298 - Image Management w/ Nate Larkin

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. Hello, hello, hello. I am your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 298 of the Pure Desire podcast Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Fish are friends, not. Food.

Should do it a little bit deeper. Try doing it deeper one more time.

Fish are friends, not.

That was worse.

Go back.

Okay. Finding Nemo Fisher. Okay. Hello, my name's Bruce.

Hi, Bruce.

So, oh my gosh, we just recently watched that again. It's so good. It is such a good movie.

What does he say? It's been three days since my last fish.

Oh, you're such an inspiration. And then that one puts it out through his teeth that he accidentally, he's like, I brought a friend, but then I ate it.

Yeah, yeah.

So good. Okay, so tie it in because today we had an author leader of an organization called the Samson Society, Nate Larkin, who's a good friend of the show, good friend of our ministry, and is one of our featured speakers at this September's upcoming Pure Desire Summit. Plug, plug, plug.

That'll be in the show. Notes, join us.

But yeah, we had him on to talk about image management.

Yeah, you know, and Bruce and his shark friends there, they're trying to change their image from being, you know, flesh eating sharks to being these kinder, gentler versions of themselves. And for everyone who's seen Finding Nemo, you know, they're very unsuccessful at it, but there's also a connection because that's a Hollywood Disneyized version of a 12 step group that they're conducting there. And really, Nate Larkin is the founder of a 12 step group that was a takeoff of traditional AA or SA. He really wanted to have a uniquely Christian version of it. And so in his recovery that started in an essay group, he created the Samson society as a 12 step alternative where men could just be totally honest about their sexual brokenness and do it in the context of Christ and faith and the Bible. So we're big fans of his groups. In fact, we've talked a lot about how Samson Society groups, for many men is either a precursor into a pure desire group or for other men that are maintaining sobriety is something they would do after pure desire. That doesn't have the depth of content of like one of our workbooks, but it really has a successful, healthy group structure, and that's what we talk about a lot today, is just how a healthy group teaches us to get out of image management, how to be aware of it. So Nate's a great guy. You're going to love his heart and his stories and his authenticity because this is an area that he's worked in a lot himself. And if you've ever read his book, Samson and the Pirate Monks, you know that as well. And if you haven't read that book, it is, it's definitely in my top five list of recovery themed book. So we love Nate and I think you'll see why as you listen to.

The podcast and don't let the title of that book like lead you in a wrong or like in a different direction. It is such an interesting title, but a good book for sure. Okay, so before we get to that conversation, this is a good place just to really push and remind people that we have a recovery resource for men that is called the Seven Pillars of Freedom. And this is obviously one way that image management can get broken in someone's life is really finding that recovery, finding freedom in the area of sexual brokenness. So what can people expect if they're going to go through a seven pillars group?

You know, you heard us talk about it today, that image management can start all the way back in infancy of just how we learn to get what we need from other people. And I think that's what's beautiful about the Seven Pillars of Freedom workbook for men that makes it so different and unique from most anything else out there that I've walked through or heard of. It's that you're not just going to address the problem of pornography or sexual brokenness, which you are, that's a part of it, but you're really going to delve into where did this come from? Where did the patterns begin? Early in my life were the ways that I figured out how to medicate pain, how to feel better about myself, how to do image management. Where did those come from and how did those eventually play into the struggles that I'm having with pornography? So that in a sense, it's kind of that iceberg illustration that if your issues with pornography or sexual brokenness are the tip of the iceberg, Seven Pillars of Freedom is going to take you to all the under the water stuff, some of which you know is there and other pieces that you've maybe never connected to your sexual struggles. And so it's, it's so eye opening and it's where men have said this is very different than just more accountability, more conversation. I'm actually understanding myself in a new way and learning how to live differently. And that's what it's all about. And so if you have heard of seven pillars of freedom for men and wondered if you should go through, this is your sign, right? This is your time. Go for it. Because not only will it address the pornography or the sexual issues, it'll go into all of your stuff in ways that you probably never have and really give you some traction to start living a new transformed life through Christ.

Yeah. And you and I can both speak from personal experience that this is a life changing resource, both in our personal lives and then also the groups we've led through it. So if you're interested in joining a group or getting this kit, whether in person, group, online, group, go to PureDesire.org Seven Pillars. That's the word spelled out. Seven. Couple other things. Nick, you and I just recently had a conversation about our podcast and the ratings and how we get ranked and did a little bit of research and we're in the top 20,000, I want to say, in America podcast.

Woo.

Go. But you know what's interesting is those ratings, it's based on people giving reviews and based on the number of reviews that you get. And so I know I say it every single week, but for the love, will you just give us a rating if you haven't? Even if it's, I don't know, a three, maybe a four, I don't know, maybe a five if you give us a rating and a review, it helps absolutely. Other people find the show. And then also just remember. And I would, I would watch this episode on YouTube because Nate is in an interesting, interesting place that we don't see most of our guests from Zoom. And then also just follow us on social media, eardesirepdmi. We're on all the major platforms and with that, here's our time with author and one of this year's Pure Desire Summit featured speakers, Nate Larkin on image management. Okay. Joining us from his car is Nate Larkin. Welcome back to the podcast, man on vacation. So awesome. We're so glad to have you, man. Thanks for being back.

Oh, it's great to be with you guys. Yeah, I'm taking a vacation from my vacation to talk to you guys.

I see what you did there. I appreciate it. I'll take that. I need it in writing though. If you could email that to me, I could print it out. Hey, look, man, we are, we're big fans of you, big fans of your work and we're excited to have you as one of our keynote speakers this year at the Pure Desire Summit. We're so excited to have you in person. And we're really looking forward to having that. And you know, today, one of the things Nick and I were talking about, you know, topics Nick brought up this idea of image management. And I know it's a part of your story and so we're excited to press into this. And again, it's been a while since we've had you on the show. So for those guests that maybe are new to you, new to your work, can you give her a little background, you, your story and what you do?

Sure, yeah. Well, I'm privileged to have been a part of the start of the Samson Society in 2004. At that point, I was six years into my own recovery from porn and sex addiction. So my backstory is raised in a Christian home pastor's kid marked out for ministry from a very young age. So image management was very much a part of my story right from the very get go. And that became an issue after puberty when I discovered parts of my body that I was not fully aware of before, when unfamiliar hormones began to course through my little frame, and when I was absolutely shocked by an encounter with pornography. Nobody had even warned me that porn even existed. And because it had never been mentioned, there is something so powerful about silence, I got the message loud and clear. You don't talk about this, you don't tell anybody. You fix it. And so that began this long legacy. That's very few men I talk to don't understand and can't identify with the dilemma of having a part of yourself that's hidden, a part that you feel deeply ashamed about. And of course, if that's compounded by you got a very visible public life as a Christian leader. I always emerged as a leader no matter where I was, whether it was a church or whether it was a high school or whether it was a college, knowing that I was unworthy of the attention. So, you know, in that situation, even the affirmation that I got didn't mean anything because I knew if they knew who I really am, they would run.

Right?

Yeah. So I suffered under the delusion as a, you know, as a teenager that marriage would fix it. I really thought marriage would fix it if I met the right girl. And I did meet the right girl. But I did not understand at that point that porn had become for me. Porn and masturbation had become for me really a stress reduction, a stress management behavior. And marriage, surprise is stressful. So marriage didn't fix it then. I thought going into ministry full time would fix it. Yeah, ministry is stressful.

Yeah.

And so it wasn't very long when I just was in the shameful, devastating predicament of being a well loved and sincere Christian. A well loved preacher, trusted by a lot of people, emerging again as a leader and yet cultivating a secret life, unaware. What I told myself in the early stages was that porn was probably my best protection against adultery. I love my wife. There's no way in the world I was ever going to cheat on her physically. Did not understand that porn was grooming me, preparing me, just setting the script so that when the opportunity finally did present itself, what I would do was a foregone conclusion. Yeah, so. Yeah, so it went from, from porn to porn and hookers. In despair and self loathing, I quit the ministry, went into business. So now I had more free time, more money, less accountability. You kind of know where that's going to go. Yep. And I am just so grateful that finally, after we'd been married 20 years, Allie one day caught me on the computer and said the words that saved my life. I'm done. She said, I still love you, but I don't like you, I don't trust you, I don't respect you, and I don't think you can ever change. And that's what it took to make me desp. That's how I got the gift of desperation. That gave me the motivation to do the unthinkable, to actually find somebody I could talk about this with and say it out loud.

Yeah, for sure.

So that was 1998. I found that first safe place in the 12 step group. It was absolutely a revolutionary experience. Even though it wasn't a Christian group, most of the guys in the room were Christian, but the rules of the room were that we weren't allowed to talk that way. My first sponsor was a Christian and I had the great good fortune to actually get plugged into a really good church at the same time that I entered recovery. So in essence, I heard the gospel in two versions every week.

That's cool.

And so it was, it saved. Saved my marriage, saved my life, saved my faith, really. Recovery did. Yeah. And eventually I lost enough shame that I could tell people the story. And soon other people with a similar story were saying, hey, could you help me? Yeah. And that's. That's where the story of Samson Society began.

That's cool.

Yeah. So it was your book, Samson and the Pirate Monks, where I encountered you and then at conference, got to know you and we had you on the podcast and have really appreciated just your, your vulnerability and talking about the Story and in what has become, I think, a hallmark of your Samson Society groups of just that. That place where a guy can say anything. And so the. The motto of a Samson group. I was on your website, and I know the motto is the no Bull Brotherhood. So tell us a little bit about what. What does that mean? And how did you come up with that?

I feel like Tim the Tool Man Taylor would say that. Rrr. You know? And.

So, yeah, tell us about the Noble Brotherhood. Where'd you come up with that?

Well, I would. I would say that really, the. The one skill that you have to learn in order to recover is you have to learn to be honest. And I. I didn't realize until, you know, I got into a safe place with guys who were really modeling honesty and vulnerability to me how much I wasn't just lying to other people. I was lying to myself. I was making it up as I went along. And half what I said instinctively wasn't true. I had a talent for knowing what people wanted to hear and giving them that. But when I got into 12 step meetings where they were playing by different rules, I'd come across with one of those gems, and it would fall so flat because for the first time, I was in a room with the guys whose bull meters worked. You know what I mean?

Yeah, totally.

And then as I began to learn the liberation that comes when you say the scary thing, the scary truth. I love. One of my good friends is Andy Gjallihorn. There he is. Andy Gullahorn. Started the second Samson group ever. Sampson started in Franklin, Tennessee. He started the second group in Nashville. And like me, Andy loves to do intake. You know, bring guys in for the first time, take them on their first walk, hear them stammer out their story for the first time. Right. And. But he. He has a procedure that I love. He'll get with a guy and say, hey, I want to hear your story. But before you get started, I. I want you to know I know you're gonna lie to me. You'll say, I know you don't want to, and you don't mean to, but you're not gonna tell me the whole truth. You're gonna lie to me, but please tell me as much of the truth as you can. And if later on you have to walk anything back and change your story, there's no penalty. Is that beautiful?

Totally. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So hopefully the Samson Society is a place. It's a brotherhood where you don't have to pretend to be any better than you are any farther along. Than you are. You're never going to get a penalty for a relapse. You're never going to get shamed. Let's see how honest we can be.

Yeah, that's good. So, I mean, we've already touched on it. I mean, we know what we're talking about today. One challenge that almost every person, I would say every person, man or woman, and they face in life in general, but specifically in recovery, is that image management, the desire to manage how people perceive us. Why is image management such a powerful pull and how does it contribute to addictive behavior?

Well, first of all, I think it begins very, very early. I mean, as infants, we are absolutely, completely dependent on adults for our very survival. We can't do a thing. We can't roll over. We can't feed ourselves. We can't change our diapers. Okay? So we have to appease the big people in order for them to care for us. And so we begin to figure out from every signal we pick up what these people need in order to pay attention to us and all of us, you know, we build our own self image, our own self perception on what is mirrored to us by the big people in our lives. And we find out what gets applause and what has to be hidden. And so, you know, I had coming into recovery, here's the crazy thing. When I got into recovery, I was the last guy in the world anybody would have suspected being a sex addict, because I was that good at misdirection and hiding, at lying. And really, in my own heart of hearts, even though I suffered debilitating shame, there was still a part of me that believed, you know what, I'm really a good guy. Allie would have bet her life, she tells me, that I never would have cheated on her. And I'll tell you what my perception was. In order to function in life, it was very hard for me to face the fact that I have a shadow, that there is brokenness and, dare I say, even wickedness within me, that there's, you know, that the heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. I think the Bible says at one point. So image management, part of it in image management is so that I can feel good enough about myself to function in the world. And if I don't believe the gospel, if I have to have a righteousness of my own that I can defend in order to function in the world, then image management is preeminently important. And then also if, like me, you're a person who just really thrived on, and I still Do. I mean, I like approval. I really like approval and I hate disapproval. And so I have a well developed capacity for sensing what will win approval and what will win censure and, you know, staying out of the. Staying away from the landmines and hitting the right notes. So I developed, you know, like this chameleon, like ability to adapt in whatever place I found myself. So, you know, as, as I often say it was. It was at. By middle school, I knew that I was not always the same person. It depended on where I was. There was home, Nate, church, Nate, school Nate. It was all alone Nate. They were different people and all of them were incomplete. When we cannot own and integrate the shadow, we can never be complete. That image is never going to be the full story of who we are and therefore our life really can't be complete. Yeah, Yeah.

I think that's so good and probably so encouraging to a lot of people to think about that. Your tendency towards image management didn't begin with your addiction. It's not because you have a sin or a secret to hide that you managed that. I mean, I think we did that as well. But you talk about all the way from infancy. We're learning what we need to do to get what we want from others. And in a way we never stop. We just become more sophisticated at it and there's more layers to it as adults.

Right.

And then there becomes an addiction. There becomes more that we're hiding, but it, it just becomes really an amplified version of that same place of saying, I have needs and this is how I get them met. And I, I think if we realize that on the flip side, it also is an encouragement that healing is possible because we can recognize, well, if I'm aware of what my needs are and I can pursue healthier ways of getting them met that don't require me to go down those same image management pathways, then I really could do life differently. And I think that's, in a sense, the seed of hope is hidden inside the reality of what we all do in image management.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, buried in that whole process is this conviction and that, oh, golly, I'm glad you had the capacity to edit this.

Oh, we're not editing this out, Nate. We're keeping this in guy. This is a noble podcast.

This is Patrick Carnes in his early research, his groundbreaking book back in the day that really kind of opened up this world for many of us. Out of the Shadows talked about the characteristics of, of sex addicts, and he talked about these Core beliefs. And probably the most powerful of those core beliefs being if I cannot rely on other people to meet my needs, I have to meet my own needs. And the shame message, if people see who I really am, they will reject me. The only thing that really shatters that deep belief is experience. Until I experienced the level of acceptance that I found in a 12 step group, I was incapable of the level of honesty that could bring me freedom. It was not safe to stop pretending until I found a place that safe.

Yeah.

Yeah. So talk about that a little bit because I think for a lot of people, they feel like to some degree image management is necessary because not everyone's safe. You can't tell all your secrets to all people all the time. And so there is kind of a social acceptableness that we all have. Put your best foot forward, you know, in a church setting, you're smiling and saying, I'm doing fine. I think we all do some of that. So how would you help a person think through when are they just being socially acceptable or when are they doing image management? How could they separate out the difference between those two?

I have this commitment to authenticity that can, I think, go too far. And it can get. So Allie and I just had this conversation the other day. We were going to go out to dinner with some new people and Ali said, now look, these are new people. Don't tell them you're a sex addict in recovery. Don't talk about porn. Don't go there. It will just make them nervous. You know, just so. So for her sake and for their sake, I mean, I didn't. You don't have to tell the whole truth in order to tell the truth. Right?

Yeah.

And I. Yeah. If we're going to talk about the shadow, I think that perhaps I found so much freedom in finally saying the words. Oh, it was so difficult to say those words in early recovery. To own it, to accept it. Right. To say, this is where I am. But once again, I broken the seal. I kind of got kind of this wild recklessness thing where for a while I kind of had to tell everybody. I had to be the guy who just dropped a turd in the punch bowl just to see where, you know, what would happen. That's a terrible image. I don't know where that came from.

And we're going to keep it in. We're not taking that out either, man. We're keeping it in.

It's good, no? Yeah. But, you know, I do think. Yeah, we need to be sensitive to those around us. I need to be Sensitive to the age of those around me. For example, are there children in the room? Do I. I need also to be sensitive very often to the trauma history of those around me, especially around women. I can be. I can be honest while at the same time being sensitive. I can tell the truth without telling the whole truth. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's a great way of looking at it to say, you know, even that question we all get asked, how are you in image management? I think when I was a pastor, I felt like I always had to be doing well, oh, it's been a good week. And then I would highlight the good hurts, even if inside I was just exhausted or run down. And. Yeah, and now when I get that question, if it's been a rough week, I feel the freedom to say, you know, it's been kind of a rough week. Now's probably not a great time to talk about it. But I'm just. I'm kind of off today. So in that sense, like you said, I'm being truthful without committing to, well, let me go through the whole truth of what my kids did or what I said back to them and the argument, because there might not be the time or that might not even be a safe person to trust it with, but I. I would feel comfortable, I think, if I'm not living in image management, even telling a total stranger, yeah, it's been a rough week, I'm not doing great, and I don't think now is a good time to talk about it.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like for me, if I know that me sharing some part of my story or revealing some part of my inner world to this person is going to be of benefit to them. But there's fear in me. That's a good indicator. There's image management happening here. Because if I know I've got. I've got a friend at church who's going through some hard times relationally, he's in recovery. And the other day we were having a conversation at the coffee shop at church, and I just felt like, you know what? This is the right time to just share a little bit more of my story. He knows where I work, he knows what I do. But I was just like, look, I had this experience in my life too, and in the moment, and I mean, it's one of those things. It's like a muscle once you get for you. Nate, I have a friend we actually work with who's was so hated, so much of the shame and the secrecy he lived in that it's now Just like, everybody has to know everything in my life. Like, it's the only. You know, there's not. It's not just both ends. You can be in the middle. But what I've learned is that the more vulnerable that you are, the easier it becomes to do it. It's like a muscle you work out that it finally gets stronger. It becomes more natural. And so for me, when I have those moments, like I did at church not that long ago, I'm actually. I'm not as fearful anymore. I mean, that may change depending on who I'm with. But I feel like that's the thing. For me, if it's fear of how this person will respond, even though I know what I'm gonna share is gonna benefit them, that to me, is like, okay, I'm trying to play here with the perception of this person.

Yeah, that's really, really good. Yeah.

Yeah. It's hard to break. But I feel like it's one of those things, too, where, again, the more that you do it and the more people aren't just like, oh, my God, you what? They freak out and react negatively. The more you have a real experience where someone's like, thank you for sharing that. That was really helpful. The easier it becomes, for sure.

I know for me, too, I have to guard against image management in just those little areas, those small places where. Because it's. You know, because I have a story of sexual addiction and it's not those big, bad secrets from my past, there might be little ways, like, you know, if my wife says, why were you in the kitchen so long? And the truth is, maybe I was playing a game on my phone, but I know she doesn't really like it when I do that. I might say, yeah. I might be tempted to say, oh, I was putting away some dishes, because maybe I did that for a few seconds. But then I was playing this game and just learning in those moments, like, you know, it doesn't hurt anybody to tell the truth, but if I don't choose to be truthful, I'm essentially doing image management to protect how I make you feel, how I look. And those are the ways that I still recognize some of that addictive traits coming up in me, and I have to guard against it. I'm not here to hide the truth.

I have a story when I was losing weight, because that was, like, the second kind of step in my recovery journey was my addiction to food. I remember there were times, and Amy knows this now, my wife. But, like, I would go to the pantry, and I Would sneak like a couple of Oreos and I would walk away. And even if it was like, what were you doing? It's like, nothing. Just getting water or something like that. Like those little white lies. What I've learned, though, is that when there's shame that follows that activity. That's like, okay, now that's something I need to address. And that's where image management lives is in that space of shame. And so if you do something and you have that shame, it's like, okay, maybe that's something I need to address in my life. Maybe that's something I can't just get away with saying, like, oh, I wasn't eating Oreos, or something like that.

Yeah. I think that connection between shame and image management is absolutely direct. The reason we try to. Man, it's a fig leaf response. Right. I can't let you see who I really am. So, boom, here's the fig leaf. Here's. Yeah, I'm going to posture for you. I'm going to pretend.

Totally. Okay, so, Nate, you have this experience with your ministry, and I know we do as well. But in your experience, how does a safe group environment help us overcome? And I know you've shared a little bit about this, but dig deeper into it.

Yeah.

How does that group experience help us to not just avoid image management, but lean more into the opposite of that? Being vulnerable, being open with other people.

Yeah. Yeah. This is where we learn from each other. I tell the guys who have some more experience in the group guys have been there a little longer, the veterans, that it's their job really, in the meeting to set the bar low. Right. And the more honest and vulnerable they can be, the more it models vulnerability for the new guys, demonstrates that vulnerability and honesty. And the admission of failure is not fatal. That we can talk openly, honestly, and we can even laugh about the ridiculousness of some of our stupidity. Right. These don't have to be somber, sober meetings when we can learn to laugh at our own pretensions. I mean, there's just a real power in that that helps us to escape. But. But my experience is, you know, I was so. I was a pastor for five years, and so I was invited to join the local pastors Fellowship, the ministerial association. Well, I gotta tell you, there was never more posing, more posturing image management I experienced in my life than in those meetings.

But.

But it was dressed up in so much pastoral concern. We were so good at it. Yeah. Right. From time to time, I had to remember that, you know, Jesus was really put to death by the Ministerial association of Greater Jerusalem. Yeah, it's so a group that. And you know what? I think there is a danger this can also happen in recovery groups. One of our founding guys, Dave Bunker, about the second year in, warned us all about the dangers of what he called the arrogance of brokenness. There was a danger of us developing our own insider vocabulary, our own ways of signaling virtue that would set us apart and make us better, more righteous, more honest than other people, and to take pride in that, and we could start posing for each other, for ourselves and for those around us. It's always a danger. I don't think I've escaped it yet.

Yeah, I think that's why I really wanted to delve into this topic, because I do feel it's something we don't just outgrow that it's often present with us of. Am I trying to manage how I look? Am I trying to manage people's expectations, get people to like me? Or am I being authentic? And I think it follows us. And so to just continue to be aware of it and have those experiences in group where we know. And I think that in my story is what was so powerful about group is I knew there was a group of men that I had never been their pastor. They hadn't seen me preach. They hadn't seen me lead. All I had done was show up at group and share the worst of my life. And they had said, thanks for sharing. We're glad you're here. And it's not like they said some, you may be thinking group. There was these powerful words of men just speaking affirmation into my life.

Prophetic words.

Maybe a couple of them did. I don't remember that. Honestly, though, I just remember I'd share. I'd do my weekly check in and be like, man, thanks for sharing. We're glad you're here. And I'd be like, I. I genuinely felt in those very ordinary words, like, these guys liked me, which was so confusing in my brain because I'm like, but I haven't done anything for them. I haven't led them. I haven't been their pastor. We've never done anything fun together. Like, I haven't taken them for lunch or coffee and, you know, kind of postured of how I'm a good pastor. It was just like, I just show up and share my garbage. And they're like, man, thanks for being here. And it's like, oh, I think it's where my brain learned, you don't have to have an image for people. To care about you. And I'd honestly never experienced that before. Prior to that group experience.

Yeah, I would say, and I've said this story a lot on the podcast, but I remember when we were doing our first full disclosures in group for my first time, and I was leading the group. And so there was this pressure that I felt too, of leading this first pure desire group. Oh, my gosh, what's gonna happen? And I remember going through it. The one thing I was never gonna tell anybody was that I had a same sex experience when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I was never gonna. I was taking it to the grave, right? Image Management 101. And I remember getting to that point in the story, reading it off my paper, I started to shake. I was really nervous. I ended up saying it, getting through it, and two guys in the group turned to me and said, me too. And I remember in that moment the shame I still felt. There was still shame in what I had done, but I had just experienced a positive interaction with, sharing the deepest secret I'd had in my life. And I think that that's what helps is then, you know, fast forward now. I've shared that story a hundred, 200 times. You know, it's like on the podcast, on the podcast, at events, during Q&As, whatever, like, and it's now to the point where I don't need to manage that part of my story anymore. And so I feel like that's where it could be. So healing with someone to Nick to your experience too. Like, someone can just say, man, thank you so much for sharing. We know exactly what you're going through and you still love you. We still want you to show up next week. That's so powerful.

Amazing.

So in some ways, Nate, even our recovery can become part of our image management, where someone might say, oh, I've been free of porn for X number of years now, or X number of months, or whatever it is, or I've been free of this, or I've had this growth. And then what if we're not, you know, what if we have a hiccup, a setback, a relapse, whatever we call it, there can be that temptation. Well, I don't want to give up the traction or the momentum I've had. So I'm just going to, like, I've heard guys say, well, that one, I didn't want it to count. Right. That one didn't count. I was still technically, and I hear that word a lot, technically, sober.

Just a lapse. Yeah.

Yeah. So how do we stay humble and out of image management even when we're finding traction maybe a few years into recovery?

Yeah. And the farther we go and the more people look up to us, the more difficult that becomes. Yeah. I don't know if I've told you this story, but I had a terrible crash. More than a slip. It was just a face plant right after I finished writing the book. So I. It was a tight deadline. I was behind. I isolated myself. I worked hard to finish the book. I was not connecting with people. I got it done. I turned it in. I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, congratulations, you're the guy who wrote the book. That was enough. You know what I mean? It wasn't. You know, it was within days. So. So Monday, that was like on a Friday. And of course, you know, a slip on Friday will turn into just, you know, spiraling into the ground on Saturday. And then Sunday and I'm trying to dig my way out. And Monday is the meeting. It's Samson. So I go to meeting. And that jerk who picked the topic picked honesty as the topic.

There we go. Come on.

Okay, so we get into our sharing groups and I know I am faced with. I'm faced with a decision here. I'm with some new guys who, they're. Everybody's happy that I finished the book. Everybody's all excited. I'm their hero. You know what I mean? I. I'm either gonna. I'm either gonna lie or I'm gonna tell the truth. I'm gonna go the old way or I'm gonna go the new way. And thank God, you know, God gave me the grace and the courage and I laid it out for the guys exactly what I'd done. And then when we came back together for the close at the end of the meeting, I actually broke protocol. I did something that had never been done before, and I don't think it has ever been done since. Not in a meeting I've been in. But I just. I said, hey, guys, I need to tell all of you, not just the guys who are in my group. I really. I mean, I had a bad slip this weekend and I'm hurting. And here's what I know. I do know that I've scratched the itch. And now it's going to itch like crazy for the next couple of weeks. Yeah. And checking in once a day isn't going to do it. This is going to be. For a while. It's going to be an hour by hour thing. So I really need to be able to make a phone call every hour for the next two weeks.

Wow.

So, and I, I pulled out a notebook and I, I, I said between 8am and 8pm I need to, I need to have somebody I can call every hour. If you would put your name in and your phone number. If I don't have your phone number for when you can take my call, I'd really appreciate it. And so for the next two weeks, I made hourly phone calls to those guys. Yeah, I've had guys tell me since that they've heard me say other things that have impacted their life and they're so grateful for Samson, but the one thing they remember, the thing that really sealed it for them, was the night I talked about my slip and asked for help.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. That was not my last slip. And I did not always handle. I've had a couple since and I've had a delayed response where I haven't, I haven't told everybody. I've told somebody and, you know, gotten the help and figured it out and gotten back on the horse. But.

Yeah, it's an ongoing process.

It totally is. And it's funny. I mean, funny is not the right word. Interesting. Ironic, stupid, whatever. But like, you know, and I know this too, like, working at Pure Design, I mean, I work at, I think one of the biggest recovery ministries in the world. And we have this successful ministry and podcasts and all this stuff. And then it's like I go home and it's like, But I just live like a normal person. I have fights with my wife. My kids annoy me sometimes. Like, I, you know, I struggle. One of the biggest things right now is struggling with anger with my 6 year old. And I actually just had a conversation with my wife this weekend where she was like, our intimacy is getting blocked by this. Two different approaches to parenting our 6 year old. And that was, you know, like, I'm so grateful that she said that. But also, that hurts. Like, that's a really painful thing to hear because of, you know, my inability really to relate to my six year old. And for me, there are those, are those moments where I'm like, you should be so much further along than you are.

Really.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've been in recovery for eight years. You know what the answer is here. Like, you know that you need the Lord. You know, you need prayer here. You know, you need community around this. You know what to do. Just do it. And I think that those are the moments that become really hard in recovery because I Have this comparison mindset. I have this ideal expectation of myself and where I should be in all these areas. But what I've realized, even in our conversation today is that as dumb as it sounds, that is a gift from the Lord to me to remind me that I still have a long way to go, that I still. Yes, I know what I need to do. I know the steps forward, but I also need. I need to ask for help. I need to humble myself before my wife. I need to humble myself before my 6 year old and say, braids, I'm sorry. Daddy is really struggling with this area. And I'm working on it. And so for me, I just see that those are like, those moments are just gifts from the Lord. Like, don't get too big for your britches. Don't get too far ahead of yourself. I know that you're doing good stuff here and good stuff here, but know that you're still on the road to better health, to more sanctification, to becoming more like me. And so for me, that's a practical way I'm staying humble. Is my wife being honest in the Lord really revealing the stuff I still gotta work on?

Yeah. Yeah.

That's ironic because I was gonna share the same comment about hearing that voice in my head that says, you should be better than this, you should be beyond that by now. You shouldn't have this problem anymore. And learning to recognize that as a voice of shame and a voice of condemnation versus a humble acceptance of, I'm still a man with a brain and fallenness and weakness and yes, redeemed in Christ and becoming more like him and on this journey of sanctification, but still a person with flaws and allowing myself that permission to be in process and going to group and being in process and sharing where I'm at in process, I think is so key because otherwise that shame of, well, I should be better than this, and I don't want anyone to know that I'm not right. Can be the very voice that keeps me from sharing those things that I need to keep being honest about. So that's where I go back again to what we've already said. Like, this doesn't end. This is an ongoing process of learning to be real and staying in it, no matter how long we've been at it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is funny too. Nate. Just one thing as you're sharing that. I think those are the things I remember most when these big voices, influential people, people who've written books or preached messages that have really impacted my life. The Most impactful things are learning that they're just a normal human being like me, you know, like, oh, I had an argument with my wife on the way to preach this message on communication. It's like, oh, great, cool. Okay, that's helpful. But just even, even the reminder now that even just us three right here, being vulnerable in this space about the things that we struggle with sometimes is gonna be the most impactful thing we do. That may be the only thing someone hears in our hour long conversation. So that's just a good reminder.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, Nate. So the church environment, it can be very image conscious. We know that image management can very much be like the second hand. It's probably the first language. English is the second language. The first is image management. What can we do? And that's not a knock on the church. We all struggle with that. But how do we live authentically with other believers, especially if we've been in recovery, starting to get that vulnerability, but then it's met with that image management piece from other people in the church. How do we manage that?

Oh, yeah, that's a good question. I have found that vulnerability and transparency is attractive when, when we can communicate that we are not running, not hiding, that we are aware or becoming aware and are not trying to hide our own weaknesses and failures and we can talk about them with a smile on our face. We mark ourselves out as safe people. Yeah. And what I found is sometimes it'll take a guy two or three years that when we're so called friends and we're social friends and maybe I've gone, maybe, maybe he's asked me to lunch and we've talked, it might take him two or three years till he finally gets. He's marked me out as a safe guy, but he's still probably going to try and solve the problem all on his own until he runs out of alternatives. But he's marked me out as when he's ready to talk, I'm the guy he's going to call.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Right? Yeah. And if his wife has heard me speak, she may be the one who suggests that he call me because she's marked me out as a safe person. I do think that even though it makes people, some people nervous when we talk openly and frank and they just think that we ought to be more ashamed about it. I don't know, we ought to be more pharisaical and less Christian. So some people might get nervous when we talk a little bit, in their opinion, a little bit too openly. About where we are in process. At the same time, I think even those folks are going to mark us out as somebody who in an emergency, when they absolutely have to tell somebody, they're probably going to tell us and then we get to introduce them to a whole new way of life.

I mean, I feel like what I hear you saying is that it's a way of serving other people. That even though it might be risky for us, it is a way that we can position ourselves as a resource. When they hit rock bottom, when they get to that place, they don't know what to do. And it's a service that we're offering.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I hear from people that, you know, they've gone to churches where they say, oh, you know, our church doesn't talk about sexual sin or pornography. That that's just hush hush, it's taboo. And in some ways that's because no one's ever done it. And looking to one another and saying, what if we were willing to go first? I mean, that's a big part of one of the talks I give is like you can give the gift of going first. I don't mean you've got to jump up on stage and grab the microphone. I mean be socially appropriate for what your church allows. But it might mean that at your small group where it's appropriate that you begin to open up about the journey that you're on and talk honestly about struggles that you've had and use words like pornography that aren't being used. And maybe no one's used to that level of depth in the small group. But if you open that door so often others are, they're just waiting. They're wishing they could have a place that felt safe enough to start being real. And just because you've maybe encountered a church that doesn't talk about may be part of why God has you there. So I think we lean into it and sure there will be circumstances where that might not be well received. Where I've heard stories where people have even been asked, you know, by leaders like, please don't talk about that here. And I think you need to be respectful of that community. But it may be part of the question of, well, is, is this where God wants me to be? Because if you've taken that step of obedience to be real, to be appropriately vulnerable, and a church culture kind of pushes back and says, no, we're not going to be open here, then I think you really have to pray and say, well, God, can you use me here? Are you Calling me to stay and pray and see this through? Or is that an indication that I need to find a place that is moving towards vulnerability? So those are really challenging circumstances. But I think the heart of my encouragement here is just to say maybe you'll get to go first. And will that be hard and scary? Probably. But when you open the door, watch how others walk through with you.

Yeah, totally.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

So, Nate, in addition to going to a weekly Samson Society group or a pure Desire group, what else. What other steps could a person take to proactively stay away from image management? What other advice would you give just in this area of image management?

Well, I think honesty with others begins with honesty with ourselves. And one of the best tools that was given to me early in recovery was the daily journal where I could start to put on paper the truth about myself and actually see it. So. And I found in my own experience that the more honest I was able to get safely on paper, write it down, look at it, I didn't die. Then it became a little easier when I found myself in a. In a meeting or in a social situation or the subject was there, I was able to say what I'd already written. Maybe that's just me, maybe that's just because I'm a writer. But I do believe that we cannot really be fully honest with others until we get to the place where we can be honest with ourselves. And I think until we've experienced grace, being honest with ourselves is absolutely terrifying. That's why I'm just so grateful to be a Christian. I do think also that it helps me to kind of enlist the help of others. Like, one of the things I'm dealing with right now is my relationship with alcohol. So I. I don't believe that drinking is a sin. And so. And alcohol has been a part of my adult life for quite a while. I have reached the. I have been faced with the truth, however, that in my case, alcohol is not my friend. It's not doing me any good. I really need to not. Not to drink now. I kind of built this on my social media. If you look back at my social media for the last 10 years, you'll see me in a lot of pubs. And I do like beer. I really do. And guys know that we have the meeting after the meeting at Franklin at an Irish pub.

So.

So I have kind of this image as the Christian guy who likes beer and happens to be a recovering porn and sex addict. Okay. Now what I find is that when I travel and I visit other Samson groups, A lot of times, those guys want to take me to their pub. Okay, that's cool. Yeah.

Tell your story. That's who you are.

It's my story. It's my image. Now, what am I going to protect? Am I going to continue to perpetuate the image, or am I actually going to do what's good for me? Yeah. And say, hey, you guys are welcome to have a beer. I'm not drinking now. I can do that. There's two ways of doing it. I cannot say a word until we get to the pub. We get to the point, the waitress is there. Everybody else has ordered at that point. I gotta tell you, it's tough totally not to order a beer. It's just tough. Yeah. However, if I proactively, say up front, by the way, I know I have an image as a guy who likes beer, and I do like beer. I have images. A guy who drinks. I'm not drinking. Yeah, I. Can. I. Can I get some help up front?

Totally built in a community.

Yeah, exactly. So I think we can help in image management if we proactively adjust the image on the front end. Yeah.

Good. Good.

I would just say if you have any bottles of liquor, I'm building a home bar, so send them my way. If you're not drinking anymore, Nate, I'd be happy to take them off your hands.

Okay. Yeah. I'm just a beer guy, though.

Okay.

I did have. I got one great bottle of whiskey, but I already gave it to my son.

Oh, gosh. Well, it's okay. No one's perfect. Okay. So I love what you're saying, though. That idea of, you know, it's the hard thing to do. Right. Being honest up front, you know, that you may get some looks, you know, that you may get some, you know, like, questions like, why? Like, I thought, you know, and those are not easy. But I like that idea of. There's humility built into that. That, look, I'm gonna do what's healthy. I'm doing what's best for me. And even though that may surprise you and I may get questions and that may start to feel shameful, for me, it's. It's something I'm doing for the right reasons. And we talk about that a lot here. The boundaries are not for other people. Boundaries are for us to maintain our safety, to maintain our health. You know, I think. I love what you said about the journaling thing. I think that that's also great. I'm a big proponent of that. But staying out of image management, man, it's just it always comes back to fear. Why am I. Why am I sharing or not sharing something? Because there isn't just not sharing. That's image management. There's also what I'm sharing could absolutely be image management. And so that idea of everyone knows I'm a talker, I'm a communicator, and so in any space, it's easy for me to want to enter my voice because I find value in being respected or admired or viewed as wise or smart or whatever. And so for me, even that is limiting. What I'm actually contributing to a situation may actually be avoiding image management. It's just I'm okay to be sitting here in this space and not say anything and just be with my friends and be okay. So I think that that's another thing for people to consider is I might be trying to manage my own image by what I share or by entering a space with my thoughts or opinions. And maybe it's okay to not do that every once in a while.

Yeah, two steps I thought of, I think keeping short accounts in terms of if we recognize we have done something offensive to another person, hurt their feelings, acted out of line, raised our voice. I think one of the gifts the Lord is giving me right now, for whatever reason, is the amount of time between when I'm reacting in anger to my kids and when I feel conviction for it. Right now is about a nanosecond. So it's like I say something to my kids and just immediately like, oh, why did I say it like that? And so needing to go to them and just say, I'm sorry I reacted to you in anger. You didn't deserve that. Would you forgive me? Like, that's a step of humility, of just acknowledging I'm not perfect and I don't power up and be like, well, I'm the dad. I get to act like that. It's like, no, that's. I don't want to treat you that way, and I'm sorry. So I think if we get into that habit of just acknowledging flaws and asking forgiveness is really important. And then I think another thing is to use a tool like, for us, it's the faster scale. Or it could be any kind of a weekly tool where you're checking in on small things, even, that maybe you've had a great week. But to your group or to your spouse or to your friend circle, wherever you share this kind of tool, you acknowledge, hey, here's something I did that. It was out of character. It was. It was being Selfish. It was being angry, it was vengeful. And maybe it was no big deal to anybody else because it was just something personal. But if I'm practicing vulnerability in those small areas, then it just kind of leads to a lifestyle where I'm not managing my image in the bigger areas either. So I think just having some kind of weekly process, even if you're not in a weekly group, where you're just proactively communicating areas that. That are. You're keeping track of, because I think that really creates healthy patterns that when it does come to bigger things, you've got some of those patterns already established.

Yep. For sure. Nate, man, this has been awesome. We love our time with you. We appreciate that. I feel like I want to start calling you the no Bull brother is what I want to call you now. So I appreciate that. But tell our listeners, how can they keep in touch with you? The work that you, Sampson Society, are doing? How can they connect with you?

Yeah, well, yeah, you connect with me by connecting with the brothers. I'm not the sharpest knife in the dishwasher anymore. And there are so many good, solid guys in Samson, and you can find them at samsonsociety.com or samsonsociety.org However, I do respond to personal emails, and you can get me@nate larkinmail.com cool.

All right, we'll put all that in the show. Notes for everybody. I just think it's important to just summarize that image management is something that we're never going to graduate from, that it's something that we still will struggle with regardless of where we're at in recovery. You know, all three of us are at these three different stages, but it's just something that you're not alone in. But it is something we can always get better at to know that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to be vulnerable and honest. And we hope that we're three men that can model that continues continually in our life. And so, Nate, you've been a great, just a great guest, a great time, and we appreciate all the work you're doing and for this conversation today.

Thanks, guys.

And wherever you're at on your journey, pure desire is here to help you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal, trauma. If you or someone you know needs recovery and healing, go to PureDesire.org and begin the journey today. If you like this episode or a fan of the podcast, please share it with others and make sure to check out the full episode up on YouTube. As well. And lastly, never stop being here. Help.