#150: From Compulsion to Connection: Understanding Porn Addiction & Relationships

Have you ever felt like you're watching a loved one drift away? Not because of lack of love, but because of the battles they're fighting within. Battles that you might not fully grasp. You're not alone. Welcome to Love Shack Live, where we dive deep into the heart of relationships, addressing the challenges, celebrating the joys, and guiding you to a connection that stands the test of time. I'm your host, Stacey Bartley, relationship expert, and by my side are my co host and lover, Tom, and our daughter Brooke. We're here to navigate these waters with you, offering our experiences, insights, and understanding. And today, we are honored and privileged to be joined by JK Emsi, a beacon of resilience and expertise in the world of porn addiction recovery. Together, we'll explore the inner struggles of the addict, the emotions, the challenges, and the path to healing. So if you've ever wondered what's going on in the mind of someone battling addiction or how to bridge the emotional distance it can create, stay with us. This episode promises clarity, compassion, and, of course, a sprinkle of hope.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

I want to introduce JK to you. He's a porn addiction recovery coach and founder of the number one porn addiction recovery program, the porn reboot system. He personally has struggled with out of control pornography addiction for more than 11 years. He was unable to quit using traditional therapy, 12 steps, and other methodologies. He then created a unique system which allowed him to finally control his sexual behavior within a few short weeks. And today he is here with us to help us understand addiction as well as to share his message of hope. Jk, welcome to Love Shack Live. It's great to have you with us.

It is my honor to be here. This has been a long time coming and I am very excited.

Yeah, it has been, huh? Just to say for our listeners, I don't have a lot of guests on my show, but there was just something incredibly, shall we say, inspiring. There was just a wonderful connection that I had with you right out of the gate. And so this is a fun moment for me too, as I sit and look at your face. It's great to have you here. I wanted to start this episode because I think if somebody's watching porn or caught watching porn, they go, oh, my gosh, you have a porn addiction. So I thought it would be helpful to start this conversation today with asking you, where is the line, in your opinion, that is crossed from looking at porn and having a porn addiction so that we can help our listeners kind of distinguish what is that Line.

That's a great question. I am not a fan of the term addict. I'm very mindful about how we use that term because it's a very loaded. It's a very loaded term. With the term addict comes thoughts of day by day, always in recovery, and having boundaries for the rest of your life. And I feel that that is very limiting for a lot of people. So when it comes to pornography, we prefer to use the term compulsive behavior. Now, when we're talking about it to the general public, we'll use the term addiction. But your behavior becomes compulsive when you are engaging in it. It is no longer providing you with the feelings of pleasure that it. After engaging in the behavior, you still experience negative emotions. In spite of that, you go back to the behavior, even though you're satiated. So when it comes to arousal, even though you've had your orgasm, even though you're supposed to be done biochemically, you still go back to it. And that's the aspect of it that brings out the addiction symptoms. Things like hopelessness, depression, and the struggle.

That's a great piece of insight there. It's more of the compulsive behavior, even though you're satiated biologically, that you just go back to it again. What is that in the mind of somebody who's struggling with this compulsive behavior? Because, you know, I believe that to some degree, we all have a little bit of compulsive behavior. Right? Whether it's like how the dish soap is, you know, positioned on the kitchen sink, or, you know, the floral arrangement on the center of the.

Or the toilet row, whether it goes underneath or on the top, we all have.

And of course, that's not what we're talking about today. But just to normalize, like, we all have some compulsive behaviors about how things are positioned in our lives, and it doesn't make any sense. Sometimes we just feel better when it's happening. And so something that then starts out as pleasure. In this particular case, we're talking about porn. But we could also be talking about alcohol. We could be talking about drugs. We could be talking about exercise. Exercise. I live in the exercise capital of the world, and I always say, if you're going to run a hundred miles, you're running from something like, we got to talk.

Where do you guys live again?

We're in Auburn, California.

They called the endurance capital. They called the endurance capital of the world.

Yes, are. And the.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. The most famous ultra finishes at the High school, right?

From.

Yeah.

Wow.

So it's exactly like you say, right? You go back to it again and again and again, even though your body's breaking down, even though you've already accomplished these certain things. I go back to it again and again and again because I don't know what else to do. And then there's even a level of like breakdown, I guess there's this idea I'm thinking of myself here and I could be completely incorrect, but I'm thinking of myself with compulsive things that I do and go, man, I gotta slow this down. And then when I feel like I can't get a handle on it, then I start to kind of go into some self deprecating conversations about, man, girl, you've got to pull it together. What the heck is going on here? And yet I keep going back to my glass of wine, for example, or the obsession of recording. I got to do it right, I got to get it right. I gotta. Let's go back and do it again, right? The hundredth time is going to be better. And my husband sitting next to me here, he's very balanced, individual, and goes, honey, let it go, right? It'll get better next time. You know, those kinds of thoughts just to, just to kind of create a stage of normalcy. Am I on the right track?

You are. You are. I think this is a great, this is a great, a great way to introduce listeners to that idea and to compare it. Because if you've not struggled with a behavior like this before, it's easy to view it as the little OCD behaviors that we have. A lot of the OCD behaviors, let's say the podcast, for example, I do the same thing where over, it's not good enough. Let's do it again. And oh, let's try it again. I gotta do that again and again and again and often that's more perfectionism and it's, it's hiding or not wanting to expose our inadequacies. And so we overcompensate with perfectionism in a compulsive way that is similar to this, except that with this behavior comes a literal biochemical change. You are releasing dopamine. When you engage in this behavior, you're activating more dopamine receptors than you would under normal circumstances. So when you don't have it in your life, the things that release dopamine for you are not enough. And the more compulsive you are with it, the less amount of time that you can go without it. It's changes your brain chemistry. And it does take a while. It takes months to almost two years to rewire your brain. So I would say that in terms of consequences, the consequences of your behavior with pornography are far. They're just very far removed from typical ocd. And like I said, even ask the coach, I have my OCD behaviors. And my clients, they make jokes about it. They're like, yep, Jake is going to do it again. He's going to start it from the top.

Here we go.

If I heard you correctly, then when we have this compulsive behavior, whatever that is, and that drive, the only thing that will satiate that drive is that particular drug of choice, so to speak. Nothing else will replace that dopamine hit like, like whatever that is that we.

That I think you're specifically talking about orgasm, that the orgasm is the biological mechanism.

In this particular case, interestingly enough, it's not the biological mechanism. The orgasm is the part where dopamine is released. But if we compare this. First of all, to answer your question, Tom, no, if this was the only way to satiate it, then there would be no way to reboot from it. So what we do at Porn reboot is we teach you and we show you that as amazing as an orgasm is, we give you the belief and we show you that there are other things in life, things which release serotonin and oxytocin, that are as satisfying as orgasm and last longer, albeit the quality is different. Now when it comes to the mechanism, Stacy, and for those of you who are listening, who are curious, just a brief primer in this. When we talk about things like alcohol addiction or a substance abuse addiction, in these cases, the substance is external to you. When it comes to pornography addiction, dopamine is an endogenous opiate. It is within you. So you are the one who controls the supply. You are the actual dealer of your own drug. But it is behavioral. Behavioral addictions are also. Without getting too nerdy about it, I'll just make it short. Behavioral addictions are also known as process addictions. And that's because there is a process. Let's say, for instance, you know that your spouse, your male spouse, is struggling with an out of control behavior. The way his mechanism would look like, just to be focused on the mechanism piece, is he works from home, and anytime you leave, he's triggered. So his trigger, just like with the Pavlovian model, would be being in his office hearing you say, all right, I'm heading out, honey, I'll be back and see you. In an hour. Love you. And he's like, love you leaves. Door closes. He hears the garage door open. Car goes out. Garage door closes. Mechanism begins immediately. He now knows he's alone. There is an immediate increase in adrenaline. There's a short release of testosterone. The adrenaline comes because of the taboo nature and he's going to be alone. This triggers the release of norepinephrine, which is like a. It's like a guy walking along with a camcorder. And then the process continues all the way to orgasm as he whatever shuts the blinds, as he whatever maybe gets on his phone or his iPad or the computer, as he goes through the rituals of his behavior. So that is the mechanism. But here's the interesting thing. Because orgasm for men is typically very short. Your biochemistry is aware of this, so you extend the mechanism. How do you do that? Men typically extend it by opening different tabs on their computer, jumping from genre to genre. And what are they doing? They're extending a specific part of that process. It could be the release of adrenaline, it could be the release of norepinephrine. But they know orgasm is going to be short lived. What they don't realize is while they're extending it, they are rewiring their arousal process permanently. So when your husband is trying to be intimate with you, you may notice that he struggles like he can't get it up. He, he feel, it feels very performative. It's performative because he is trying to replay or reenact viewing pornography which doesn't have intimacy. And it's a spectator spot. He doesn't know that he is trying to recreate that process in bed and that's where he struggles. So I nerded out a little bit there.

No, that was good.

Well, and that's so interesting. I do a lot of sexual intimacy work with my couples. We have this conversation a lot. And one of the things that we do is to prime the brain with erotic types of thoughts and images to kind of stoke the desire to engage in intimacy and have sex.

Interesting.

So exactly what you're doing, actually you're doing inside of yourself. So those same things that you would be teaching a couple, for example, that maybe you would share together, stoking those images and those associations with the desire to have sex, because it doesn't just fall from the sky, it's as you had said, it's triggered. And if I don't trigger my brain to want to be intimate and aroused and explore my eroticism, you'll find especially as we climb the Ladder of age, the desire to have sex goes down. And so what I hear you there with the rituals, et cetera, it's about being intentional about those rituals and what they're creating for ourselves. I can create a ritual between you and I to have intimacy and explore our eroticism, or I can do it with myself. And I think what you said, that was the most incredible piece, is that the mechanism is within me. I get to control a drug. I'm my own drug dealer. And I think, wow, okay, so would.

That be in the world of addiction? Jk, that's a tremendous insight and construct. I've never realized that's a major difference than the typically other addictions that we hear about, right? That you are the drug, the dealer.

You the individual, you are the dealer in this case. Which is the reason why so many people find it difficult to get out of sexual addictions because the modalities that are currently being used are not adjusted for that. So you throw somebody in a. Into a 12 step program and you tell him something like, you have to admit to a higher power that you are powerless. Fine. That works. And you also have to do this day by day, and you will identify. Hi, I'm jk. I'm Tom. I'm whoever I am, and I'm a recovering porn addict forever. But there's already. There's something that doesn't work there because you cannot submit to a higher power and simultaneously condemn yourself to a lifetime of being recovering or in recovery. Because that's not. That doesn't like a higher power did not put you here to struggle with this forever and have your identity be that so already it doesn't work. And Tom, when you bring up us being the dealer, we are sexual beings. How do we reconcile this when the behavior is within us? In traditional recovery, if you took one sip, well, you relapse. You got to start from the beginning. What do I do if I fantasize about my wife or my lover? Is that a relapse? What do I do if I see a beautiful woman? Do I no longer acknowledge that? Do I repress my sexuality? The problem is they have never been answers for this. And when I went through traditional recovery, I had a big problem with this. I was like, this is not solving my problem. Am I never going to appreciate a beautiful woman again? Am I? Is my sex life going to be black and white and gray and boring? Do I have to listen to what my sponsor says? Like he says, jk, this is the way to live. This is the way to be sexual. This is the way that will keep you away from this behavior forever. This is proven. I know it's not proven. It is a process, and it is a practice. And I'm the first to admit that my program is not perfect. It's not perfect because we are human. It was Albert Ellis who said he's the founder of rational emotive behavioral therapy, that anybody can recover from an addictive behavior, but nobody can recover from being human.

I feel like there's a lot of parallels between porn and sex addiction and food addiction, because we need both to survive. Sex and food are, I would say, essentials in life, unless you're asexual. Okay. But most people aren't. So we need intimacy and connection and sex, and we need to eat. So the same thing could apply. Because I've dealt with food addiction in my life, and I can't go without eating. So the same thing would apply. If I take a bite of a french fry. Have I relapsed? It's the same thing. You can't. You really can't. You have to eat and you have to have sex. So it's. You don't have to. But you know what I'm saying?

You want to.

You want to. And it's a normal thing to want. It's not like drugs or alcohol. You don't have to have those things. So it's a very interesting conversation because I know a lot of people struggle with both of those things, and they're. You have to figure out a way to have them healthily. But the lines can be blurred so much because you can find your way back to unhealthy behaviors, but you can convince yourself that it's okay because it's something that you need, you know?

Absolutely.

I feel like that is a struggle for both areas there.

I agree that they both parallel. Absolutely. I think it's important for. To empower individuals who struggle with behavioral addictions by letting them know that they have the freedom to define what their recovery is going to look like. So we have an exercise called defining your reboot. And by the way, just to explain what rebooting is, why I use that term instead of recovery is because recovery, in the traditional sense of the word, the idea it brings about, is that you have to recover that which you lost. You lost something. This is the process of getting it back. Unfortunately, with sexual behaviors, if you began your compulsivity, let's say, in your mid-20s, or in your early 20s or your late teens, and now you are in your early 40s, late 40s, sexual behavior is different. Your hormonal profile is different. Your needs are different. You can't recover what you were going to have at 22. It's gone. That's the truth. And that's okay as well. It's okay to tell a client that, dude, you're 41 years old. You're not going to get the things that you had when you were 22, and it's time to let that go. Now there's a new type of sexuality you can develop, and I'll help you find and discover it. But I want you to know that you can define what your sexual behavior looks like. Obviously, we know what is compulsive. We know what brings you pain and shame and guilt. We know what hurts your spouse. That's also an external part. We need to understand what is it that hurts your spouse and that is unique to your relationship as well. And from there, you define your reboot. So for somebody who is in a relationship, they would include their spouse in this new definition of what it is. And that's something that I still have not seen in traditional recovery, which is why we came up with the term rebooting, where you hit the reset button, which is actually what this logo back here is. It's a P with the reset button in the middle. You hit the reset button, and from that present moment, wherever you are, wherever the rubble is around you, it is okay to rebuild and just start from there. We don't need to go into the past unless there's some trauma work that needs to be done, but only as a lesson to the present moment.

I remember when you and I first connected, that was one of the things that you and I share very much in common, was that idea is, we don't need to go back and dig up the past. We can just begin where we are and decide how we're going to go forward. And guess what? If something from the past is preventing you from moving forward forward, we'll address it there and then, but not a minute before. It's. If it's a problem, it's going to show up in the future as we're moving forward. And I know for my clients, that's such a refreshing take. It's like, oh, really? I don't have to do 12 years of, like, trauma therapy before I can have a great relationship because, you know, I got to love myself. That's what they all say. No, actually, let's just begin the journey and let's go forward. And I have to believe that for your clients, that's just a huge exhale as well. Like, oh, thank goodness. I don't have to go back to my childhood trauma in order to get a handle on this. Thank goodness. Because that can feel absolutely emotionally overwhelming. I loved what you said about the 12 step process too, that I have to talk to my sponsor. One of the things that I just want to point out that I really credit your program, the little bit I know about it with that we also know. I know also know we're aligned on is the idea that the individual needs to call the shots. The individual needs to decide what their life is going to look like. And I would say that's true not only sexually, but relationally. A great relationship is great because it works for the two or more people in it. So we've got to accommodate for that. And if it works for me and my partner, then it works. It's a great relationship and you get to make the call on that. And one of the breakdowns that I see in traditional 12 step therapies and those types of things is that my sponsor is making the decisions for me and what the program is and how it has to be laid out. And there's a very strict protocol that has to be charted out or I failed without recognizing. No, we want to empower the individual to make those choices for themselves. That's where what I call you do the emotional push up for yourself and you develop the strength and capacity within you to rudder and govern your own life, whatever that might be. And your needs and desires might be different than my needs and desires. But that we essentially, if we start calling the shots for somebody, remove that experience from them. They're always then reliant upon someone outside of themselves in order to feel like they're doing a great job at being who they and only they alone know they are. That's kind of the comedy in it, right?

Yeah.

You've got access. Each and of each of us is an individual have access to intel within that nobody else has access to. So we've got to make the call because also we're going to be the only ones that live with the consequences of the choices that we make.

I love that. I love that. And now it all comes back why we were so aligned. Because I think just at the end of the day when it comes to principles, somehow in whatever our journeys have been, we arrived at the same place. Maybe through our healing journeys, we arrived at the same conclusion. And I think that's a beautiful thing because it is not often you find people who have you learn, people learn from other people. But there's sometimes there's a tendency to just learn and attach themselves to the person and not seek within. And it's by seeking within, you come to this confidence that, hey, I can determine the path that's best for me. I always believe when a client sits across from me that the client is the hero all the time. I'm facilitating a journey. But at the end of the day, what we say at porn reboot is that you are the best expert at yourself. So anytime we see any sort of behavior that leads to it, some form of learned helplessness, we are quick and sometimes harsh in a loving way to tell them, I will not give you the answer to this. I will not tell you that this is going to happen because my experience is different from yours. I've seen the movie in general, but your story is going to be a little bit different.

I love that. And you're causing me to think of a client who was desperate to get into a program here recently. And it was like, no, no, no, I've got to get in. And we had closed it. We had already moved on with one of our cohorts that started. And I just remember thinking, I don't want to be anybody's savior. That is not my role here. My job is to help you explore what's true for you. And it will probably be many people who inspire you and touch your life in many different ways. I don't want you buying into the idea that any one person or any one program is going to be your catch all, be all for your life. My hope for you is that you would continue to learn and grow about yourself for the rest of your life. Because that's what I would call living. So let's get about that. Let's get about that and see where it takes us. I'm just another fellow human. I'm just a fellow human on a journey with you. I don't want to be on that pedestal, and I don't want to go there. The reality is we serve a lot of humans now that we're talking about humans through the challenges and struggles in their relationships. And many of them are in the space of what we call limbo. Should I stay? Should I go? They're not sure if they're going to be able to work things out. There's a desire to do so. An addiction, or shall we say, compulsive behavior, now that we've all learned a thing or two in our time together, can be a key factor in this Mix. And it's common to hear the voice of the person who has been wronged, betrayed, etc. This person is typically the one who says some version of I can't do this anymore with you. I've tried, I've tried. I've explained. Every time this X, Y and Z happens, I feel hurt, I feel betrayed, I feel like you don't love me. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. These are the things that we hear on my side with spouses who are struggling with somebody who has this type of compulsivity. And today I. I'm so grateful that we get to hear from a voice of somebody who struggles, because I think sometimes we forget that there's another human being who's trying to do the best they know how, who is struggling with things that we may not understand, nonetheless, still struggling. And I think this is where it's really important for us to allow you to be the voice of that person who can't speak and often doesn't because of the shame, the guilt, the shutdown. They and they alone know that, yes, this porn addiction has rocked my relationship and now my person wants to leave. And that makes perfect sense, which drives them typically into a deeper place of shame. My question to you, and that very long winded statement is, does that typically drive the compulsivity, the behavior it drives.

The compulsivity until that individual seeks help. So it's very possible and very common, honestly, that they medicate those feelings of fear of the relationship falling apart, the uncertainty, the insecurity, the looming uncertain future, the looking at your identity and going, wait a minute, I can't imagine a future without this person. It is a terrifying abyss to look into as somebody who's struggling with something. And like I said, your partner, if they are struggling with this, is feeling hopeless. They are looking at themselves and they feel, because they have tried so many times with every tool they have to end this behavior, and they have failed. They believe that something is inherently wrong with them. Something's wrong with me. And the one statement that every man who struggles with a porn addiction or sex addiction has is, if you truly knew who I was, you would not love me. That is the statement that goes on in their head over and over again. And they are hypersensitive to anything which you may say, that will prove that their shame is compulsive as well. They have lived in shame and lived in the shadow for so long. So, yes, it's part of the behavior, it fuels the behavior. But one of the most beautiful things about what I do is watching the healing process. Because when we don't work with couples, I work primarily with the men. But interestingly enough, it is the partner who recommends. It's the partner who is betrayed, who finds me somewhere and goes, you know what? This is the guy my husband will listen to, because my husband is stubborn, and I think this guy will call him out. I don't know what it is. Women are. The female partners are very, very intuitive. And they're just like, I need you to listen to this guy. And they reach out. And oftentimes when the partner shows up, he just believes it's hopeless. He's like, jk, we've been through counseling. We're working with this. We're working with this. But I don't know if there is a way back. So they've crossed that point, right? Like Brooke said earlier, they've crossed it, and they just don't know if they're going to come back. So there are a few. Well, I'll let you take it from there with the questions, because this is the area where you guys have expertise, and I'll allow you to lead with what you feel partners would like to know most.

My mom, Stacy, is my stepmom, and my mom is an alcoholic and struggled a lot with that throughout my childhood and my dad's marriage with her. And, you know, a lot of times, the way that we are taught as a society to treat addicts, I now believe is wrong. So, you know, we kind of reach our mental threshold and we're like, okay, we can't do it anymore. I have to cut you off. Same thing that happens when a person who's struggling with their partner's addiction asks for space. I would assume it's very similar in that aspect. I've watched the TED Talk. Everything we know about addiction is wrong. And how when we do that to addicts, it just spirals their shame, which I totally understand, because, like I said, I've dealt with food addiction and my ex husband didn't understand it, and we eventually became divorced because he couldn't deal with my body image issues and all of those things. So what is going through the mind of an addict when the partner kind of gives up on them because they don't know what else to do and what other options are there? Because there are so many other options. I know, but it's. I feel like It's a catch 22 because the partner who is not the addict or not experiencing compulsive behavior becomes emotionally Exhausted. But I know the other partner who is dealing with it is also emotionally exhausted and dealing with so much, much pain. But there has to be a better way of navigating that than what we currently have, because what we currently have sucks and it's not working.

You know, that is a great question, and I really appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing that, Brooke. It gives me context. I would say that it is not necessarily accurate that the partner that's struggling with the addiction is emotionally exhausted. The reason why is after working with. With men struggling with compulsive behavior all these years, one thing they're very good at is compartmentalization.

Yeah.

And it's also a very good defense mechanism for them because realize they've been hiding this behavior for a long time. To watch pornography at, let's say, level six, which is you're watching stuff that the FBI could kick your door down for, or you're watching stuff that your partner would be like, hey, I thought you were like this, but looks like you're like this from what I've seen you watching. What's going on here.

Yeah.

It requires you to have the ability to suppress shame, to put it aside. And we also work with executives, we work with celebrities, we work with mega church pastors. Discretion is one of the important parts of what we do. But these individuals can compartmentalize, repress, suppress, and show up and perform in a very charismatic manner. Which is my superpower, by the way, is catching people who think that they're slick with that. But so sometimes they are able to compartmentalize it. One of the things we specialize in in our marketing, too, which is also important. And I will admit, one of the reasons we are good at what we do is we're also good at marketing. And I'll tell you how this picks in. It's not a money thing. It is understanding data and understanding the cycle of these individuals. And there is a time when they are vulnerable, when their partner has left, they're acting out. They are trying to medicate the pain. And at a certain point, they're going to break down. It will last for a short period of time as they just go like, oh, my God, what have I done? My partner's not here. She's gone. My life. We need to catch them at that moment. Yeah, let's catch them on Google, Facebook, wherever. We catch them at that moment. Because what they need is connection. That is what they need. They need connection with other people. They need to hear from somebody who understands exactly how they feel. They need to Feel that they are in a safe space. They need to know there are other men who have gone through this. But there's one thing I never give them. I never give them the hope that their relationship will come back together. Because I don't know. And a lot of times, interestingly enough, that's what they want to hear. They don't know. They want to hear that. They show up and say, jk, just tell me it's going to be okay. I'm like, dude, I don't know. It's likely that it is not going to be okay. And that is the reality that they needed to face. That's usually what needs to happen for them to go, I need to do something. I need to move somewhere. And if you're sitting in front of me, I'm not letting you take a step back. You're gonna have to move forward.

Does that, you know what?

Does that make sense?

That makes a lot of sense. I think that can give a lot of insight to people who are married to or in a relationship with an addict. Especially the part where you said they're not emotionally exhausted. Because me not being, you know, I've had addictive behaviors, but I wouldn't consider myself an addict. Me knowing that now because my mom was probably the same way. She's an expert at compartmentalizing and suppressing shame. Because I say this often in our coaching, calls for people who have a lot of shame, too much shame, like, more than the average person. It's too painful to have that shame out in the open all the time in your brain. It would be physically and mentally impossible. That that's too much, too burden, too much to carry. So it makes so much sense. And I've never thought about that. I never even thought it was possible for the addict to not be emotionally exhausted. So that's just really interesting and helpful to know that that's the case.

Just to put one quick disclaimer there. I'm sorry, Stacy, we keep interrupting you because this is a very important conversation and people's emotional. The situation is at stake for the listeners. Right. So just a little disclaimer is not all addicts are alive.

Yes.

On the other end of. On the other end of the spectrum are the men who withdraw into themselves, men who've typically been in a relationship for such a long time, and they've been conditioned to make their. Any man who says, my wife is my everything, my wife and my kids are my everything, don't get me wrong, they're men who love their wife and their Kids, but they do not use that statement. There's no need to say it because it's as you doomed. They usually have another mission that kind of includes their family or maybe separate. But the men who typically use that statement are the ones whose self image just falls apart and they, they get. They go into some pretty dark places. Many of them are suicidal. Many of them can no longer work with them because just as you are, Stacy, we cannot work with people who are desperate, so they have to be referred to someone else. So, yes, I would say that this may be a generalization and I apologize if anyone finds it offensive. But what I have noticed and my interpretation is that most of the women who create these boundaries usually have a better support system than the men. Women are more social online. They have more communities. They are more likely to empower each other and support each other. And in terms of emotions, they can deal with marathon emotions over time. The men, they can't. Which is one of the reasons they are more male porn addicts. It's not just their biology, it's also their psychology. They cannot deal with long term trauma because that's not how men evolved. Men were the conquering ones, women were. They were the ones who were when village was pillaged and whatever. So emotionally, women can deal with so much. The men are just. I'm gonna.

I can't do it.

I can't handle it. It's too painful. So men do suffer too. But I just wanted to also bring up that piece on compartmentalization.

Yeah, well, and I would say that's just. That makes sense because when you realize as a human being and the intelligence that we have within us, we're gonna do everything we can to survive. That's what we're programmed for. So if I've got a compartmentalize, and you see it in all kinds of psychological behaviors, how we adapt so that we can just get through the right now, we'll worry about, but we got to get through the right now. And it's amazing what we can do. And so you're very much talking about a survival mode that we all have emotionally. And we're either going to be out there, charismatic, you know, kind of like, hey, look, I'm doing good things over here, but don't pay attention to what's going on behind the scenes. And then we have the other side of surviving, which is that, that going within. And then I hang my sense of, well, being on the coattails of someone else who continues to drive my life forward as I just collapse in that state. And when that' gone and nobody's driving my life for me, I don't know what to do with myself. And so we plunge into that depression, you know, et cetera, that really dark places there, you can start to see how these things dovetail in on themselves. A couple of questions that have come up with me or for me in your share is you had mentioned earlier that people who are struggling with compulsive behavior typically have tried many things. And I'm curious, what are those many things? Because it's going to probably not be obvious to the person who's watching. The person who's watching is just stop watching porn. We'll be fine. This relationship would be great if you'll just do that one simple thing, which in my mind is like, please, come on. After all I've put up with, I just want to address that person who's going, yeah, why can't they just stop watching porn? What have they tried? What is it that they have tried in order to stop this, you know, abatement of watching porn?

The first thing they've tried is willpower. And a lot of us put. Put a lot more importance on our willpower than we actually should. Willpower is finite. Yes, there are many examples in our life. We have very successful individuals who show up and I'm like, dude, just because you have this entrepreneurial ability and you can work 14 hours and you're obsessed with your work doesn't mean that same skill set, that internal quality translates to your sexual behavior. It doesn't. And this is a big thing, because the belief that a partner often has is, this is my own behavior. This is not something external. This is me. I should be able to control my sexual behavior. And my sexual behavior is private. My fantasies are private. And when even the thought of seeking help comes up, people freak out. Why? Because when it comes into the. When we talk about the realm of fantasy, first of all, there's nothing wrong with fantasy. The only thing wrong with fantasy is our fear that if other people knew what our fantasies were, they would think we actually wanted to do those things. And we don't. Unfortunately, pornography has systematically taken those fantasies and made them visual, but not only made them visual, as you guys have seen over the years, they are becoming more normalized and real. They're sexual acts that are happening today. I won't say anything to trigger anyone, but they are sexual acts that are taking place today that are so normalized, that were never a thing prior to the 60s and the 70s. And it just kept escalating and the youth today I'm a millennial. But Generation Z really thinks a lot of things are normal. The first thing they try is willpower. The next thing they try is habit change. Right? Habit change. It's atomic habits. And people just show the atomic. I'm like, shut up. I don't want to hear that guy's name again. It's just not. I just don't like him. I'll say it straight up, I'm not a fan. There's good stuff in there, there, but I'm not a fan of any pop stuff because it goes deeper than that. Habit change is good, it's important, it helps, it will improve your self esteem. But they will typically end up working with coaches who teach them habit change. They will watch videos on YouTube. They will try negative reinforcements based exercises. I'm going to punish myself or I'm going to give somebody $200 and each time I masturbate, I'm going to give money to that person. But what is more typical outside of willpower is they will make a half hearted attempt to speak to a therapist, especially when the relationship is at risk. But they go in with so much shame and they are hyper vigilant for not feeling safe. The moment the therapist, if they are not trained in dealing with compulsive sexual behaviors, says or asks something that makes the addiction feel unsafe, they will immediately retreat or they will close off and they will keep going because they have to go so that their partner doesn't leave them. But nothing will change. So there's a certain level of expertise that's required in simply the skill set of making someone feel safe while holding the line and the boundary and still pushing them and encouraging them forward is not something many therapists have. And I think think with the. When it comes to the things they've tried, a lot of therapists, I think most therapists legally cannot talk about their own experiences. So they are limited. As a matter of fact, I've had therapists reach out to us and ask me how to become a coach because they're starting to find that with some of the newer behavioral issues, food, sex, they're like, I would love to go further because I struggle with that right now. Or I struggled with that, that and I just, I can't tell the person I can't serve.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I never actually officially became licensed or hung a license.

Well, I mean I think what you said is none of us gets the hall pass on wishing we could have done a Better job. And whatever the situation is, we simply cannot punish the pain out of anyone. That's probably not going to do us much good. And I'll talk to people. We have what we call clarity calls, and they say, tom, I went here and, my gosh, I. I walked out of that thing that. That hour or whatever feeling like twice as bad as when I went in. I'm. Who wants to sign up for that? That's like getting excited to go get a root canal, you know? Yeah, we can do a good enough job that on our own, we don't need someone coming. And especially in these kind of situations, everyone thinks, jake, if you just get your stuff together and admit to enough, stop, and we can't punish you enough, and just everything will go back to normal. I say that is a dated mentality, and that will never work.

Well, no one besides people who really have experienced addiction in their life, whether they are one or, you know, have them close to them, no one realizes the magnitude of shame that they feel. It's just the most shameful thing that you can think about. And then I think about this all the time. It's such a weird way that we deal with it in society because we're like, you better not do this anymore, and we're going to support you if you don't do this thing. And the second you do this thing, you're out. So, like, don't do it. Don't do it. Let's talk about it all the time about how you're not supposed to do it. Oh, you're so good because you haven't done this thing. But if you go back into your addiction and you make a mistake and you mess up, you're out. It's just someone living in the absolute fear. And then if they do make a mistake and they mess up and they do it again, why would they ever want to be honest and say that they've relapsed? It's because we make it impossible for them to be honest. Because they know that they're going to get berated or kicked out or, you know, divorced or all of these things. I just don't under. So. So I guess my question, jk, is if a partner is listening and feels that their partner is addicted to pornography or exhibiting compulsive behavior, how could they approach that conversation without doing what I just said?

I just. I love everything you said about the shame piece and being an addict, knowing you shouldn't do it sitting down with your partner that you love and you care for admitting it. And saying, I'm gonna do my best. And then it's almost as if you're conscious while you're doing it. You literally just say, effort. I'm going to do it. And I understand the consequence. Yeah, do it. And right when you're done, you're sitting there in the aftermath, and that shame just comes over you. You're like, what the heck? I don't respect myself. As a matter of fact, I obviously don't love myself. And then your partner shows up, and like a child, you get berated. The partner, if you're listening, I understand you're frustrated. You didn't sign up for this. You signed up for a life partner. You didn't sign up for another child. And the last thing you need at the end of the day is to deal with this. And oftentimes you didn't see this coming. With food addiction. It could be like, you were fit and healthy when we met. What the heck happened? It's just like, we got to the house and bought the house, the mortgage, and it just came with, what happened there, right? What happened? Don't tell me you can't. I remember when we met, blah, blah, blah, right? With the addiction, it's just. I didn't know this. I didn't know that you struggled with this. And of course, with pornography, that compulsive behavior comes a few other things. Is it me? Am I not enough? Do you not find me attractive? The ego is brought into it, and the partner is under so much stress. He's under so much stress. I did want to bring up one very important point, that almost every couple who has good intentions when it comes to compulsive sexual behavior, especially with pornography, they do this one thing, and they think they're doing it in their best interest, and everything falls apart. This is very important. Your partner who's struggling with the behavior, comes to you and admits it to you.

You.

And you're just like, oh, my God. I re. This is why you've been distanced. Yes, I've been struggling with this. This why I've been distanced. This is why I haven't been able to get it up in bed. This is why all those late nights, and I just can't do it anymore. I almost crossed the line the other night. Men end this behavior for one of three reasons. Out of love, duty, or fear. This would be love, or it may be fear. They almost crossed the line. The partner, since she's not been getting that intimacy and her partner has been closed off for so long. Song is so excited that he's finally being open that she's just luxuriating in the vulnerability of it. So she says, thank you so much. We haven't connected like this in years. Maybe they even make love. And then after that, he's like, will you be my accountability partner for this? Goes back to the thing that the opposite is. Connection. It feels good. I will be your accountability partner. I will support you. But she can't be the accountability partner because she's too close to the problem. You can't. If you're listening, you cannot be the accountability partner because he is struggling with a compulsive behavior. He will do it again. You'll support him the first few times. But one day you will suddenly realize that you're done. You're like, why do I just. I don't feel anything. He just feels like an annoying little sibling or my son.

I have.

I feel nothing for him. I no longer respect him.

Him.

Yeah.

All with good intentions to keep him accountable. Eventually he will lie to you. So for those of you who are thinking. Who've already started that. That you will support your partner. Support your partner. But realize that you cannot be his accountability partner. He doesn't need someone else.

I love that you brought that up, jk because we don't realize that we're practicing in that very desire or that loving act where we're practicing a parent child dynamic where I get to be the parent and hold you account and tell you what the rules are. And we're not equals anymore. We're not lovers anymore. And that's why that doesn't work. Is you're setting it up to where I'm the parent and you're the child. And that will tank your relationship. Right? It. It will. With systematic results. So I think what JK has said here is very profound. And you want to take it to heart because you cannot create a parent child dynamic in a relationship and expect it to thrive emotionally, sexually. Those intimacy parts and pieces that we love and that we seek and desire in our relationships. It will tank it.

So when that happens, jk, Then the. The loving spouse should say, I cannot do that. What then? What could we do to truly support that person? To go find your body of work. Meaning that's how we could help that person take the next step. When you've created this magical moment.

Yeah. And the rare is instance that the partner goes, I cannot do this anymore. It is. I don't care. It actually doesn't really matter which partner goes out to seek accountability. The reason Why I say it's rare is also. This is very important. Your ego is involved in this. And you feel that if I, the person who should know you best, and I, the person who loves you, cannot keep you accountable, no one else is going to keep you accountable. But you don't realize that you've created dysfunction in the entire process. In that dynamic, that dysfunction will now come along to sabotage you because now you are overly protective. When the person comes to jk, we see this all the time and our team labels it. We're like, okay, we got a wife who was the accountability partner, and now she's going to block us. She's going to be there asking questions. Do you even have a Ph.D. young man? Lady, I'm your age.

But. It was just like.

But she's just. No. I don't know what these men are going to tell you. Her fears come up, her insecurities come up. Are these guys going to tell you to leave me? Are they going to encourage them? Encourage it. I don't feel safe with you no longer being under my watchful eye. I heard J.K. said you shouldn't. You don't have to tell your partner every time you relapse, which I do. I'm like, you don't tell them. You sit and you have a conversation and say, I am rebooting right now. I will be slipping and I will be relapsing. But for this system, slips and relapses are not causes for emotion. They are simply data. And I will be processing it with these people. But we are made to process it all the time. If I were to bring this data to you, it is no longer data for you. It is emotion and judgment for you. You and I cannot heal in a place where there's so much emotion and judgment. I need to be in a place with rational people who I know are going through the same problem as me, and that is the place I will heal. So if you ask me, like, did you relapse? I'm not going to say if I relapsed or not. I'm just saying it was a very challenging week for me, and I teach men. Just a little something for those of you who are listening, who wondering a little bit about the system. It's called avr. When your betrayed spouse freaks out, right? Because she is dealing with a form of post traumatic stress for the partner struggling with the behavior. When you wonder, why is it that her reaction is so outsized, why she's so angry and so upset. Understand it's not You. It is her accumulated trauma. It is every guy who lied to her. It is all of that that is coming up. That's why it feels so heavy. That's the first piece you need to understand. The second piece is she may be dealing with some form of traumatic stress. So she may pull your phone and go through it obsessively. She may spontaneously start crying in the middle of the day. Very common. We mentioned all the different things that happen. She gets suddenly paranoid. You're having a good time and you're connecting, and suddenly she goes, wait a minute. But you told me that the woman that you texted the other time, you said she was. She was a co worker, but I thought she was. And then suddenly there's drama and you're like, oh, here we go again. Avr, acknowledge, validate, reassure. I tell my clients there's such a thing as apologizing too much. You can apologize the first or the second time, but anything beyond that is simply going to remind your spouse of all the pain. I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I'm wrong. That's all she hears. She sees a man. That's wrong. Wrong. Once you've apologized, you're good. I'm sure you've already apologized enough. If you're in that situation, you must acknowledge her, whatever she's dealing with. I can see why you would feel suspicious. I can see why you would need, see, feel the need to go through my phone. I actually did cross some boundaries. So, yeah, you're right. Then you listen. Then you validate. You validate the emotion. She's. I just feel. I just can't let this go. I just feel sad.

Sad.

Men get logical and they're like, well, there's nothing to feel sad about. We already talked about. No, no, no, none of that. You validate. She's. I just feel this way. I can see why you feel that way. Like, you know what? You are right to feel that way. You're right to feel sad all the time. I'm surprised you're not even feeling even more sad, actually. You don't need to say that. That's just me adding it there. But. And then the final piece after the validation is you must reassure to tie a very clean knot in that. And then you must tell her. So I'm going to take what we've talked about today, and I love what you brought up, and I'm going to bring it to my coach, I'm going to bring it to my therapist, I'm going to bring it to my brothers in the program. And I'm going to let you know the feedback we get. I'm going to maybe do the hot seat this week with J.K. and his coaching session. I'll be on the hot seat and I'm going to bring it back to you. And then you do bring it back to her, and that's how you deal with it over and over again.

I can see why Stacy had such a strong connection because you're you. You share similar.

You're like coaching twins.

Yes.

We say we. You need to be seen, heard, and reminded that you matter.

Wow. How crazy is that? It just parallels.

Yeah.

Yes. Being heard, acknowledged, and appreciated for all the work that you're doing and reassured that you matter and this relationship matters to you. Because if it doesn't matter, what the hell are we doing? If I don't matter and this doesn't matter, why are we still in it? It trying to do the very best we know how. And the piece that. That I know we resonate on because we've talked about it was as human beings, at the end of the day, we truly are doing the very best we know how in that humanness. We forget sometimes that we figure things out as we go, not before we get started. It's part of the journey. And when I love you, love doesn't heal all things. Love does not have the power to do that. I can love you and still be struggling with the conflict and the emotional turmoil that is happening internally inside of myself. And I think sometimes that's where a lot of pain comes from. Because we think because you love me, you would just be able to do this simple thing for me. No, actually, it's because I love you. I will look deeper inside of myself. That's usually the motivation to understand and deal with the conflict and the turmoil that's happening internally inside of myself. Or as my darling brother in law, who's a mental health advocate says, often what hurts the most cannot be seen. And sometimes that drives my addiction and sometimes that causes me to lash out in ways I had no idea I would. It's me I'm dealing with. It's the piece or the person within that does deeply love you that is showing up. And sometimes I just don't know what to do with that.

Yeah. And just to share one more thing. Yeah. Some of the things you share. JK is my younger brother and he uses hope. Hold on, hold on, hold on, pain ends.

Hold on, speech on pain ends.

And he says in his. Yeah, David, my brother travels all over the world similar Approach, different message. He says it's in his world because he struggles with his mental, you know, health and well being every day. It's impossible to be depressed and experience a sense of connection at the same time.

Which is interesting to what you said because there is and I would agree with you J.K. there's.

Yeah. So he. My brother's all about. He's all about. It's connection is the answer. So it's impossible to be depressed and have an experience of connection at the same time. Now it can come back but at that moment in time, if you're experiencing connection, you won't be depressed. That intense. Your power, it's connection, what we're all after.

Connection.

Right.

And he also says connection creates hope and hope saves lives.

Oh, I love it.

Who is David Woods? Bartley is his name.

Name.

He created some of these frameworks that now he tours around and shares with military bases around the world. So he's working with our men and women who are actually.

But it's similar. I love what you said. It's feeling hopeless and the monster convinces you that the world would be better.

Off without you and that you're worthless.

And so he's all about look, if you can experience a connection of experience of connection for that moment in time. So just keep trying to having experiences of connection. And you know when he uses just remember somebody's name in the grocery store you never know that very simple things that you can do to. Because most of us will retract in your world and all of us world when we're not feeling good, we all retract.

I think the profound piece for me was when you had said in There's a window that opens up when somebody has said hey, I'm leaving this relationship because of this thing you do. And there's a moment, a very temporary moment because of the survival mode of compartmentalization that they're seeking connection and I think they seek. It's amazing that as human beings when we're hurting like that and we don't know where else to go, connection is our intuitive go to place. I want to reach out to somebody. Please tell me there's somebody out there on the other planet when I reach out that's going to tell me it's going to be okay and I'm going to figure this out.

Yeah. But the thing that is so frustrating I think as a person, like I said many times who's dealt a lot with addiction is that the addict knows that they need connection but we shun them away you know, so us shunning them makes them know that they need connection. But then I just want to remind anybody who's listening right now and has a partner who is an addict and they're frustrated and they're at that point where maybe they know that their partner has relapsed and they're just sick and tired of the this shit. Remember that connection is the answer. So it's not pushing them away and telling them that they're a fuck up and that they can't believe they've done this shit again. And also, every time they relapse is not because they don't love you.

It's.

It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with that. And if they could, they would stop doing it yesterday. They don't want to be doing this anymore, you know, So I feel like I've grown so much in this very specific way of thinking that I have now. I never would have shunned my mom if I knew what I know now because I just didn't realize how much she was struggling because I was taking it so personally. So my advice would be to not do that because it's the last thing your addicted partner needs is to be shunned and told they don't matter and that you're sick of them no matter how hard it is. What they're looking for is connection.

Absolutely. And Brooke, as you're saying that, that it's a very important message, but as you're saying it, there's somebody there going, who are you to tell me that, yeah, I absolutely despise this human being? How can you tell me that? When I look at them and they've hurt me.

Yeah.

Often it becomes an issue of your experience and your emotion versus their pain. Right. So you're transcending that. When you share that, something within them reacts in a very visceral way. And it's. And we get it all the time, literally. I go through the comments on some of my YouTube videos where it's trail trauma and it's just filled with angry partners. Just angry partners. Oh, that's wonderful. And they're commenting as if it's a live video. They're compliant as if it's a stream.

They're reacting to each thing you say that triggers them.

That's nice. Sounds good.

For him.

It's. Y' all know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The pain is so visceral from the partner. And this is why I want to say we started this conversation too. Talking about individuals seeking space. Would it be okay if I briefly spoke about the space on the side of the partner? Because we have. There are situations where space is warranted. But the caveat is that the partner who's struggling with the behavior must be seeking help on a regular basis. So we've had many instances where the partner struggling with their behavior will reach out to us and say, she said she can't be around me anymore and I need to leave the house. But I feel if I leave the house, that's it. That's the first step. And then he's freaking out. He's just, ah. He's already. He's going to the worst place. Boss possible. Another man's gonna be raising my children. Another man. All his trauma comes up. That's what happened with my dad and stepdad, my mom. And he's just lost. I want you all to know that's what he's dealing with. He's dealing with the worst case scenario. He's dealing with a loss of his identity and his masculinity. He needs a safe landing place. We tell him it's okay if that needs to happen. Here's the accountability that needs to happen. Do you have some place to go? And that's. I want to say that's okay, too. We have had many instances where one partner moved out. There was communication. There has to be some form of communication. You cannot completely cut it off. There has to be regular, preferably scheduled communication. Even if you hate it, you'll just need to connect at some point in a way that is bearable to both of you. Usually the couples. Counselor. Counselors. I would assume y' all would also suggest something like that. But that space is often what that individual needs. Why? Because for the first time in a long time, he's away from that environment. He's no longer sitting in his office, in his home office or knowing that she's somewhere in the home. While he's acting out. He needs to sit with himself and actually face it in a different home. Home. He's back with mom or dad. He's. I don't recommend hotels. I might get an Airbnb for a month or something and just be with you. And the things we start hearing when they get past the initial pain and shame of moving out is, you know what? I feel like a boy again. And a boy in the sense that I'm starting to dream again. I'm starting to think in a different way. They're starting to see a positivity from the space but what often happens is a deep need to share that with the person they loved. They find that individuality again and they remember that, oh, it wasn't that we were one or anything. We were just two awesome individuals who came together and decided we were going to share this awesome journey together. Each in our awesomeness. I just forgot mine along the way. So many. The space can create so much awareness of the other areas of the relationship that needed work. That longing happens not only in the betrayed partner, but it also shows up in the other partner. As long as the betrayed partner is not playing the game off. He's the one who hurt me. He needs help. Like if she's gonna. She needs to get. Both of you need to be working on yourself. That is often the best chance when you all have gotten to that point.

I just want to say, for anyone who thinks that we may have had a meeting about this, these conversations before this podcast occurred, we haven't, we had no clue this is what he was going to say. He just happens to be on the same page with everything we believe. We call that Space with a plan. That's the name that we've come up with is Space with a Plan. Where you come together and you come up with the plan of how you're going to meet and talk and when you're going to talk and what you're going to talk about and all of that ahead of time so that you're still working on the relationship while you're apart from each other.

I love that with a plan.

And I loved what you said too. And I know we need to wrap this up. This has just been too much. I know. I. I want to, I don't want to take advantage of your time here, but we certainly have. In the spirit of full disclosure, relationships are truly a co creation. Yeah, they're a little of me and a little of you. And how we dance is what we create. As far as the us part, so the us is you. A little of you and a little of me. And that's why we say everybody has something to learn here. Everybody has something to explore. And that's why, just to validate what you had said. Not that it needs to be done, but I think for the listener, just the principles of relationships overall need to be stated as they come up. Up. I need to find myself because how I show up greatly impacts the relationship and you need to do the same. And a space is often a reset or what I like to call a do over in that we get to re examine. Okay, wait A minute. We've come as far as we can in this current dance that we do, in this current co creation and now we're recognizing and realizing that the reality is for a long time there's lots of things that haven't worked. This is our opportunity to reevaluate myself. What I want, what I need, who I am, who I want to show up as going forward from this moment. And you need to do the same. And so space without a plan is just space, right? And we all know what happens with just space. You're done, you're just done. But space with a plan means we're going to look at me, look at you, and it's literally a cycle where we get to start all over again in the relationship journey. Just like we were dating again, but we're dating with a history. Okay, what do you want? Here's what I want and need, but I have to spend some time with myself in order to vet that out. I don't know. And so as you go through a reboot program, for example, and you discover some aspects about yourself that you've not expressed or sat with or even understood inside of yourself for a long period of time, maybe ever. The same would be true for your counterpart. What is her role in supporting this or going along with it? Or we're trying to play the parent or trying to be the person, right? That's trying to abate this for the benefit of the whole. Everybody has something to learn there and then we get to reassess it and decide how it is. We want to go forward and that's the opportunity. With space, we want to take that, that opportunity and we want to understand the opportunity for what it is. And in this place, this is where we can say, listen, if it's truly true for you, that space is something you need to do in your heart. Not because you're trying to make somebody pay, not because you're trying to play the game of I'm big and you're small. But genuinely, you feel like that would be something that would serve you at the highest level, then you can guarantee it's going to serve the other person as well. I'm a fan of space for the reevaluation process, right? Let's retool this thing. Let's get to know each other from a different place. After I've spent some time to be able to translate the understanding inside of myself to such a degree I can share it with you, then let's see what we have from there. Let's go Forward from that place. Place. So, jk, please tell our listeners where they can find more about your programs and what it is that you do and the incredible work that you do for so many incredible humans across the globe.

My name is J.K. emezi. Last name is E M E Z I. You can Google me, you can find me on YouTube. It's easier to find me by JK Amazy because we have a lot of copycats who jumped onto porn reboot bandwagon and they're better at SEO than I am. But you can find us at our website, elevated recovery.org you can find us on itunes, Audible, Spotify, the porn reboot podcast. And you can find us on YouTube by searching for JK Amazi. And my recommendation for everybody is don't jump into it. Don't just like, oh, like, I heard him. And I want to put in an application. My team will reject you outright if you show up and you don't know anything about our process us. Despite the pain you may be into, despite the fact that you may have many questions, spend some time listening to my podcast, right? We have over 500 episodes. We have over 1200 videos on YouTube. Just educate yourself, get comfortable. Introduce your partner to it. It's okay. This is your sexual behavior. This is something that's within you. It's going to take time to heal from this. So take the time. Use our free resources for first and the day will come when you know, you're just like, this is the day I'm putting in the application and I'm ready and we'll be ready to. We're still going to be here.

That's awesome. That's beautiful. Thank you so much. I knew this would be amazing and it absolutely was.

This is fantastic. Thank you so much for having me.

So we're going to turn a corner here and we're going to talk about how a little bit of fun. And today I'm going to call or follow the phone. The music in your heart. Here's the thing. The world's concept of love is that you must get other people's love before you can feel love for yourself. The law of love is that actually you are love. And that as you give love to others, you teach yourself what you are. Essentially, you are the gift that you are looking for. As you offer grace, first forgiveness and appreciation of others, you can finally then accept your love for yourself. So today I want to invite you to simply explore your music playlist. Like what moves your heart. Listen to it from a different vantage point. Spend some time with it and see if you can. Those messages in the music that mean something to you, write them down. Because those are touching places within your heart that help you see who you are are. And as you do that, you celebrate those music, as they say, is the unspoken word. And it truly is for all of us. We love the music that we love because in a very small way, it reflects back to you who you are. Enjoy that. Have some fun with it. And of course, we always end with a theme song. This theme song today is from George Michael. I know I'm taking you back. But he sings a song, I can only show up and be me. And as the lyrics say, I think it's such a perfect conversation for what we've talked about today. Turn down the lights Turn down the voices in my head hold me close and don't patronize me I can't make you love me if you don't I can I can't make your heart feel something that it doesn't But I love you and I'm here. You can listen to this week's song along with our entire relationship playlist by going to our website or our podcast page. You can also find us on Spotify at Love Shack Life playlist. What an incredible conversation today, babe. Brookie. I saw you get a little fired up there, Brookie, at the end. It's awesome to see. I love it. Go girl. And thank you, listener, for joining us today for an incredible conversation conversation about this and please, we are dedicated to have the conversations that matter most to you. So if you have questions about this episode, if you want to reach out to us or you have conversations that you want to have here in the Love Shack, don't hesitate to let us know. I guess that's a wrap. Thank you so much for being here with us. Until we see you next week inside the Love Shack, have a wonderful week. Bye bye for now.

All right, it's time to leave the Love Shack. But before we part ways, we want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on. Ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, Visit us at loveshacklive.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live community.