to lean into that ambiguity and be okay. I have to be okay with some uncomfortability. I have to face those voices that might say, it's not going well, it's not going to be good, and trust that God is with me and he's going to use it. I oftentimes have to lean on other people to ask for their input. Hey, how does this sound? Would you read this for me? So it's. It's facing a lot of those fears.

So when Michael did this, he. Michael Dye, who One of our friends and a guest on. On our podcast, My Michael says the right thing to do is usually the hard thing to do. I add a piece to that because I usually say, especially for men and women who are just in the healing process, the right thing to do is usually the thing I have avoided. Yeah, so. So I. I add that. So I say the right thing to do is usually the thing I've avoided. The right thing to do is the hard thing. What is the hard thing for me to do? So, so Nick, for you, what would be the hard thing for you to do with your writing?

Yeah, it's to face it. To lean in, to face the ambiguity, the fears of failure.

Face it. So, so if you have, for all of our listeners, if you take the double bind and you, you turn it into. This is one of two choices for you. You turn it into. What is the painful consequence about the behavior? The second is a different aspect of a double bind that I haven't heard talked about generally, but I find incredibly valuable. And that is I want to learn how to live out my values. What is a value this week I need to live out in my life. Like for example, I want to be a grace filled truth teller. I want to be honest. What's the painful consequence if I choose not to be to be honest with my spouse, with my counselor, with my seven pillars group? What's going to be and the opposite is what's the painful consequence if I am honest and I've really been had a week of struggles.

Yeah.

You know, the painful consequence. The right thing to do is usually the hard thing to do. The key is learning how to live out of our values. Emotions inform us, but we want to make choices out of our values. And when our evaluate where our values and choices line up, when our value and our emotions line up, then we can have a party. It's a great time. Yeah, but, but, but we need to learn how to live by our values and not allow emotions to be the driver of our decisions. Because usually people, not usually when people come to, to us and they're battling with addictions, they're making their decisions, being driven by their, by their shame and fear.

Yeah, well, and I think that in a nutshell is the value of that double buying portion. It's to name and identify what's the fear that's driving me and what does it mean? What's it going to cost me to face it? Absolutely not be driven by it. And there is a cost. But when we see it, then we can say and here's the help I'm going to need to get through this. So let's get really, really practical. Harry, when you hear men and women making a commitment to change, whether it's been in the counseling office or in groups you've led, what are some of the most common mistakes you see people making when they make a commitment to change?

Well, you identified the first mistake that it's not Measurable.

Yeah.

It'S vague. And who's going to hold you accountable when you're making a commitment to change it? You need to be accountable to somebody who is committed to your healing, not somebody who's committed to being a nice guy. You know, when someone, when, when I sin and I repent to you and you tell me it's no big deal, you're not doing me any favors, you're not taking my spirituality sincerely when I'm saying I need to repent to you. So I'm looking for somebody who's really going to be on my side because they want to see the best of me. And, and they're willing to, to, to be grace filled and honest with me when they, if they see me messing up or they're feeling like I'm not really living out my commitment to change, they'll lovingly call me on it when I talk to them when I'm making my phone calls. But there, this commitment to change has got to happen in the context of the spiritual community you live with, the guys in the seven Pillars group who, where you're learning how to be honest and open about what's going on. And as you get healthier, you're transferring that to your, to your relationships at home with your family, with your wife, with your parents, with your kids, that the families now being involved with this, you're learning how to live and on a straightforward life. But it has to happen in community. And so you have to have something that, that's measured. It may be simply I, you know, I was afraid of going to church this Sunday because I knew the pastor was going to talk about sexual addiction. And I thought every eye in the church was going to end up being on me. The fact that I showed up in church would have been a commitment to change for me because I knew I needed to be there. So all the commitments to change is not, is about your being faithful to the kind of person that you want to be and don't make it a meandering step. Right. I need to say something.

Yeah.

You know, you need to be, you need to be aiming towards the goal of your sobriety. What's it going to take? Because if you want, if you want to have a happy marriage, if you, and you're single, you're preparing yourself for what it means to be married. And if you are in a marriage, you want to restore the quality of that marriage. And that's going to take you learning how to aim for the difficult things that you're facing. So a Commitment to change should be a challenge to you. It shouldn't be something that's going to be so easy that it's not going to be a problem to do this. Yeah, it's going to be. Yeah, exactly. So, so, so I'll let yourself take a challenge on that. Behaviorally, you may not even succeed. But the. But the victory is that you took a step forward in seeking to succeed. You know, you know what, you know, you. We've used the running analogy. Well, you're trying to break your own record in the mile, you know, and you may not break it this time, but you got close. Next time, maybe you'll be able to break that record. I think that it's not. Again, whether you're having this reckless honesty with yourself, it's okay to set the same goal a few weeks in a row, but don't make it a permanent commitment to change because that means that it. It's not a step forward. You're really talking about something that's. You need to break it down into smaller bits so that you can. You can achieve success in a week or two, three maybe. But some people want to have the same commitment that's changed all the time. And some people will take a baby step that probably they're capable of much more, but they don't trust themselves. And so I would suggest to you, with your commitment to change, that it's important for you to learn how to risk.

Yeah, it sounds like finding that sweet spot between something that's not too big, you can't accomplish it, because that's one of the things I'd say people make commitments that are honestly too big for one week or they're too small, that it's really not any effort. It should be a challenge it should take. And so finding that place between those two, I really appreciate that advice. And, you know, I think that's. Those are some of the things that came to mind for me, is when people make commitments to change that are not really related to their week at all. You know, maybe a guy has shared in group that he's been down and exhausted or relapsed, and then his commitment to change is something like eat more fruits and vegetables. You know, and you ask, well, how does that relate to. He's like, well, no, I just want to be healthy. And you're like, okay, we're not just looking to change in general. Like, we're looking specifically, how do I change in terms of my addictive personality or the relationship problems I've caused, Like, what's really at stake here in recovering from my addiction. And so it's not just general. It's meant to be specific to where I'm at. And I think also you joked about it earlier, but I've heard it in pretty much every group I've led someone that every week it's that spiritual aspect of do more devotion, spend more time with God, pray more. And it's like, if it's the same every single week, at some point we have to call time out and say, I don't think that's actually your problem because you're still, you know, for eight months, all you've said is you need to pray more. And let's identify why you're not praying to a point you think, you know, do you think you're just going to get to a point you pray enough that you'll be fixed? Because sometimes if that's the same commitment week in and week out, there's more to it, that maybe they grew up in a spirit of real religiousness, that they just think, if I'm religious and spiritual enough, I won't struggle. And it's saying, well, no, there's more to you and your story than just getting up earlier to pray more. Now, I don't want to undervalue that commitment because some of us could use that as a commitment to change that. I'm going to make it a value to be up at a certain time and have some time to pray before I start my day. So that is great. But I'm just guessing, week in and week out, there are other things you need to be focusing on as well. And that's, I think, a role for us as group members that actually can be hard, is if a person is bringing up the same commitment to change every week, at some point we need to call them on it and ask, why is this not changing? Because it's been your commitment for a while now, and it's still your commitment. What's going on here? And really challenge someone in love to face maybe something they're not facing.

So hopefully, Nick, this is for the leaders of our small groups. The most dangerous thing for our leaders is thinking that they have to lead by example. And by that, I mean that they had their act together. You know, the truth is, if you want to learn it from. If you have a leader who is being truly authentic to who they are, pay attention to their commitments, change what they are working on and what they're honing in on and the risks that they are taking and how they use their double Bind how they're going forward. And the last piece, I think, in all of this, Nick, is that in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, Paul tells us to take off the old man and put on the new man. Our goal here with the commitment to change is not to resist acting out. Our goal is to move forward to the person that we are called to be instead, instead of resisting unhealthy behavior, we're going to work on replacing. If my old behaviors are unhealthy, what is the healthy behavior I want to be doing that will be the substitute for the unhealthy behavior. So we want to be replacing.

Yeah, yeah. That's so good that we're not just thinking about avoid, avoid avoiding, but looking at where am I going instead?

Yes.

So you've already given us a couple, Harry, but as we get towards closing up this episode here, give us a few closing pro tips on how to use the commitment to change and really have it be successful in your group.

Journey, in all of your accountability contacts, whether it's phone calls, whether it is a maintenance phone call or a phone call that says, I've been triggered, I want. It would be really helpful for you to be reminding your partners in your group what your commitment to change is. You need to be verbalizing to yourself, to your spouse. If you're married to the significant people of your life that you make it well known. This is what I'm working on. Again, we're so used to isolation that we keep it in our head. So, number one, you need to be vocal about it with all of the people who have earned a right to know that what you're working on and how you're changing. And number two, you need to be humble enough to be able to say the goal is the good goal, but, boy, am I really struggling. And you had the guys in your group, especially your leader or co leader and your spouse, to be able to say, hey, maybe I need to reframe this. Maybe there's, there's, there's an added step that I'm not doing. What are you seeing that I could do that would help me to, to be successful here? So, so it's not like I make a commitment to change and then I just try to plow through it regardless. Because the fact is, every once in a while, and especially for the new guys, it's going to feel almost every week you're going to run into something you didn't expect and, and you're going to have to make adjustments so that you can succeed. And it may be really even, even when you recognize it, saying, well, maybe this was too big. Listen, let's make it. I'm going to take a half step towards that this time and, and with a goal that next week I'm going to be able to accomplish this. So. So it is. You're really, really embracing doing all of this in the context of community.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so good. Harry, I would just reiterate something I said earlier in the episode that connecting this to your faster scale, kind of making this the second half of. If this is what was driving me down the scale last week, here's what I need to be addressing this week. And to echo what you said, inviting other people into this process, if you're really bold, go to your spouse, if you're married and say, what do you think I need to face that I've been avoiding? Because you know, they tend to be really good at seeing what we're avoiding and hopefully they won't just say what they want us to be doing, but even so we should take that seriously, whatever they say. But other people can often see what we have been putting off or not wanting to face and so be willing to hear that. And I say too to guys, and I'd say the same thing to women, say, just pause and ask the Holy Spirit. I mean God says he lives in us and he knows us better than we know ourselves. Say we. What do I need to focus on this week and if something comes to mind to run with that and face it and with the Holy Spirit's help, look at making progress there. Any closing thoughts? Harry, really appreciate you joining us today.

Well, you survived me being your co host. I'm excited for you. Yeah, Nick, I would go. One of the things that I do is, is I, I teach the wives to, to speak what they're seeing in their husband. Not filling out their faster scale for them, but. But offering their observations not as truth, but saying here's what I observed.

Yeah.

And allowing them to have input. The same thing goes with, with the commitment to change. Again, the healing process is not a solo act. If you look at Galatians, chapter six, we have to each carry our own load, but others are there to encourage and support us. And don't forget that God is faithful to you and that means he has compassion and empathy for the battle that he sees you in. He's not going to, he's not there to judge you. He's there to lovingly support and care for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been so great. The commitment to change really is an empowering tool on our recovery journey. We need to take it seriously and really think through how holistically this helps us move towards greater and greater health. Change happens slowly, but it really sticks long term if we stay dedicated to pursuing health week in and week out. And it's definitely a tool that should always be in your recovery and healing tool belt. So Harry, thanks again for being with us today. Great to have you.

Thanks Nick. I look forward to you inviting me back to co host. Oh, about three or four years from now.

Sure. Every time Trevor has a new kid, which might not happen.

We'll see.

So wherever you're at on your journey, pure desire is here to help. We want to give you a roadmap for he healing and be your friends along the way. If you or someone you know is looking for help, go to PureDesire.org and start your healing journey now. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do it. It's free forever. Share it with your friends and family, write a review, help others find the podcast. And lastly, thanks to our friend Trevor Windsor, never stop being healthy.