March 4, 2024 • 71 mins
On the show today is Jessica Jordan. Jessica is a former wildlife biologist turned expert in overcoming sex-related addictions. Following a traumatic incident that resulted in brain damage in 2016, Jessica developed PTSD and Hyper-sexuality Disorder, commonly known as sex addiction. Drawing from her own journey of healing, she now offers a comprehensive recovery program focused on trauma healing and porn addiction recovery.
In our discussion, we delve into Jessica's personal battle with sex addiction, her experiences dating someone with a similar struggle, and her unique approach to helping men break free from porn addiction. Additionally, we explore the impact of childhood trauma on addiction recovery and Jessica's innovative "3Ds to recovery" method.
We go deep into how sex and porn addiction affect relationships, self-esteem, and brain function. Exploring the roles of dopamine and oxytocin, we see how early experiences shape future behaviors. With Jessica's guidance, we tackle the tough path to recovery, drawing insights from experts like Dr. Gabor Maté, who emphasize the importance of addressing emotional wounds for true healing.
As we wrap up, we consider how societal and family influences can fuel hypersexual behavior, and we discuss the role of spirituality in recovery.
By shedding light on the widespread issue of porn and sex addiction, especially among men, our aim is to provide listeners with valuable insights, resources, and hope for their own journey towards recovery.
Where to find Jessica:
loc@courageousleap.com
selfcraftedking.com
*IF OUR CONTENT IS VALUABLE TO YOU, PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW THE SHOW* Thank you! <3
Instagram: @awordtothewisepod
Youtube: A Word To The Wise Podcast
Email: awordtothewisepod@gmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to
the Wise podcast, a space wherewe curate conversations around
mind, body, spirit and personaldevelopment.
I'm your host, Shumi Moses.
You're tuning into part two andthe last part of the short
miniseries I'm calling theaddiction people are too scared
to talk about.
Again, a quick reminder thatthis episode is not for minors,
(00:24):
so please make sure they're notaround.
On the show today is JessicaJordan.
Jessica is a former wildlifebiologist turned expert in
overcoming sex-relatedaddictions.
Following a traumatic incidentthat resulted in brain damage in
2016, Jessica developed PTSDand hypersexuality disorder,
(00:45):
commonly known as sex addiction.
Drawing from her own journey ofhealing, she now offers a
comprehensive recovery programfocused on trauma healing and
porn addiction recovery.
In our discussion, we dive intoJessica's personal battle with
sex addiction, her experiencesdating someone with a similar
struggle and her unique approachto helping men break free from
(01:08):
porn addiction.
Additionally, we explore theimpact of childhood trauma on
addiction recovery and Jessica'sinnovative 3Ds to recovery
method.
One striking fact Jessicawanted to highlight is that one
in six boys are sexuallymolested as children, a
statistic that resonates withmany of her clients who have
(01:28):
also experienced abuse, often atthe hands of women.
So part of the reason I reallywanted to have this conversation
and why I turned it into ashort miniseries, a two-part
miniseries, is because I think,when it comes to sex and porn
addiction, it's something that alot of people don't want to
talk about.
It's very taboo, it's veryhush-hush and a lot of people
don't want to admit tothemselves that they have it.
(01:49):
So I wanted to create a safespace to actually have this
conversation for the people whoare struggling with it and also
here on the World of the Wise.
I like to have conversationsthat center around mind, body,
spirit, and one of the thingsthat really affects our mind,
body and spirit is when we'readdicted to something, and a lot
of people have an addiction topornography and sex.
(02:10):
A lot of men especially, andwomen, are affected by it as
well, but disproportionately itdoes affect men.
So I did want to have thisconversation so that if you are
a man listening to this, it's asafe space, you have resources,
you get more insights and youcan use it in your life to help
you overcome the addiction, ifyou have it.
(02:31):
Or if you're a woman listeningto this and you have dated a man
who struggled with pornaddiction or you are dating a
man who is currently strugglingwith porn addiction.
Hopefully this gives you alittle bit more insight and also
resources that you couldpotentially share with your
partner.
So, again, I think this is avery insightful conversation and
I think it's an importantconversation and more people
(02:52):
need to discuss this type ofaddiction, because it's not
something that people readilysee.
You can easily hide it.
So I think, again, a lot ofpeople want to break the chains
of this addiction, but they justdon't know how to.
Now, in this two part series,we're not able to touch on every
single thing.
So this is just moreeducational, it's more
(03:13):
informative and, again,hopefully there's some resources
and some insights here that youcan use to help move you
forward and out of thisaddiction.
If you have it or you knowsomeone who has it, again you
can relay this information tothem or have them listen to this
episode.
And, with that being said,let's get into the conversation
with Jessica.
Jessica, welcome to A Word tothe Wise.
(03:52):
Thank you so much for beinghere today.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Thank you, Jumi.
It is an honor to be here.
Thank you so much for justallowing me to speak about
things that are deeply importantto the depths of my soul.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I cannot wait to get into this conversation because
point addiction is somethingthat we hear a lot about, but it
usually mostly affects men.
But what was interesting aboutyour story and me wanting to
talk to you is that you had anexperience that made you develop
an addiction to sex.
(04:26):
Right, so you said that you atea naturally occurring seafood,
which led to brain damage, ptsdand hypersexuality disorders.
So can you please talk aboutthat experience and when you
realize like oh my gosh, I havea sex addiction and this is the
cause of it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, so back in February 2016, I ate the wrong
batch of smoked canned oystersthat had a naturally occurring
seafood neurotoxin and it ismicroscopic.
It's so tiny that it can passthrough the blood brain barrier,
which not a lot of things cando that.
That barrier exists to protectour brain, but some things pass
(05:07):
through and essentially, thisneurotoxin it's a neurotoxin and
it gave me a 19 millimeterlesion on the left front lobe of
my brain.
It does certain things likeunravel the myelin sheath and
the nerves.
It massively attacks thecardiovascular system, my entire
autonomic nervous system.
It was just like wreaking havocat really high risk of cardiac
(05:31):
arrest all the time.
Extreme physical pain and notknowing if it was going to take
my life or not, reinforcingpreexisting subconscious beliefs
around low self worth andadequacy, fear of rejection,
things like that that werealready there, that I didn't
have the awareness that thosethings were there until the gift
(05:52):
of brain damage and trauma andaddiction entered my life so
that I could kind of be likewoken up to the truth of who I
am.
And you know, for me it was sexaddiction which was just with
that.
When it comes to that type ofaddiction, it's oftentimes an
(06:14):
extreme form of externalvalidation seeking.
When someone has such anextremely subconscious low self
worth, the subconscious mindsays how do I go and not get
rejected?
And so the subconscious mindwill create a really strong and
powerful, essentially sexualurges.
And then you're compelled to goout and act on those and the
(06:39):
subconscious mind says I must beworth something.
I wasn't rejected, I wasaccepted by someone, and so it's
.
It's really became an extremeform of external validation
seeking, and that is extremelycommon, with oftentimes without
the awareness of that happeningand that there's a whole rabbit
(06:59):
hole.
We could go down the whole likewith that but essentially this
neurotoxin, I didn't know if Iwas gonna take my life or not,
and after I was doing all of thephysical stuff to heal, it was
helping, but I hit a plateau,and that plateau eventually,
after several years of trying toheal, I learned that the
(07:22):
biggest missing factor Washealing from trauma.
Healing from trauma Allowed mybody to then physically heal and
so I had the very, very obviousPTSD as an adult and I was
reading a book Called the bodykeeps the score.
The body keeps the score is alike an amazing book around
(07:47):
Learning about trauma adulttrauma, childhood trauma, you
name it and I almost skippedover the chapter or the the
section of the book aroundChildhood trauma because I was
like, oh, that doesn't relate tome.
I just this is this veryobvious adult thing.
But I decided to go ahead andread it anyway and this was one
of the most eye-opening momentsof my entire life, as I was
(08:08):
reading what childhood trauma is.
This was I was in my 30s I'm 39years old now and I was reading
this probably held back in 2018or so I Realized I actually had
a lot of childhood trauma and Ihad gone my entire life without
realizing it and in that momentI felt so totally just broken,
(08:31):
unfixable, destroyed, outcast.
And it was On top of all thetrauma that I was already
experiencing.
And this was a a self-awarenessmoment that I felt like
destroyed me.
The self-awareness almost mademe go deeper, because I felt
broken and unfixable, because atthat time, there were some key,
(08:52):
important things that I wasmissing but I did not know about
.
I didn't know that you couldheal from trauma and I didn't
know that trauma is all aroundus.
It is so common and most people, most adults who have childhood
trauma, are unaware that theyhave childhood trauma because we
(09:13):
think of it as something likethis is you were beaten or
sexually abused or somethingreally severely and obvious
happened to you.
But that's not how mostchildhood trauma is, and so I am
getting a little bit deep downa rabbit hole with the question.
This is good.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
No, this is good, and I think you're touching on a
lot of things that I'm I want todive deeper into.
Right, because trauma is a bigComponent to a lot of people
having addictions, and Dr GaborMonta says that there's a big T
and there's little T, right?
So big T trauma is what youwere just referencing, which is
(09:52):
when people feel like they'rephysically abused, like
something, an event happens thatis obviously so dramatic that
People will consider that trauma.
But the little T is stuff likehe gave an example in his book
the myth of normal, where hetalked about, for example, a
child not having their needs metis a form of Little trauma and
(10:17):
that also affects us on asubconscious level.
So you are touching on a lot ofthings that I want to dig
deeper into, but I just want tomake sure I fully understand,
right?
So after you had you ate thistoxin, right?
This, the seafood that had thistoxin that affected you on a
neuro level is Is everyone whoeats Seafood and that has toxin
(10:42):
in it susceptible to getting asex addiction?
Or Could it have been anything?
And how does, and how exactlydoes, a neurotoxin trigger an
addiction?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That's a great question.
So the name of this particularneurotoxin is called Sigua Terra
neurotoxin.
A lot of people who arefishermen and like the Pacific
are aware of it and essentially,you know, I have a friend who
had a black toxic mold exposureand she developed hypersexuality
Disorder as well, and it'sanother type of microscopic
(11:18):
neurotoxin.
But it's not necessarily just amicroscopic neurotoxin.
That is the the key factor here.
What it's doing is Anything inour life that triggers a
tremendous and I mean atremendous stress response.
That's a stress response.
The common factor is the stressresponse, no matter what caused
(11:40):
it, no matter who you are, nomatter what your background was.
And for some people it mighttrigger a sex addiction.
For some people that mighttrigger alcoholism or a gaming
addiction or social mediaaddiction.
These are Acting as escapism'sescapism outlets.
When you know anything that'saddictive, it's not Pursuing the
(12:02):
pleasure.
It's really escaping the pain,the pain of the realities of
life.
When you haven't yet learnedhow to self-regulate, how to
cope in a healthy way, how toheal on a deep level.
And when we heal on a deeplevel, we no longer feel the
need to escape from the realityof life.
Yes, we change our life so thatit's better and hardships will
(12:25):
continue to come, no matter whowe are.
That it's.
What choices do we make whenthe hardships come knocking at
our door, down to our gettingrid of our self-sabotaging
thoughts that trigger aninternal stress response.
What choices are we making?
What thoughts are we having?
What are the what?
(12:47):
What is our subconsciousprogramming around emotional
responses to certain things thattrigger us?
How are we responding?
And so the Unifying factor forany addiction is a stress
response that's happening in thebody.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It does it does.
So that's really good, right,and I think part of your work
and the things that you touch onis the fact that A lot of times
people develop addictionsbecause they don't feel safe on
the inside, right.
So I want to talk about all ofthat.
But you know, with yourexperience, that led you to
(13:24):
getting different certificationsto start coaching people who
Also have a similar sexaddiction, particularly porn
addiction.
So can you talk a little bitabout why?
I mean, I guess I can say it'sobvious why you probably
developed a passion for this.
But I would like to hear fromyou what, as you were going
(13:44):
through your healing journey,when did you realize, like you
know what?
This is a big problem, right,and not everyone has.
Most people who have a pornaddiction.
It does not come from, you know, having a neuro toxin affecting
them, but it obviously comesfrom a point of Not feeling safe
within them, some sort oftrauma.
So when did you realize, like,okay, there's a connection here
(14:05):
and, as I'm healing, I think Ican actually Be a coach and help
people heal from porn addiction.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, so thank you for this question.
Essentially, when I was goingthrough my healing journey and
when I was in the throws andlike the apex of the most
challenging part of my PTSD andthe brain damage and all that
stuff that was happening duringthat time, I Didn't even
categorize myself as beingaddicted to sex.
(14:35):
I still had blinders on to thatand we can kind of get into
that part as as well, if youwant to.
As far as some of this betweensex addiction and porn addiction
, I Was dating a man for threeyears who was severely addicted
to pornography and alcohol andpoppers and something and would
(14:58):
casually do cocaine and therewas a lot of stuff going on.
And when you got to really knowhis story, he actually had a
tremendous trauma in his ownlife with his family, and just
some of the stories would breakmy heart and and so I got to
learn that pornography addictionwas even a thing once he
entered my life and Looking backthere were.
(15:21):
I now can see that there wereseveral guys that I was with in
the past who I dated, who wereaddicted to pornography, but I
had no idea at all.
I just didn't know it was athing and so I saw the
tremendous pain and sufferingthat he was in on a deep and
(15:42):
incredible level.
And so there was thisinteresting thing that had to
happen where I was feelingdeeply rejected and hurt and
confused of why this man who Iwas dating would prefer the
pornographic experience over methe only time he would really
(16:05):
prefer.
Prefer it for me would be like,say, if I had made a video for
him where I was just speaking tohim, and then he would, you
know, do that in his own time.
But if it's face to face, thenthere would be too much social
pressure, social anxiety, aperformance anxiety, and so
(16:25):
that's a one big reason why porninduced erectile dysfunction is
Really big with porn watchers.
That's one of the reasons.
And then to the brain develops.
When with heavy porn watchers,the brain develops neuro
pathways to say, I Only getsexually aroused and have the
sexual experience when I amalone and with a digital screen
(16:48):
in front of me, and so Then,when they get face-to-face with
a real person, theirsubconscious mind isn't even
allowing them to get aroused, orif it is, it's to a much lower
degree, and their mind has toimagine pornographic acts the
whole time in order to stayaroused, and they're essentially
Not connecting with you as anindividual.
(17:10):
They're connecting withpornography in their mind, kind
of using your body as aglorified masturbation tool at
that point.
And so the partner that I waswith at the time, he would
actually reject my sexualadvances like 99% of the time
Because he there was too muchsocial performance anxiety,
social anxiety around it and hejust wouldn't be aroused.
(17:32):
And so Me, I was feeling deeplyhurt, deeply rejected, deeply
confused, and that significantlylowered my subconscious
self-worth.
And we were on and off severaltimes.
You know we weren't dating thewhole time, would be on and off.
Sometimes he lived with me,sometimes not.
Sometimes, you know, he wouldbreak up with me like multiple
(17:55):
times, and I think he would dothat specifically because he
realized he wasn't providingAnything for me that I was
looking for on it an emotionallevel, the connection level, a
Commitment level, the sexuallevel, like and I think that Me
being in his life in that waywanting these things, put a
(18:15):
tremendous amount of pressure onhim that was overwhelming to
him and then made him feelinadequate even more and so one
of the diet to do was, insteadof feeling.
You know, one of the things thatI did in the past and I think
many women fall I don't want tosay victim to it, fall, I don't
even know the words to put on itbut it's Defining your
(18:38):
self-worth.
What I did, what my self-worthon a subconscious level, was
based off of my sexualexperiences with men.
You know, a lot of times withporn addiction, someone's not
necessarily seeking thatexternal validation, it's just
there's a stressor in my life.
I want to escape and have atemporary Relief from whatever
(19:01):
is stressing me out.
Pornography is an outlet forthat and so and but Kind of, to
put it into simple terms, theoftentimes with a sex addiction,
it's there can be overlaps whatI'm going to say with the sex
addiction, all of it can haveoverlaps with porn addiction,
but it doesn't always exist inan individual with porn
(19:23):
addiction.
And so, okay, I'll kind of Startback when I was my earliest
memory of feeling that Externalvalidation through the sexual
experience and it's really.
It boosts the ego Through thisexternal validation and it's an
extremely high dopamineexperience.
(19:45):
It's riding that dopamine highof the external validation.
And I remember when I was maybe, oh, I want to say 14 years old
, and I was walking across town,walking over the bridge,
walking over the Fox RiverBridge and In McHenry, illinois,
with my cousin, my cousinSelena, and it was a summertime,
(20:07):
we had short shorts on and tanktops and this red truck drove
by and they whistled out of thetruck and gave a gesture and In
and I knew it was the first timeI'd ever experienced attention
from a male or a man.
(20:29):
That made me feel valuable, butthe value was based purely on
Sexuality.
I hadn't even hit three.
Yet I was a late bloomer Reaper.
Was that hitting on the child?
I Was like 75 pounds.
My cousin had hit pubertysooner and she was, you know,
(20:53):
looked more womanly than I did,so probably at her.
But I remember getting thisExtremely strong rush of
excitement in my body and thatwas a dopamine high.
That was my first hit of thedrug.
That was my first hit of thedrug in that.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And my subconscious mind remembered that and then
took it to a deeper level andsaid let's explore that to a
deeper level, which is exactlywhat it did when I got brain
damage in the PTSD, and I thinka part of that is One of the
neurochemicals required forhealing Physically and
emotionally, and especially fromtrauma is oxytocin.
(21:36):
What can elevate the hox of theoxytocin levels, naturally,
more than anything else, asexual experience.
So I think it could have beensome of the subconscious minds
innate wisdom, but doing it inkind of a messed up way of hey,
go get the sexual experience,elevate your oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a requiredneurochemical to heal from
(21:58):
trauma.
You have trauma.
Go get that sexual experience,go get connection with another
individual and go get notrejected.
But it turned into a sexaddiction.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about too and I
think we touched on this earlierand you touch on this in your
work Is that you know, trauma isone way of looking at it but,
like you said, it's also kind offeeling internal stress and not
feeling safe or validatedwithin you, and I think that's a
lot of what comes with thehealing right.
But you know, when someone hasan addiction like you said, you
(22:29):
didn't realize that you had asex addiction for a while what
are the signs that Can letsomeone know like hey, this is
an addiction here, this isbecoming a problem if a Stress
response is what happens rightbefore the urge for the sexual
(22:49):
experience, paying attention tothe emotions that are present
right before the the sexual urgecomes on.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
So that's one part of it.
And If someone's unsure, giveyourself a test, put it to the
test and say I'm not going toengage in this activity for the
next 30 days.
And if you can't do it, thenyou're probably on some spectrum
of addiction.
And If you notice insomniacoming up, your ability coming
(23:25):
up, maybe just more emotionaltowards things, if you notice
yourself wanting to eat morejunk food or do mindless
scrolling or any of those typesof behaviors, more video games,
these can all serve as otherescapism behaviors.
So if you, if you're using itas an escapism and then you take
(23:46):
it away, you're probably gonnabe more.
The subconscious mind is sneaky, it goes oh, if you're not
gonna give it to us this way,well, we just need our same
neurochemical fix.
Why don't you go play videogames for five hours?
Why don't you go eat some junkfood?
Why don't you go scroll somesocial media mindlessly, without
intention, and just so?
(24:07):
These other Addictive behaviorscan begin to show up To a
stronger degree and a lot ofpeople don't realize that
they're addicted Because anddoctor Anna Lemke describes this
amazingly she's an addictionrecovery expert.
She's been doing it for yeah, Ithink at least 20 years.
(24:30):
She has an amazing book calleddopamine nation.
She goes.
A lot of people don't realizethey're addicted.
They're like oh well, I onlysmoke weed three times a week, I
only played video games twice aweek, I only eat fast food
twice a week, I only and they'rejust listing all of these.
They're just at that constantdopamine high of something.
And then in between all ofthose Activities are just
(24:51):
pulling out your phone and doingsome mindless scrolling.
I have five minutes here, fiveminutes there and the baseline
level of dopamine has beenreally raised up.
And when not engaged in one ofthose higher dopamine activities
, life feels bull and dull andboring.
Adhd symptoms come on.
There's that wandering mindsyndrome, and I call it, and it
(25:14):
can be harder to engage inconversation, it can be harder
to focus, it can be harder tohave discipline, motivation,
more difficulty accomplishinggoals, things like that.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, I think we live in a society that Thrives on us
being addicted to things, andthat's a whole other rabbit hole
that we can get into.
But I want to zero in on yourwork with men, with porn
addiction, right, because Ithink a lot of what you're
talking about can be applied tonot just porn addiction or sex
addiction.
And but I want to zero in onyour work particularly with men.
(25:46):
Do you have any stats on thenumber of men who are struggling
with porn addiction and whatthat age group is like?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So there's not, in general, a ton of stats on this,
particularly because even whensomeone is addicted, they're
usually not aware, and whensomeone is aware, it takes a
tremendous amount of bravery Toadmit it to someone else, even
on an anonymous survey.
It can be difficult to to reallysay the truth of the situation,
(26:19):
and so the only stat that I'veI've read in recent times and I
don't even remember the sourceof this, and I I do not like
saying stats without providingthe source, but in North America
there has been 20 million menwho have admitted to being
(26:40):
addicted to pornography, andthat's Taking.
It has the self-awareness toknow it's there in the bravery
to admit to it.
So the number is far more than29 million, and women get
addicted as well, but I do workwith just men, um, and so we
don't really know the truenumbers, but I I there's so many
(27:04):
.
I only work with adult men, butthere are teenagers.
So many, like 13 year olds, areaddicted.
Average age of exposure is 11years old, and that number is
Getting younger and younger withtime through smartphone.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
What kids do now on the playground is they all have
their smartphones and in youknow fifth grade they're all
pulling out pornography andthey're standing in a circle
Seeing who can pull up the mostextreme pornography and they're
all showing it to each other andlaughing and making you know
extreme faces.
But it's doing something totheir subconscious mind and now,
(27:41):
when they're home alone intheir room, they're exploring
and going deep down the rabbithole of pornography and a lot of
kids, by the time they're 12years old, are already addicted.
You wouldn't believe the numberof minors who reach out to me
for help and I say I can't helpyou unless you're a parent, you
(28:02):
have to have a legal guardianhere with you and that.
So I've only worked with adultmen.
I don't even know thelegalities about working with
minors on that, um, so I haven'teven gone down that route.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's very scary the world we live in and I 100
percent believe that with the,with smartphones even before
smartphones, um, you know,before smartphones became pretty
rampant, I think you knowexposure was still happening,
but now it's probably, you know,increased exponentially.
So, with the men that you workwith, right, because obviously
(28:37):
sometimes, for example, if, ifwe were to use food as an
example, when you eat somethingthat tastes really good, you're
not automatically thinking I'mgonna continue to, you just eat
till oblivion, right, iteventually becomes something you
turn to for comfort when you'restressed or there's some sort
of trauma, etc.
So, with the men that you workwith, is there like a pattern of
(29:00):
the type of trauma that they'rethey typically deal with that
Lead them to seeking outpornography as a way to cope
with whatever trauma thatthey're dealing with?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I wouldn't necessarily say there's a
unifying, specific type oftrauma.
One of the things that is verycommon, I would say, with most
of my clients, but not all, isthat At least one of their
parents was not emotionallyavailable to them as a as a kid
okay and I love dr Gabor mate'swork.
He's one of my heroes, and soit sounds like you're really
(29:34):
familiar with him too, and whatthat teaches to the subconscious
mind of a child.
There's the only one way thatthat can be interpreted, and
that's I'm not worthy, I'm notlovable, I'm not good enough,
I'm inadequate.
If I was lovable, worthy,adequate, then I would be
receiving the love, theattention, the emotional
availability from both of myparents.
(29:56):
And if that's not happening,then the subconscious mind
doesn't feel loved and that'strauma right there.
Yes there's that feeling ofinsecurity in the subconscious
mind, and the subconscious mind,it's number one role is to keep
us safe.
And if it doesn't feel safe,then it says we need to escape
this feeling of feeling unsafe.
(30:18):
And everything that's addictiveprovides the neurochemicals to
provide a false sense ofsecurity, a false sense of being
safe.
And so the subconscious mindthen learns I'm only safe when I
engage in this addictivebehavior or substance.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yes, and even in society there are lots of talks
about how men are not reallyencouraged to be vulnerable and
men tend to seem like the groupor demographic that people kind
of oh well, they'll figure itout right.
So I wonder as well if some ofthat is going on when it comes
(31:03):
to that Desire to run to porn orwhatever their vice is.
But obviously we're talking,we're focusing mostly on porn
addiction, because it's like youknow, there's no outlet to
really Fully express Themselves,and is that when you work with
them?
Is that something that you guystalk about?
(31:23):
Yes, I am so glad you broughtthis up.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Every single Monday night and I'll probably be
adding more I host somethingcalled bravery boot camp and it
is a platform where all of myclients can come on and be
vulnerable and share their truthand tell their story and ask
their questions and share theirwins and feel not alone.
And it is incredible my clientsare my heroes.
(31:49):
They are so brave, they are sovulnerable in a way that makes
them stronger, because Withvulnerability, we have a choice.
We can either escape and runand hide and cower, or you can
be brave and brave into it andlean into it and speak your
truth or make the decision.
(32:12):
That is the difficult decisionthat requires bravery, and so
that's why my my?
heroes.
They're leaning intoVulnerability through being
brave instead of hiding, and yesit's incredible.
It is such an important,important part for healing the
neurology, for for feeling safe,because a part of this healing
(32:36):
journey is Knowing that you canexpress and reveal all parts of
who you are and your identityand your story and where you are
now and where you want to beand not be rejected as a human
being, but being met withkindness, compassion, empathy
and just with open arms.
(32:57):
And when a human being has thatexperience, healing takes place.
Every time, self empowermenttakes place, and so that is a
huge part of what I, what I do,some of the work that I do with
my clients, is allowing them tohave that opportunity, because
it is so challenging in oursociety for men to go out and
(33:18):
create those experiences ontheir own because of the
cultural Talk around it.
You know, there's that falsesense of what it is to be strong
.
What it is to be strong is tobe vulnerable.
That takes strength.
Allowing another person towitness your tears and your
emotions in that moment ofvulnerability.
That is Tremendous as far asthe courage and the strength
(33:43):
that it requires of a person anda lot of people, a lot of men
especially, think I'm strongbecause I'm not showing my
expression, because I'm notshowing my emotion or tears Well
.
In fact, it takes so much morecourage and strength to show it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, I wonder.
I'm just really curious.
You know you being a woman wewere two women here talking
about.
You know addiction, but pornaddiction as it pertains to men,
but we're not men.
Do you ever get clients orpeople who tell you like well,
how can you really help menthrough porn addiction when you
(34:22):
are not a man, like maybe you'vehad a experience with sex
addiction but you don't have theexperience of a man?
Do you ever get that pushback?
And what do you say when people, if people say that to you?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I don't get that and here's why, especially for
my clients, I have them watch aseries of videos before I will
ever even talk to them, beforethey can, all you know, hop on a
free call with one of mycoaches and this and that and
have a free introduction to mycourse.
And it's mandatory for for themto go through that process and
(34:58):
what they learn has them.
They know that they can trustme with their healing journey.
They just kind of have thatlight bulb moment of feeling.
They feel seen and heard andnot judged.
Seen and heard and not judged,oftentimes for the first time
ever.
And that is tremendous To whenyou are living by the emotions
(35:23):
of shame.
Shame makes a person want to runaway, hide and be invisible,
and with pornography addiction,the number one emotion that men
tend to live by is the emotionof shame.
And the way that we heal fromthat is by revealing who you are
and being met with thatkindness, compassion,
(35:44):
understanding, empathy.
And as I share some of thebasic fundamentals, I'll share
my story, some of the basicfundamentals.
I have a video called.
Porn is not the problem and itgoes more into that trauma
conversation.
All of a sudden they feel seen,heard and understood and not
judged for it, when the biggestfear has been, if I'm seen and
(36:07):
heard, I'll be judged andrejected and ostracized, and so
there's that part of it.
But now they're also learningthings about themselves that
they didn't know before.
Before and now they're saying,oh, you know more about me than
I know about me.
(36:28):
I think that I could probablytrust you with helping me
through this and that's beenreally amazing and honestly,
that was one of my fears yearsago was that I would get a lot
of that backlash, and I got someof it at first, but then I
(36:48):
learned how to present myselfand I learned how to communicate
, and I learned so much moreknowledge about this over the
years that I can't even rememberthe last time someone came at
me with that Like, oh, you're awoman, how could you help me
with this?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, because I think your work speaks for itself.
I mean, I went through yourpage and there are so many
resources and so many shortvideos of you kind of talking
about what you do, the processand how you can really help your
clients or anybody seeking helpfor porn addiction.
So so I want to ask you whatare the three D's to addiction
(37:29):
recovery?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yes.
So detect, define, download.
This was something that I Icame up with.
It was a process that wasalready in action.
It was a process I did withmyself.
It was a process I taught myclients and over the years I
figured out this fun, easy toremember name.
So detect, define, download.
(37:51):
We don't need 12 steps, we onlyneed three and essentially it's
so the detect part.
I'm rolling up my sleeves forthis one.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
It's good.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
So detect.
This is all aroundself-awareness, and it's being
your own detective of who youare, these parts of who you are
that have been hidden in theshadows either hidden in the
shadows that you knew aboutyourself but didn't want to talk
to other people, but even moreso, that have been hidden from
yourself, a part of who you are,a part of your identity, on a
(38:25):
subconscious level.
These are patterns that we showup in.
There's thought patterns,behavioral patterns, all these
different things, emotionalresponse patterns, and so I walk
my clients through how to bemore aware, self-aware than they
have ever been.
Even the men who have beendoing the self-discovery work
for years come here and learnhow to take it to a much deeper
(38:49):
level.
Every single little patternthat shows up in life like a
self-sabotaging thought thatcontributes to lower the
subconscious self-worth, thatlowers the self-compassion.
We have to become aware of allof those thoughts, and so let's
detect what those are Everylittle choice and decision and
(39:10):
micro-decision, large ones,small ones to see.
Okay, these patterns, when theyshow up, they lower my
potential as an individual, theyincrease the stress response,
they hold me back from thethings that matter to me, and so
it's.
Let's become so acutely awareof what these are so that the
moment they show up we haveawareness that it's happening.
(39:32):
And the reason why we need thatawareness when it shows up in
the moment is so we can dosomething called a pattern
interrupt.
You interrupt the old patternof the past and I teach my
clients how to replace it with anew, healthy pattern.
Detect what it is or what ithas been.
(39:52):
And now this is where we kind ofget to the second D is define.
Define what you would ratherhave that pattern be.
Instead, define what you wantit to look like when you have a
job interview.
Maybe your pattern of the pastwould be I'm not good enough,
I'm going to mess up, I'm goingto say the wrong thing.
They're not going to pick me,I'll wear the wrong thing, I'm
going to be late.
If those are the old patterns,what would you rather have your
(40:15):
new pattern be?
I'm going to crush it.
I can't wait for this jobinterview Having.
So it's pre-defining what youwould want your subconscious
autopilot to be, so that the newpattern is this is showing up
without me having to put effortin it showing up just because
it's who I am.
(40:36):
And so every pattern we startwith the detect and then we
define what it would rather beinstead.
So a lot of my clients theydefined, they detected and
defined a long time ago thatthey want to get rid of porn
addiction, but they're stillshowing up in that way.
So that brings us to the thirdD is download.
You got to download it intoyour subconscious mind so that
(40:56):
it is your new subconsciousautopilot.
You show up, without evenhaving to think about it, your
new thoughts, your new choices,your new emotional responses to
certain things.
They're showing up in the waythat you defined, that you want
them to be, and this makes upour identity, all these
subconscious patterns.
And so detect, define, downloadand we go deep into these, and
(41:21):
those are good Thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Those are, those are good Detect, define, download.
As you were talking, I wasthinking about the conversation
that I had with the psychologistand somatic therapist, dr Luke
Snusky, and he helps men as wellwith porn addiction recovery
and we were talking aboutsomatic therapy and, how you
know, talk therapy can only takeyou so far.
(41:45):
At some point you have to dropinto your body and kind of
figure out what's going on, likerealize that you're having a
stress response and also take,also think as well, like okay,
I'm being triggered, I feelstress within my body and it's
making me want to run to porn.
So he talked about sitting withthat discomfort and letting it
(42:10):
and writing it out and notacting on it, which kind of
sounds like the defined partwhere it's like okay, what do I
want that new habit to be, orwhat would I rather do then turn
to porn.
So if you were to give like aexample or an analogy, you know,
if someone who has detectedthat they have a stress response
(42:32):
and they want to go to porn,what, how could they, what would
be the action or what would bethe download or thought patterns
that they would have to kind ofembody to move through that
space of turning to porn?
Would they have to add a newaction, would they?
Should they replace going toporn to going for a run?
(42:54):
You know what I mean?
Or should they write it out, orI guess it's probably unique to
everyone.
But could you, kind of likewith the three D's, give an
example of you know how somebodycould really use and implement
that tool?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, so, and you kind of already answered it in
yourself, you're like it's likeeveryone and it totally isn't
even yeah.
One individual that could lookdifferent depending on the day,
depending on the circumstance.
And so say you've detectedbeing addicted to pornography.
You've defined, you, no longerwant to watch pornography.
(43:30):
The urge comes up to watchpornography.
You notice that you have thatawareness.
That's the time you do what'scalled a pattern interrupt.
You interrupt that pattern thathas been showing up
continuously.
And so this is where getting toknow yourself, getting to be
more in touch with yourself,leaning into your intuition and
experimenting, and so say like,hmm, I've been sitting at a
(43:54):
computer all day, maybe a runwould benefit my mind and body,
doing something, something,anything physical, because I
haven't been physical all day.
Maybe I have a physical job,maybe I'm, I have a job where
I'm doing labor and bricklaying,or, you know, putting on a new
roof, something where it's wow,my body's exhausted.
(44:14):
I'm not going to go for a run,I just and saying, hmm, maybe a
meditation, maybe a warm bath orshower, maybe something more on
the relaxing side to balanceout your day.
Yes, things like that.
And so I teach my clients thepattern interrupts that are
(44:35):
beneficial and then the onesthat are harmful, and how to
learn which ones to use when themoment arises.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Essentially, yeah, and I think with what you just
said, with 3Ds it looks likesomething anyone who's
struggling with addictiondifferent types of addiction
could probably use.
Right, it's not just for pornaddiction, correct, correct?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Anyone who and if anyone wants there's, you know,
on my website I go deeper intothis with visuals and a longer
explanation of the 3Ds.
And you want to?
Any addiction and even ifsomeone doesn't have an
addiction, you can use the 3Ds.
For maybe you are just someonewho has a lot of self-sabotaging
, negative self-talk, right, the3Ds will work for that.
(45:19):
Any bad habit that you want tobreak, anything it's there's so
much you can apply it towards,right?
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Okay, yeah, Do you buy into?
I know that you useneuroscience and and psychology
to help your clients kind of getthrough their addiction.
People say addiction is adisease.
Right, Do you buy into that?
Because it sounds daunting thenhow do you heal Cause?
People say you can go intoremission with a disease, but
(45:47):
it's always still kind of likelurking in the shadows.
So one, do you buy into thenotion that addiction is a
disease and can someone fullyrecover to a point where they
can live the rest of their lifewithout having to struggle with
that addiction?
Yeah, I do not believe it's adisease.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
And I think one of the worst sayings out there is
that once an addict, always anaddict.
That is so, not true.
Anyone who says that I islacking understanding of the
healing journey and the depthsof the healing that any human
being can take on.
And when you no longer need aprogram, when you no longer need
(46:29):
a program, when you no longerneed to use all of these
strategies on that regular basis, like you're just, you're an
individual in the world who isno longer worried about relapse,
and like I have zero, there's,there's no worry in my mind, and
it's been that way for years.
And I know others who are inthat same spot.
(46:49):
And it's, it's incredible.
What we can do, Like the onlyway to really make it happen, is
to go to those incredibly deephealing layers within ourselves.
And what Dr Gabor Matte says andI completely agree with him you
(47:10):
know he's a world's leadingexpert on trauma, childhood
trauma, ADHD, addiction is sohorn is not the problem,
Addiction is not the problem.
It's unresolved childhoodtrauma.
Addiction is merely a symptomof unresolved childhood trauma.
(47:30):
So at the core of my course,it's a trauma healing course
really.
And when we are able to healfrom trauma, then addiction is
no longer a problem.
It just the subconscious mindhas no use for it has no use.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yes, I agree and I think that you know, I believe
words are powerful and a lot oftimes when I hear experts say
and other people say, like youknow, trauma is, um, I mean
sorry, addiction is a diseaseand you know, once an addict,
always an addict, I feel likethat's a self-fulfilling
prophecy and actuallycounterintuitive to actually
(48:12):
radically healing and movingthrough it, because you're
basically those words mean likewe're, we're putting a band-aid
over this but it's never goingto fully heal, right?
And I think I, like what yousaid at the core of your work,
really and truly is like healing.
So I I 100% agree with that.
Another thing people say, youknow, when it comes to the whole
(48:35):
notion of like porn addictionand you know sexuality and all
of that stuff, you know peoplealways say, well, men will be
men.
You know men are visualcreatures and it's it makes
sense that they're, you know,really into sex and really into
porn.
So do some men that you workwith have experiences where like
(48:57):
, oh, I was just encouraged tobe hyper sexual, I was
encouraged to watch porn and Ijust thought this was normal
because I'm a man?
Do you work with clients whohave that story and how do you
get them through on learningthat?
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yes, so I definitely have clients where they had
older brothers or cousins orrelatives who showed them
pornography when they were, youknow, pre-pubescent or right as
they were hitting puberty, andsaid hey, you're gonna like this
, you're gonna have fun withthis, and encouraged it.
And then they just kind of wentalong with it and it became
(49:34):
something like oh, that feelsgood the first time, let's keep
doing that, and then it turnsinto an addiction, and so
there's.
That absolutely does happen.
You know, the way that it'sundone is that it's through the,
the 3Ds, it's all because, it'sreally all the 3Ds.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
It's all the 3Ds Detect define download.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Yeah, we just, and so they identify, they they're
detecting the things that areimportant to them and then
they're defining based on that.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, and I think part of that detection is also
detecting some of the storiesthat they've told themselves in
regards to to worth and whatpeople societal expect,
expectations and what they thinkthey're supposed to like, etc.
So I think all of that is ispretty spot on.
And so did you develop the 3Dswith kind of pairing like
neuroscience and psychology?
(50:30):
Like how did you?
I know that obviously you havea background in biology and with
your experience you kind of dugdeeper into the neuro
neurobiology, the neuro part ofit.
So I just want to hear a littlebit more about what you learned
as you dug deeper intoneuroscience and how you were
able to combine it withpsychology.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yes, thank you, and I think you kind of maybe tried
to ask.
You did ask me this earlier andI went down a different route.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
No, no, no, I think.
I don't think.
I explicitly asked you to befair.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah.
So it all started with when Iwas trying to find doctors who
would help me with my braindamage and my cigotera
neurotoxin illness and no onewas giving me any answers and
basically just kind of tossingup their hands and saying, well,
that's, you, just have to livewith it, just tolerate it.
(51:22):
And I would not accept thatbecause my life quality had
gotten so low it didn't feelworth sticking around on this
planet Like it was just soextreme physical pain, extreme
emotional pain, extreme feelingsof I'm a burden, low self worth
.
The physical pain was like Icouldn't even have a
(51:43):
conversation.
A lot of the times I have to gohide in like a dark, quiet room
, and so what I did do, though,is I would dive deep into the
scientific literature.
One of the things.
So I'm a former wildlifebiologist and I had training and
reading.
You know the scientificliterature and this and that,
and so I transferred that skilland just switched and looked at
(52:07):
neurobiology, and I was readingall these published scientific
papers and about the nervoussystem and the brain and the
limbic system and so many partsof of our nervous system and how
it ties into our emotions andhow our emotions can change.
(52:32):
You know our parasympatheticversus the sympathetic nervous
system, and the healing for thephysical body has to take place
when our emotions and ourneurochemicals are in the
parasympathetic.
So we have lower stresshormones, elevated serotonin,
elevated oxytocin, and so Ilearned all of these different
(52:53):
things that I needed to do inorder to make those
neurochemical switches forhealing.
And as I was reading abouttrauma and brain damage and all
this different stuff, therewould be all these addiction
articles, and addiction would beintegrated and kind of laced
into these, these papers, andI'm like I'm not here for
addiction, I'm here for traumahealing and healing my brain and
(53:15):
nervous system.
And I was in dire straits withso much stuff or sometimes, like
my memory was so bad that if,if it was, you know, five years
ago and you and I were havingthis conversation come tomorrow,
I wouldn't even remember thatwe were talking.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
So it was really scary.
It was really scary and I justkind of formulated my own
protocol to heal from trauma.
I kind of learned that throughall this research I kind of put
the pieces together oh, myphysical body is only going to
(53:55):
continue the healing processunder these set of neurochemical
and emotional conditions and Ireally have to do trauma healing
in order to create what myphysical body needs, like the
myth of normal and DrGohormati's book.
And so this was before thatbook was even out and I just
(54:16):
kind of had learned that throughwhat I was researching and
working with the limbic systempart of the brain, there is a
program called DNRS by AnnieHopper which helped me to
identify limiting beliefs andpattern, interrupt away from
(54:37):
them and work on reducing thehyper vigilance of the limbic
system part of my brain which islike the command center for the
stress response.
And eventually, like my solepurpose was like heal from
Sigwitera, neurotoxin illnessheal from adult PTSD.
And then during that I learned,oh, I have childhood trauma that
(54:59):
I have to heal from.
As part of this healing journeyto heal from the Sigwitera
neurotoxin illness and as I wasgoing through all of that, it
eventually it hit me one daythat like, oh my gosh, I.
This is a perfect formula foranyone with any addiction to
overcome any addiction to thecore of who they are, to the
(55:22):
depths of their soul.
And with having been in lovewith a man who was addicted to
pornography, my subconsciousmind presented the question who
needs this the most?
Men suffering from pornographyaddiction?
It was all just sort ofhappened.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
I think that's really really good Like.
It just seems like you know ourlife.
We always think about purpose.
Actually had a conversationwith another guest Recently when
we're talking about purpose andhe mentioned the three P's,
priority principles and passionright, and I think you know,
based on what you went through,I think you developed a passion
(56:01):
for healing and moving throughaddiction and then that also
unraveled different things inregard in regards to trauma and
all of that stuff which becamelike probably a life principle
for you is just like healing andmoving through in trauma and
then it eventually became apriority and you found purpose
in this work.
So that's really interesting tohear.
(56:24):
And another thing I saw on yourwebsite is that you know a lot
of men that have gone throughyour program and they've given
their testimony.
There's there's like a patternof a lot of them getting closer
to God or becoming morespiritual.
Can you just talk about that alittle bit more?
And why do you think walkingdown that path of healing and
(56:44):
addiction recovery brings peoplecloser to a spiritual practice?
Or, you know, getting closer toGod?
Speaker 2 (56:52):
This is a powerful question, and so you know my
course is designed for anyonewho wants to over, any man who
wants to overcome porn addiction, even atheists.
I have it set up in a way sothat they feel welcome.
When I got brain damage, I wasan atheist.
My healing journey Interesting.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Oh we need to get into that.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah, yeah my healing journey sent me also on a
spiritual awakening.
It's it and I don't put that onanyone.
It is zero part of my agendafor anyone else to believe what
I believe.
It is so personal that itdoesn't matter to me if other
people believe it.
It is like it's mine.
(57:36):
And if other people you knowmost of my, my clients, I would
say probably at least 95 percentof my clients are men of faith,
of different religions.
A lot of them are Christians,lds, jewish, I mean they're
(57:58):
Muslims, and then I do have afew atheist clients as well and
I love and welcome them all.
And I do teach a little bitabout the, the neuroscience of
spirituality.
There is a book.
There is a book by Lisa Miller.
I think it's called theAwakened Brain.
I believe so, by Lisa Miller,and she did a really robust
(58:23):
study on the science ofspirituality and I was
interested in it because I hadalready dove into my spiritual
awakening.
Well, I don't want to say I doveinto my spiritual awakening.
That makes it sound like I wasseeking it out and it was just a
something that beautifullyshowed up in my healing journey,
and so I allow my clients, ifthey want to, to speak about
(58:49):
that, but in a way where it'snot there's no agenda for
another person to believe whatthey believe it's.
How is it helping you in yourown personal journey?
And so I almost never talkabout my own spiritual
experiences with my clients.
I will, if they ask if it's oneon one, but if it's in a whole
room, I'm like I just I onlywant to share it if everyone in
(59:11):
the room wants to hear it andthat's there's.
I don't know if there's anyother thing in my life where
that's the case.
Speaker 1 (59:20):
I'd love to hear it.
I'd love to hear if you don'tmind sharing right?
Because I think, on a word tothe wise, I part of why I love
having these types ofconversations is just really I
think you know there's a mind,body, spirit connection.
I'm a huge believer in that andwe are not just our bodies,
we're so much more than that andthe spirit part of it kind of
(59:42):
talks dives into themetaphysical components of being
a human being and keeping usgrounded in addition to our mind
and our body.
So I would love to hear if youdon't mind sharing your
spiritual awakening.
Being an atheist prior to youknow having your addiction
triggered to healing and thenhaving a spiritual awakening and
(01:00:05):
you know, getting closer to ahigher power.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Yeah.
So I was raised as a Jehovah'sWitness and then found, found
science and then turned atheist,even though a lot of people
find science and they find thatit deepens their spirituality.
And essentially getting intomeditation, where I was doing a
lot of Dr Joe Dispenzameditations and I had some
(01:00:33):
pretty profound experiences,especially when I went to one of
his seven day advancedmeditation retreats Experiences
where I don't even know how toput words on it or explain it or
describe it, but just kind ofthat feeling connected to it,
kind of that feeling connectedto everyone and everything, and
like just having that feelingthat there is, there's something
(01:00:57):
at play here that's larger thanme, that's larger than all of
us and is all of us in a way.
It's really hard to put towords and there were just
certain experiences that I beganto have in my life, that I
still continue to have, that itcan't be coincidence, like there
(01:01:22):
is something big and powerfuland special and important here
and I think that, whatever thatis, I believe it's the same core
essence that every religionaround the world experiences.
There's just as human beingsthere are enough of us around
(01:01:45):
the world for, as far as we know, that humans have been here
that we've just had certainexperiences that say, wow, this
is bigger than me, and we try tomake sense of it.
That is the best that we can.
And so these experiences thatjust keep happening to me, like
(01:02:07):
I'll give an example, if that'sokay, yeah, that's okay.
So, oh, maybe two years ago orso, I had just enrolled a client
into my program and it was soexciting and at the end of our
call he asked if he could prayfor me and my atheist version of
(01:02:33):
the past would have been likeit would have been.
I would have just said yes, outof common courtesy, even though
I would have hated it.
But this was a new experiencebecause I felt open to it.
I felt open to the experienceand I realized I would have felt
open to the experience nomatter what religious faith he
was in.
He happened to be a Christianman and his gift was the gift of
(01:02:56):
prayer and it was his favorite.
He loved praying, he loved it,and there were certain things
that he said, certain with hiswords that it was like how the
heck do you know this about me?
I have anyone this andbeforehand he goes.
(01:03:18):
I just he's like, I just wantyou to know that I just let the
divine, like, speak through meand I don't know what I'm going
to say, but stuff just comes outand I just didn't think much of
it.
And then, when he was speaking,I was floored.
I was floored by what he wassaying.
It was like he knew thingsabout me that he shouldn't have
(01:03:39):
known.
But the words were like oh mygosh, how are you saying this
right now?
How do you know me to thislevel?
And that was a spiritualexperience for me.
And other things beganhappening where I would approach
the divine, would a person inmy life who I care about would
(01:04:00):
enter my mind and I would have acertain emotional response
about them, and then I wouldhear from them like immediately
after, and they would get, theywould share something with me,
and what they shared with mematched the emotional response
that I was experiencing andthinking about them as and I'm
like what the heck is going on.
Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
That is crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
And I just have to think, like you know what, if
this is happening at a frequencybeyond coincidence and there's
nothing, there's nothing specialabout me that this is happening
, Every single human being cando this or something.
I don't know what to call it.
We all have some unique abilityor we can all do this.
(01:04:45):
I don't know.
It's almost feels like it feelslike empathy from afar.
It feels like empathy from afarand it makes me feel like we're
all connected in the same exactway, on the same level, and
when we are tapped into ourspiritual side and have that
more openness and we payattention, that we begin to
(01:05:09):
notice these things, I thinkthere may be happening to
everyone to some level.
Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Thank you for sharing such a powerful story.
I think what you weredescribing a little bit sounded
like clear sentience, which Ihope I'm not getting this wrong
but it's when you have psychicknowing and you feel it in your
body.
I believe that's what it is,but, like you said, it sounds
(01:05:35):
like empathy from afar as well.
So thank you for sharing that.
I think that was a great way tokind of round up our
conversation, and I always askmy guests for final words of
wisdom to the listeners.
We've had such a powerfulconversation, so it could be
related to what we've beentalking about or it could be
completely.
It could be somethingcompletely different, that you
(01:05:58):
kind of keeping your back pocketas you go through life.
Yeah, you know the first thingthat's coming to mind.
Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
It's a conversation I had with my clients in bravery
boot camp recently, and theconversation was about honor and
it's honor yourself, but that'seasy to say, but there's all of
these things that come aroundwith it.
Like, what does it even mean tohonor yourself?
Most people don't know what itmeans to honor themselves.
Most people don't knowthemselves deep enough to honor
(01:06:28):
themselves.
Most people aren't makingchoices that have to do with
self respect and honors, thatself respect is part of the
honor conversation and that whenyou honor yourself, it's not
selfish, because the more youhonor yourself, the healthier
you will be as an individual.
(01:06:48):
The healthier you are, the lessstress you have, the more
resilient you are to handlestress, and when we're living in
those conditions, our abilityto give back to others is so
much more.
The way that I honor you is byhonoring me, essentially, and so
(01:07:08):
honor yourself know what itmeans to honor yourself.
Know what that means.
If you were to take a pen andpaper and write out what it
means to honor yourself, writeout what it means when you're
not honoring yourself, would youknow what that looks like?
Would you know what that lookslike?
And when you know what it lookslike, are you acting on it?
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
That's good.
Thank you so much, Jessica.
Where can people find you ifthey want to learn more about
your work or work with you?
Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Yeah, so it's essentially selfcraftedkingcom.
Selfcraftedkingcom as of rightnow.
I'm probably one of the onlypeople who says this.
My front page says don't followme on social media.
Everything you need is righthere and you can either sign up
for my email list or you canstart my program for free.
(01:07:54):
You can watch some of thevideos, you can hop on a free
call with one of my amazingcoaches Once you do an hour
worth of the intro to my courseand it may change in the future
where I have some social mediastuff.
Everyone's telling me I got todo it.
Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Why aren't you on social media?
Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
So it's highly addictive.
There's that one and being onsocial media it's almost.
A lot of people use it as aform of external validation
seeking.
Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I don't want to fall back into that.
I'm okay with like I'm notreally worried about that it
takes up.
Here's why I mean there's a lotof reasons.
How do I go into this?
The times when I'veexperimented with it in the past
, almost everything coming backat me was inappropriate sexual,
(01:08:50):
flirtatious behavior for men whohave no desire to heal or
recover.
They just see a woman talkingabout sex and they want to flirt
with me.
Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
So that's one reason and I'm not signed up for that.
And if, really, everything thatyou need from me is on my
selfcraftedkingcom website, Ihave a bunch of free content on
there to get you going, to getyou to know everything that you
need to learn.
(01:09:19):
If you know you want to workwith me or not?
Yeah, and a lot of my clientswho are the most serious about
recovery, they're not spendingany time on social media.
Social media is a domino effectto relapse, very much so
they're falling.
Even when they delete all theInstagram models, things like
(01:09:41):
that, it still shows up in thealgorithm, no matter how much
you try to delete it.
And so a lot of the people whoare the most serious about
recovery they already know tostay away from social media.
And so that's in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
That's good, yeah, I mean, I think I need to use
social media a lot less, and Itry to do that because, you're
right, there's just so much onthere, hyper stimulating and
very addictive.
So you are ahead of the curve.
Thank you, jessica, forstopping by.
A word to the wise I'm going toput your website in the show
notes, but this is a greatconversation, thank you so much.
Thank you so much, jumi.
Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
This has been an honor.
This was a way to honor myselfand thank you A big shout out to
Jessica Jordan for stopping bythe show.
Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
If you are interested in learning more about Jessica
or you want to send her an emailand you want to work with her,
please check out the show notesfor a link to her email and her
website.
And, most importantly, if youenjoy this episode, if you found
it useful, insightful, if youwere able to gain some resources
(01:10:47):
, if you're struggling with thisand this episode, or this two
part series, has helped youreach out, let me know.
You know because I'm doing this, because I'm hoping that it
reaches the right people whoneed this information, and if
you are one of those people, letme know how you resonated with
this episode.
Thank you so much.
You can follow or to the wiseon Instagram and TikTok at award
(01:11:12):
to the wise pot.
We're also on YouTube at awardto the wise podcast.
Please be sure to subscribe.
If you are enjoying the show.
Please rate, leave a review,share and subscribe wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Till next time, peace and love,always, always, always.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to
the Wise podcast, a space wherewe curate conversations around
mind, body, spirit and personaldevelopment.
I'm your host, Shumi Moses.
You're tuning into part two andthe last part of the short
miniseries I'm calling theaddiction people are too scared
to talk about.
Again, a quick reminder thatthis episode is not for minors,
(00:24):
so please make sure they're notaround.
On the show today is JessicaJordan.
Jessica is a former wildlifebiologist turned expert in
overcoming sex-relatedaddictions.
Following a traumatic incidentthat resulted in brain damage in
2016, Jessica developed PTSDand hypersexuality disorder,
(00:45):
commonly known as sex addiction.
Drawing from her own journey ofhealing, she now offers a
comprehensive recovery programfocused on trauma healing and
porn addiction recovery.
In our discussion, we dive intoJessica's personal battle with
sex addiction, her experiencesdating someone with a similar
struggle and her unique approachto helping men break free from
(01:08):
porn addiction.
Additionally, we explore theimpact of childhood trauma on
addiction recovery and Jessica'sinnovative 3Ds to recovery
method.
One striking fact Jessicawanted to highlight is that one
in six boys are sexuallymolested as children, a
statistic that resonates withmany of her clients who have
(01:28):
also experienced abuse, often atthe hands of women.
So part of the reason I reallywanted to have this conversation
and why I turned it into ashort miniseries, a two-part
miniseries, is because I think,when it comes to sex and porn
addiction, it's something that alot of people don't want to
talk about.
It's very taboo, it's veryhush-hush and a lot of people
don't want to admit tothemselves that they have it.
(01:49):
So I wanted to create a safespace to actually have this
conversation for the people whoare struggling with it and also
here on the World of the Wise.
I like to have conversationsthat center around mind, body,
spirit, and one of the thingsthat really affects our mind,
body and spirit is when we'readdicted to something, and a lot
of people have an addiction topornography and sex.
(02:10):
A lot of men especially, andwomen, are affected by it as
well, but disproportionately itdoes affect men.
So I did want to have thisconversation so that if you are
a man listening to this, it's asafe space, you have resources,
you get more insights and youcan use it in your life to help
you overcome the addiction, ifyou have it.
(02:31):
Or if you're a woman listeningto this and you have dated a man
who struggled with pornaddiction or you are dating a
man who is currently strugglingwith porn addiction.
Hopefully this gives you alittle bit more insight and also
resources that you couldpotentially share with your
partner.
So, again, I think this is avery insightful conversation and
I think it's an importantconversation and more people
(02:52):
need to discuss this type ofaddiction, because it's not
something that people readilysee.
You can easily hide it.
So I think, again, a lot ofpeople want to break the chains
of this addiction, but they justdon't know how to.
Now, in this two part series,we're not able to touch on every
single thing.
So this is just moreeducational, it's more
(03:13):
informative and, again,hopefully there's some resources
and some insights here that youcan use to help move you
forward and out of thisaddiction.
If you have it or you knowsomeone who has it, again you
can relay this information tothem or have them listen to this
episode.
And, with that being said,let's get into the conversation
with Jessica.
Jessica, welcome to A Word tothe Wise.
(03:52):
Thank you so much for beinghere today.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Thank you, Jumi.
It is an honor to be here.
Thank you so much for justallowing me to speak about
things that are deeply importantto the depths of my soul.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I cannot wait to get into this conversation because
point addiction is somethingthat we hear a lot about, but it
usually mostly affects men.
But what was interesting aboutyour story and me wanting to
talk to you is that you had anexperience that made you develop
an addiction to sex.
(04:26):
Right, so you said that you atea naturally occurring seafood,
which led to brain damage, ptsdand hypersexuality disorders.
So can you please talk aboutthat experience and when you
realize like oh my gosh, I havea sex addiction and this is the
cause of it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, so back in February 2016, I ate the wrong
batch of smoked canned oystersthat had a naturally occurring
seafood neurotoxin and it ismicroscopic.
It's so tiny that it can passthrough the blood brain barrier,
which not a lot of things cando that.
That barrier exists to protectour brain, but some things pass
(05:07):
through and essentially, thisneurotoxin it's a neurotoxin and
it gave me a 19 millimeterlesion on the left front lobe of
my brain.
It does certain things likeunravel the myelin sheath and
the nerves.
It massively attacks thecardiovascular system, my entire
autonomic nervous system.
It was just like wreaking havocat really high risk of cardiac
(05:31):
arrest all the time.
Extreme physical pain and notknowing if it was going to take
my life or not, reinforcingpreexisting subconscious beliefs
around low self worth andadequacy, fear of rejection,
things like that that werealready there, that I didn't
have the awareness that thosethings were there until the gift
(05:52):
of brain damage and trauma andaddiction entered my life so
that I could kind of be likewoken up to the truth of who I
am.
And you know, for me it was sexaddiction which was just with
that.
When it comes to that type ofaddiction, it's oftentimes an
(06:14):
extreme form of externalvalidation seeking.
When someone has such anextremely subconscious low self
worth, the subconscious mindsays how do I go and not get
rejected?
And so the subconscious mindwill create a really strong and
powerful, essentially sexualurges.
And then you're compelled to goout and act on those and the
(06:39):
subconscious mind says I must beworth something.
I wasn't rejected, I wasaccepted by someone, and so it's
.
It's really became an extremeform of external validation
seeking, and that is extremelycommon, with oftentimes without
the awareness of that happeningand that there's a whole rabbit
(06:59):
hole.
We could go down the whole likewith that but essentially this
neurotoxin, I didn't know if Iwas gonna take my life or not,
and after I was doing all of thephysical stuff to heal, it was
helping, but I hit a plateau,and that plateau eventually,
after several years of trying toheal, I learned that the
(07:22):
biggest missing factor Washealing from trauma.
Healing from trauma Allowed mybody to then physically heal and
so I had the very, very obviousPTSD as an adult and I was
reading a book Called the bodykeeps the score.
The body keeps the score is alike an amazing book around
(07:47):
Learning about trauma adulttrauma, childhood trauma, you
name it and I almost skippedover the chapter or the the
section of the book aroundChildhood trauma because I was
like, oh, that doesn't relate tome.
I just this is this veryobvious adult thing.
But I decided to go ahead andread it anyway and this was one
of the most eye-opening momentsof my entire life, as I was
(08:08):
reading what childhood trauma is.
This was I was in my 30s I'm 39years old now and I was reading
this probably held back in 2018or so I Realized I actually had
a lot of childhood trauma and Ihad gone my entire life without
realizing it and in that momentI felt so totally just broken,
(08:31):
unfixable, destroyed, outcast.
And it was On top of all thetrauma that I was already
experiencing.
And this was a a self-awarenessmoment that I felt like
destroyed me.
The self-awareness almost mademe go deeper, because I felt
broken and unfixable, because atthat time, there were some key,
(08:52):
important things that I wasmissing but I did not know about
.
I didn't know that you couldheal from trauma and I didn't
know that trauma is all aroundus.
It is so common and most people, most adults who have childhood
trauma, are unaware that theyhave childhood trauma because we
(09:13):
think of it as something likethis is you were beaten or
sexually abused or somethingreally severely and obvious
happened to you.
But that's not how mostchildhood trauma is, and so I am
getting a little bit deep downa rabbit hole with the question.
This is good.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
No, this is good, and I think you're touching on a
lot of things that I'm I want todive deeper into.
Right, because trauma is a bigComponent to a lot of people
having addictions, and Dr GaborMonta says that there's a big T
and there's little T, right?
So big T trauma is what youwere just referencing, which is
(09:52):
when people feel like they'rephysically abused, like
something, an event happens thatis obviously so dramatic that
People will consider that trauma.
But the little T is stuff likehe gave an example in his book
the myth of normal, where hetalked about, for example, a
child not having their needs metis a form of Little trauma and
(10:17):
that also affects us on asubconscious level.
So you are touching on a lot ofthings that I want to dig
deeper into, but I just want tomake sure I fully understand,
right?
So after you had you ate thistoxin, right?
This, the seafood that had thistoxin that affected you on a
neuro level is Is everyone whoeats Seafood and that has toxin
(10:42):
in it susceptible to getting asex addiction?
Or Could it have been anything?
And how does, and how exactlydoes, a neurotoxin trigger an
addiction?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That's a great question.
So the name of this particularneurotoxin is called Sigua Terra
neurotoxin.
A lot of people who arefishermen and like the Pacific
are aware of it and essentially,you know, I have a friend who
had a black toxic mold exposureand she developed hypersexuality
Disorder as well, and it'sanother type of microscopic
(11:18):
neurotoxin.
But it's not necessarily just amicroscopic neurotoxin.
That is the the key factor here.
What it's doing is Anything inour life that triggers a
tremendous and I mean atremendous stress response.
That's a stress response.
The common factor is the stressresponse, no matter what caused
(11:40):
it, no matter who you are, nomatter what your background was.
And for some people it mighttrigger a sex addiction.
For some people that mighttrigger alcoholism or a gaming
addiction or social mediaaddiction.
These are Acting as escapism'sescapism outlets.
When you know anything that'saddictive, it's not Pursuing the
(12:02):
pleasure.
It's really escaping the pain,the pain of the realities of
life.
When you haven't yet learnedhow to self-regulate, how to
cope in a healthy way, how toheal on a deep level.
And when we heal on a deeplevel, we no longer feel the
need to escape from the realityof life.
Yes, we change our life so thatit's better and hardships will
(12:25):
continue to come, no matter whowe are.
That it's.
What choices do we make whenthe hardships come knocking at
our door, down to our gettingrid of our self-sabotaging
thoughts that trigger aninternal stress response.
What choices are we making?
What thoughts are we having?
What are the what?
(12:47):
What is our subconsciousprogramming around emotional
responses to certain things thattrigger us?
How are we responding?
And so the Unifying factor forany addiction is a stress
response that's happening in thebody.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It does it does.
So that's really good, right,and I think part of your work
and the things that you touch onis the fact that A lot of times
people develop addictionsbecause they don't feel safe on
the inside, right.
So I want to talk about all ofthat.
But you know, with yourexperience, that led you to
(13:24):
getting different certificationsto start coaching people who
Also have a similar sexaddiction, particularly porn
addiction.
So can you talk a little bitabout why?
I mean, I guess I can say it'sobvious why you probably
developed a passion for this.
But I would like to hear fromyou what, as you were going
(13:44):
through your healing journey,when did you realize, like you
know what?
This is a big problem, right,and not everyone has.
Most people who have a pornaddiction.
It does not come from, you know, having a neuro toxin affecting
them, but it obviously comesfrom a point of Not feeling safe
within them, some sort oftrauma.
So when did you realize, like,okay, there's a connection here
(14:05):
and, as I'm healing, I think Ican actually Be a coach and help
people heal from porn addiction.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, so thank you for this question.
Essentially, when I was goingthrough my healing journey and
when I was in the throws andlike the apex of the most
challenging part of my PTSD andthe brain damage and all that
stuff that was happening duringthat time, I Didn't even
categorize myself as beingaddicted to sex.
(14:35):
I still had blinders on to thatand we can kind of get into
that part as as well, if youwant to.
As far as some of this betweensex addiction and porn addiction
, I Was dating a man for threeyears who was severely addicted
to pornography and alcohol andpoppers and something and would
(14:58):
casually do cocaine and therewas a lot of stuff going on.
And when you got to really knowhis story, he actually had a
tremendous trauma in his ownlife with his family, and just
some of the stories would breakmy heart and and so I got to
learn that pornography addictionwas even a thing once he
entered my life and Looking backthere were.
(15:21):
I now can see that there wereseveral guys that I was with in
the past who I dated, who wereaddicted to pornography, but I
had no idea at all.
I just didn't know it was athing and so I saw the
tremendous pain and sufferingthat he was in on a deep and
(15:42):
incredible level.
And so there was thisinteresting thing that had to
happen where I was feelingdeeply rejected and hurt and
confused of why this man who Iwas dating would prefer the
pornographic experience over methe only time he would really
(16:05):
prefer.
Prefer it for me would be like,say, if I had made a video for
him where I was just speaking tohim, and then he would, you
know, do that in his own time.
But if it's face to face, thenthere would be too much social
pressure, social anxiety, aperformance anxiety, and so
(16:25):
that's a one big reason why porninduced erectile dysfunction is
Really big with porn watchers.
That's one of the reasons.
And then to the brain develops.
When with heavy porn watchers,the brain develops neuro
pathways to say, I Only getsexually aroused and have the
sexual experience when I amalone and with a digital screen
(16:48):
in front of me, and so Then,when they get face-to-face with
a real person, theirsubconscious mind isn't even
allowing them to get aroused, orif it is, it's to a much lower
degree, and their mind has toimagine pornographic acts the
whole time in order to stayaroused, and they're essentially
Not connecting with you as anindividual.
(17:10):
They're connecting withpornography in their mind, kind
of using your body as aglorified masturbation tool at
that point.
And so the partner that I waswith at the time, he would
actually reject my sexualadvances like 99% of the time
Because he there was too muchsocial performance anxiety,
social anxiety around it and hejust wouldn't be aroused.
(17:32):
And so Me, I was feeling deeplyhurt, deeply rejected, deeply
confused, and that significantlylowered my subconscious
self-worth.
And we were on and off severaltimes.
You know we weren't dating thewhole time, would be on and off.
Sometimes he lived with me,sometimes not.
Sometimes, you know, he wouldbreak up with me like multiple
(17:55):
times, and I think he would dothat specifically because he
realized he wasn't providingAnything for me that I was
looking for on it an emotionallevel, the connection level, a
Commitment level, the sexuallevel, like and I think that Me
being in his life in that waywanting these things, put a
(18:15):
tremendous amount of pressure onhim that was overwhelming to
him and then made him feelinadequate even more and so one
of the diet to do was, insteadof feeling.
You know, one of the things thatI did in the past and I think
many women fall I don't want tosay victim to it, fall, I don't
even know the words to put on itbut it's Defining your
(18:38):
self-worth.
What I did, what my self-worthon a subconscious level, was
based off of my sexualexperiences with men.
You know, a lot of times withporn addiction, someone's not
necessarily seeking thatexternal validation, it's just
there's a stressor in my life.
I want to escape and have atemporary Relief from whatever
(19:01):
is stressing me out.
Pornography is an outlet forthat and so and but Kind of, to
put it into simple terms, theoftentimes with a sex addiction,
it's there can be overlaps whatI'm going to say with the sex
addiction, all of it can haveoverlaps with porn addiction,
but it doesn't always exist inan individual with porn
(19:23):
addiction.
And so, okay, I'll kind of Startback when I was my earliest
memory of feeling that Externalvalidation through the sexual
experience and it's really.
It boosts the ego Through thisexternal validation and it's an
extremely high dopamineexperience.
(19:45):
It's riding that dopamine highof the external validation.
And I remember when I was maybe, oh, I want to say 14 years old
, and I was walking across town,walking over the bridge,
walking over the Fox RiverBridge and In McHenry, illinois,
with my cousin, my cousinSelena, and it was a summertime,
(20:07):
we had short shorts on and tanktops and this red truck drove
by and they whistled out of thetruck and gave a gesture and In
and I knew it was the first timeI'd ever experienced attention
from a male or a man.
(20:29):
That made me feel valuable, butthe value was based purely on
Sexuality.
I hadn't even hit three.
Yet I was a late bloomer Reaper.
Was that hitting on the child?
I Was like 75 pounds.
My cousin had hit pubertysooner and she was, you know,
(20:53):
looked more womanly than I did,so probably at her.
But I remember getting thisExtremely strong rush of
excitement in my body and thatwas a dopamine high.
That was my first hit of thedrug.
That was my first hit of thedrug in that.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And my subconscious mind remembered that and then
took it to a deeper level andsaid let's explore that to a
deeper level, which is exactlywhat it did when I got brain
damage in the PTSD, and I thinka part of that is One of the
neurochemicals required forhealing Physically and
emotionally, and especially fromtrauma is oxytocin.
(21:36):
What can elevate the hox of theoxytocin levels, naturally,
more than anything else, asexual experience.
So I think it could have beensome of the subconscious minds
innate wisdom, but doing it inkind of a messed up way of hey,
go get the sexual experience,elevate your oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a requiredneurochemical to heal from
(21:58):
trauma.
You have trauma.
Go get that sexual experience,go get connection with another
individual and go get notrejected.
But it turned into a sexaddiction.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about too and I
think we touched on this earlierand you touch on this in your
work Is that you know, trauma isone way of looking at it but,
like you said, it's also kind offeeling internal stress and not
feeling safe or validatedwithin you, and I think that's a
lot of what comes with thehealing right.
But you know, when someone hasan addiction like you said, you
(22:29):
didn't realize that you had asex addiction for a while what
are the signs that Can letsomeone know like hey, this is
an addiction here, this isbecoming a problem if a Stress
response is what happens rightbefore the urge for the sexual
(22:49):
experience, paying attention tothe emotions that are present
right before the the sexual urgecomes on.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
So that's one part of it.
And If someone's unsure, giveyourself a test, put it to the
test and say I'm not going toengage in this activity for the
next 30 days.
And if you can't do it, thenyou're probably on some spectrum
of addiction.
And If you notice insomniacoming up, your ability coming
(23:25):
up, maybe just more emotionaltowards things, if you notice
yourself wanting to eat morejunk food or do mindless
scrolling or any of those typesof behaviors, more video games,
these can all serve as otherescapism behaviors.
So if you, if you're using itas an escapism and then you take
(23:46):
it away, you're probably gonnabe more.
The subconscious mind is sneaky, it goes oh, if you're not
gonna give it to us this way,well, we just need our same
neurochemical fix.
Why don't you go play videogames for five hours?
Why don't you go eat some junkfood?
Why don't you go scroll somesocial media mindlessly, without
intention, and just so?
(24:07):
These other Addictive behaviorscan begin to show up To a
stronger degree and a lot ofpeople don't realize that
they're addicted Because anddoctor Anna Lemke describes this
amazingly she's an addictionrecovery expert.
She's been doing it for yeah, Ithink at least 20 years.
(24:30):
She has an amazing book calleddopamine nation.
She goes.
A lot of people don't realizethey're addicted.
They're like oh well, I onlysmoke weed three times a week, I
only played video games twice aweek, I only eat fast food
twice a week, I only and they'rejust listing all of these.
They're just at that constantdopamine high of something.
And then in between all ofthose Activities are just
(24:51):
pulling out your phone and doingsome mindless scrolling.
I have five minutes here, fiveminutes there and the baseline
level of dopamine has beenreally raised up.
And when not engaged in one ofthose higher dopamine activities
, life feels bull and dull andboring.
Adhd symptoms come on.
There's that wandering mindsyndrome, and I call it, and it
(25:14):
can be harder to engage inconversation, it can be harder
to focus, it can be harder tohave discipline, motivation,
more difficulty accomplishinggoals, things like that.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, I think we live in a society that Thrives on us
being addicted to things, andthat's a whole other rabbit hole
that we can get into.
But I want to zero in on yourwork with men, with porn
addiction, right, because Ithink a lot of what you're
talking about can be applied tonot just porn addiction or sex
addiction.
And but I want to zero in onyour work particularly with men.
(25:46):
Do you have any stats on thenumber of men who are struggling
with porn addiction and whatthat age group is like?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So there's not, in general, a ton of stats on this,
particularly because even whensomeone is addicted, they're
usually not aware, and whensomeone is aware, it takes a
tremendous amount of bravery Toadmit it to someone else, even
on an anonymous survey.
It can be difficult to to reallysay the truth of the situation,
(26:19):
and so the only stat that I'veI've read in recent times and I
don't even remember the sourceof this, and I I do not like
saying stats without providingthe source, but in North America
there has been 20 million menwho have admitted to being
(26:40):
addicted to pornography, andthat's Taking.
It has the self-awareness toknow it's there in the bravery
to admit to it.
So the number is far more than29 million, and women get
addicted as well, but I do workwith just men, um, and so we
don't really know the truenumbers, but I I there's so many
(27:04):
.
I only work with adult men, butthere are teenagers.
So many, like 13 year olds, areaddicted.
Average age of exposure is 11years old, and that number is
Getting younger and younger withtime through smartphone.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
What kids do now on the playground is they all have
their smartphones and in youknow fifth grade they're all
pulling out pornography andthey're standing in a circle
Seeing who can pull up the mostextreme pornography and they're
all showing it to each other andlaughing and making you know
extreme faces.
But it's doing something totheir subconscious mind and now,
(27:41):
when they're home alone intheir room, they're exploring
and going deep down the rabbithole of pornography and a lot of
kids, by the time they're 12years old, are already addicted.
You wouldn't believe the numberof minors who reach out to me
for help and I say I can't helpyou unless you're a parent, you
(28:02):
have to have a legal guardianhere with you and that.
So I've only worked with adultmen.
I don't even know thelegalities about working with
minors on that, um, so I haven'teven gone down that route.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's very scary the world we live in and I 100
percent believe that with the,with smartphones even before
smartphones, um, you know,before smartphones became pretty
rampant, I think you knowexposure was still happening,
but now it's probably, you know,increased exponentially.
So, with the men that you workwith, right, because obviously
(28:37):
sometimes, for example, if, ifwe were to use food as an
example, when you eat somethingthat tastes really good, you're
not automatically thinking I'mgonna continue to, you just eat
till oblivion, right, iteventually becomes something you
turn to for comfort when you'restressed or there's some sort
of trauma, etc.
So, with the men that you workwith, is there like a pattern of
(29:00):
the type of trauma that they'rethey typically deal with that
Lead them to seeking outpornography as a way to cope
with whatever trauma thatthey're dealing with?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I wouldn't necessarily say there's a
unifying, specific type oftrauma.
One of the things that is verycommon, I would say, with most
of my clients, but not all, isthat At least one of their
parents was not emotionallyavailable to them as a as a kid
okay and I love dr Gabor mate'swork.
He's one of my heroes, and soit sounds like you're really
(29:34):
familiar with him too, and whatthat teaches to the subconscious
mind of a child.
There's the only one way thatthat can be interpreted, and
that's I'm not worthy, I'm notlovable, I'm not good enough,
I'm inadequate.
If I was lovable, worthy,adequate, then I would be
receiving the love, theattention, the emotional
availability from both of myparents.
(29:56):
And if that's not happening,then the subconscious mind
doesn't feel loved and that'strauma right there.
Yes there's that feeling ofinsecurity in the subconscious
mind, and the subconscious mind,it's number one role is to keep
us safe.
And if it doesn't feel safe,then it says we need to escape
this feeling of feeling unsafe.
(30:18):
And everything that's addictiveprovides the neurochemicals to
provide a false sense ofsecurity, a false sense of being
safe.
And so the subconscious mindthen learns I'm only safe when I
engage in this addictivebehavior or substance.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yes, and even in society there are lots of talks
about how men are not reallyencouraged to be vulnerable and
men tend to seem like the groupor demographic that people kind
of oh well, they'll figure itout right.
So I wonder as well if some ofthat is going on when it comes
(31:03):
to that Desire to run to porn orwhatever their vice is.
But obviously we're talking,we're focusing mostly on porn
addiction, because it's like youknow, there's no outlet to
really Fully express Themselves,and is that when you work with
them?
Is that something that you guystalk about?
(31:23):
Yes, I am so glad you broughtthis up.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Every single Monday night and I'll probably be
adding more I host somethingcalled bravery boot camp and it
is a platform where all of myclients can come on and be
vulnerable and share their truthand tell their story and ask
their questions and share theirwins and feel not alone.
And it is incredible my clientsare my heroes.
(31:49):
They are so brave, they are sovulnerable in a way that makes
them stronger, because Withvulnerability, we have a choice.
We can either escape and runand hide and cower, or you can
be brave and brave into it andlean into it and speak your
truth or make the decision.
(32:12):
That is the difficult decisionthat requires bravery, and so
that's why my my?
heroes.
They're leaning intoVulnerability through being
brave instead of hiding, and yesit's incredible.
It is such an important,important part for healing the
neurology, for for feeling safe,because a part of this healing
(32:36):
journey is Knowing that you canexpress and reveal all parts of
who you are and your identityand your story and where you are
now and where you want to beand not be rejected as a human
being, but being met withkindness, compassion, empathy
and just with open arms.
(32:57):
And when a human being has thatexperience, healing takes place.
Every time, self empowermenttakes place, and so that is a
huge part of what I, what I do,some of the work that I do with
my clients, is allowing them tohave that opportunity, because
it is so challenging in oursociety for men to go out and
(33:18):
create those experiences ontheir own because of the
cultural Talk around it.
You know, there's that falsesense of what it is to be strong
.
What it is to be strong is tobe vulnerable.
That takes strength.
Allowing another person towitness your tears and your
emotions in that moment ofvulnerability.
That is Tremendous as far asthe courage and the strength
(33:43):
that it requires of a person anda lot of people, a lot of men
especially, think I'm strongbecause I'm not showing my
expression, because I'm notshowing my emotion or tears Well
.
In fact, it takes so much morecourage and strength to show it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, I wonder.
I'm just really curious.
You know you being a woman wewere two women here talking
about.
You know addiction, but pornaddiction as it pertains to men,
but we're not men.
Do you ever get clients orpeople who tell you like well,
how can you really help menthrough porn addiction when you
(34:22):
are not a man, like maybe you'vehad a experience with sex
addiction but you don't have theexperience of a man?
Do you ever get that pushback?
And what do you say when people, if people say that to you?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So I don't get that and here's why, especially for
my clients, I have them watch aseries of videos before I will
ever even talk to them, beforethey can, all you know, hop on a
free call with one of mycoaches and this and that and
have a free introduction to mycourse.
And it's mandatory for for themto go through that process and
(34:58):
what they learn has them.
They know that they can trustme with their healing journey.
They just kind of have thatlight bulb moment of feeling.
They feel seen and heard andnot judged.
Seen and heard and not judged,oftentimes for the first time
ever.
And that is tremendous To whenyou are living by the emotions
(35:23):
of shame.
Shame makes a person want to runaway, hide and be invisible,
and with pornography addiction,the number one emotion that men
tend to live by is the emotionof shame.
And the way that we heal fromthat is by revealing who you are
and being met with thatkindness, compassion,
(35:44):
understanding, empathy.
And as I share some of thebasic fundamentals, I'll share
my story, some of the basicfundamentals.
I have a video called.
Porn is not the problem and itgoes more into that trauma
conversation.
All of a sudden they feel seen,heard and understood and not
judged for it, when the biggestfear has been, if I'm seen and
(36:07):
heard, I'll be judged andrejected and ostracized, and so
there's that part of it.
But now they're also learningthings about themselves that
they didn't know before.
Before and now they're saying,oh, you know more about me than
I know about me.
(36:28):
I think that I could probablytrust you with helping me
through this and that's beenreally amazing and honestly,
that was one of my fears yearsago was that I would get a lot
of that backlash, and I got someof it at first, but then I
(36:48):
learned how to present myselfand I learned how to communicate
, and I learned so much moreknowledge about this over the
years that I can't even rememberthe last time someone came at
me with that Like, oh, you're awoman, how could you help me
with this?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, because I think your work speaks for itself.
I mean, I went through yourpage and there are so many
resources and so many shortvideos of you kind of talking
about what you do, the processand how you can really help your
clients or anybody seeking helpfor porn addiction.
So so I want to ask you whatare the three D's to addiction
(37:29):
recovery?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yes.
So detect, define, download.
This was something that I Icame up with.
It was a process that wasalready in action.
It was a process I did withmyself.
It was a process I taught myclients and over the years I
figured out this fun, easy toremember name.
So detect, define, download.
(37:51):
We don't need 12 steps, we onlyneed three and essentially it's
so the detect part.
I'm rolling up my sleeves forthis one.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
It's good.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
So detect.
This is all aroundself-awareness, and it's being
your own detective of who youare, these parts of who you are
that have been hidden in theshadows either hidden in the
shadows that you knew aboutyourself but didn't want to talk
to other people, but even moreso, that have been hidden from
yourself, a part of who you are,a part of your identity, on a
(38:25):
subconscious level.
These are patterns that we showup in.
There's thought patterns,behavioral patterns, all these
different things, emotionalresponse patterns, and so I walk
my clients through how to bemore aware, self-aware than they
have ever been.
Even the men who have beendoing the self-discovery work
for years come here and learnhow to take it to a much deeper
(38:49):
level.
Every single little patternthat shows up in life like a
self-sabotaging thought thatcontributes to lower the
subconscious self-worth, thatlowers the self-compassion.
We have to become aware of allof those thoughts, and so let's
detect what those are Everylittle choice and decision and
(39:10):
micro-decision, large ones,small ones to see.
Okay, these patterns, when theyshow up, they lower my
potential as an individual, theyincrease the stress response,
they hold me back from thethings that matter to me, and so
it's.
Let's become so acutely awareof what these are so that the
moment they show up we haveawareness that it's happening.
(39:32):
And the reason why we need thatawareness when it shows up in
the moment is so we can dosomething called a pattern
interrupt.
You interrupt the old patternof the past and I teach my
clients how to replace it with anew, healthy pattern.
Detect what it is or what ithas been.
(39:52):
And now this is where we kind ofget to the second D is define.
Define what you would ratherhave that pattern be.
Instead, define what you wantit to look like when you have a
job interview.
Maybe your pattern of the pastwould be I'm not good enough,
I'm going to mess up, I'm goingto say the wrong thing.
They're not going to pick me,I'll wear the wrong thing, I'm
going to be late.
If those are the old patterns,what would you rather have your
(40:15):
new pattern be?
I'm going to crush it.
I can't wait for this jobinterview Having.
So it's pre-defining what youwould want your subconscious
autopilot to be, so that the newpattern is this is showing up
without me having to put effortin it showing up just because
it's who I am.
(40:36):
And so every pattern we startwith the detect and then we
define what it would rather beinstead.
So a lot of my clients theydefined, they detected and
defined a long time ago thatthey want to get rid of porn
addiction, but they're stillshowing up in that way.
So that brings us to the thirdD is download.
You got to download it intoyour subconscious mind so that
(40:56):
it is your new subconsciousautopilot.
You show up, without evenhaving to think about it, your
new thoughts, your new choices,your new emotional responses to
certain things.
They're showing up in the waythat you defined, that you want
them to be, and this makes upour identity, all these
subconscious patterns.
And so detect, define, downloadand we go deep into these, and
(41:21):
those are good Thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Those are, those are good Detect, define, download.
As you were talking, I wasthinking about the conversation
that I had with the psychologistand somatic therapist, dr Luke
Snusky, and he helps men as wellwith porn addiction recovery
and we were talking aboutsomatic therapy and, how you
know, talk therapy can only takeyou so far.
(41:45):
At some point you have to dropinto your body and kind of
figure out what's going on, likerealize that you're having a
stress response and also take,also think as well, like okay,
I'm being triggered, I feelstress within my body and it's
making me want to run to porn.
So he talked about sitting withthat discomfort and letting it
(42:10):
and writing it out and notacting on it, which kind of
sounds like the defined partwhere it's like okay, what do I
want that new habit to be, orwhat would I rather do then turn
to porn.
So if you were to give like aexample or an analogy, you know,
if someone who has detectedthat they have a stress response
(42:32):
and they want to go to porn,what, how could they, what would
be the action or what would bethe download or thought patterns
that they would have to kind ofembody to move through that
space of turning to porn?
Would they have to add a newaction, would they?
Should they replace going toporn to going for a run?
(42:54):
You know what I mean?
Or should they write it out, orI guess it's probably unique to
everyone.
But could you, kind of likewith the three D's, give an
example of you know how somebodycould really use and implement
that tool?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, so, and you kind of already answered it in
yourself, you're like it's likeeveryone and it totally isn't
even yeah.
One individual that could lookdifferent depending on the day,
depending on the circumstance.
And so say you've detectedbeing addicted to pornography.
You've defined, you, no longerwant to watch pornography.
(43:30):
The urge comes up to watchpornography.
You notice that you have thatawareness.
That's the time you do what'scalled a pattern interrupt.
You interrupt that pattern thathas been showing up
continuously.
And so this is where getting toknow yourself, getting to be
more in touch with yourself,leaning into your intuition and
experimenting, and so say like,hmm, I've been sitting at a
(43:54):
computer all day, maybe a runwould benefit my mind and body,
doing something, something,anything physical, because I
haven't been physical all day.
Maybe I have a physical job,maybe I'm, I have a job where
I'm doing labor and bricklaying,or, you know, putting on a new
roof, something where it's wow,my body's exhausted.
(44:14):
I'm not going to go for a run,I just and saying, hmm, maybe a
meditation, maybe a warm bath orshower, maybe something more on
the relaxing side to balanceout your day.
Yes, things like that.
And so I teach my clients thepattern interrupts that are
(44:35):
beneficial and then the onesthat are harmful, and how to
learn which ones to use when themoment arises.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Essentially, yeah, and I think with what you just
said, with 3Ds it looks likesomething anyone who's
struggling with addictiondifferent types of addiction
could probably use.
Right, it's not just for pornaddiction, correct, correct?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Anyone who and if anyone wants there's, you know,
on my website I go deeper intothis with visuals and a longer
explanation of the 3Ds.
And you want to?
Any addiction and even ifsomeone doesn't have an
addiction, you can use the 3Ds.
For maybe you are just someonewho has a lot of self-sabotaging
, negative self-talk, right, the3Ds will work for that.
(45:19):
Any bad habit that you want tobreak, anything it's there's so
much you can apply it towards,right?
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Okay, yeah, Do you buy into?
I know that you useneuroscience and and psychology
to help your clients kind of getthrough their addiction.
People say addiction is adisease.
Right, Do you buy into that?
Because it sounds daunting thenhow do you heal Cause?
People say you can go intoremission with a disease, but
(45:47):
it's always still kind of likelurking in the shadows.
So one, do you buy into thenotion that addiction is a
disease and can someone fullyrecover to a point where they
can live the rest of their lifewithout having to struggle with
that addiction?
Yeah, I do not believe it's adisease.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
And I think one of the worst sayings out there is
that once an addict, always anaddict.
That is so, not true.
Anyone who says that I islacking understanding of the
healing journey and the depthsof the healing that any human
being can take on.
And when you no longer need aprogram, when you no longer need
(46:29):
a program, when you no longerneed to use all of these
strategies on that regular basis, like you're just, you're an
individual in the world who isno longer worried about relapse,
and like I have zero, there's,there's no worry in my mind, and
it's been that way for years.
And I know others who are inthat same spot.
(46:49):
And it's, it's incredible.
What we can do, Like the onlyway to really make it happen, is
to go to those incredibly deephealing layers within ourselves.
And what Dr Gabor Matte says andI completely agree with him you
(47:10):
know he's a world's leadingexpert on trauma, childhood
trauma, ADHD, addiction is sohorn is not the problem,
Addiction is not the problem.
It's unresolved childhoodtrauma.
Addiction is merely a symptomof unresolved childhood trauma.
(47:30):
So at the core of my course,it's a trauma healing course
really.
And when we are able to healfrom trauma, then addiction is
no longer a problem.
It just the subconscious mindhas no use for it has no use.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yes, I agree and I think that you know, I believe
words are powerful and a lot oftimes when I hear experts say
and other people say, like youknow, trauma is, um, I mean
sorry, addiction is a diseaseand you know, once an addict,
always an addict, I feel likethat's a self-fulfilling
prophecy and actuallycounterintuitive to actually
(48:12):
radically healing and movingthrough it, because you're
basically those words mean likewe're, we're putting a band-aid
over this but it's never goingto fully heal, right?
And I think I, like what yousaid at the core of your work,
really and truly is like healing.
So I I 100% agree with that.
Another thing people say, youknow, when it comes to the whole
(48:35):
notion of like porn addictionand you know sexuality and all
of that stuff, you know peoplealways say, well, men will be
men.
You know men are visualcreatures and it's it makes
sense that they're, you know,really into sex and really into
porn.
So do some men that you workwith have experiences where like
(48:57):
, oh, I was just encouraged tobe hyper sexual, I was
encouraged to watch porn and Ijust thought this was normal
because I'm a man?
Do you work with clients whohave that story and how do you
get them through on learningthat?
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yes, so I definitely have clients where they had
older brothers or cousins orrelatives who showed them
pornography when they were, youknow, pre-pubescent or right as
they were hitting puberty, andsaid hey, you're gonna like this
, you're gonna have fun withthis, and encouraged it.
And then they just kind of wentalong with it and it became
(49:34):
something like oh, that feelsgood the first time, let's keep
doing that, and then it turnsinto an addiction, and so
there's.
That absolutely does happen.
You know, the way that it'sundone is that it's through the,
the 3Ds, it's all because, it'sreally all the 3Ds.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
It's all the 3Ds Detect define download.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Yeah, we just, and so they identify, they they're
detecting the things that areimportant to them and then
they're defining based on that.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, and I think part of that detection is also
detecting some of the storiesthat they've told themselves in
regards to to worth and whatpeople societal expect,
expectations and what they thinkthey're supposed to like, etc.
So I think all of that is ispretty spot on.
And so did you develop the 3Dswith kind of pairing like
neuroscience and psychology?
(50:30):
Like how did you?
I know that obviously you havea background in biology and with
your experience you kind of dugdeeper into the neuro
neurobiology, the neuro part ofit.
So I just want to hear a littlebit more about what you learned
as you dug deeper intoneuroscience and how you were
able to combine it withpsychology.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yes, thank you, and I think you kind of maybe tried
to ask.
You did ask me this earlier andI went down a different route.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
No, no, no, I think.
I don't think.
I explicitly asked you to befair.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah.
So it all started with when Iwas trying to find doctors who
would help me with my braindamage and my cigotera
neurotoxin illness and no onewas giving me any answers and
basically just kind of tossingup their hands and saying, well,
that's, you, just have to livewith it, just tolerate it.
(51:22):
And I would not accept thatbecause my life quality had
gotten so low it didn't feelworth sticking around on this
planet Like it was just soextreme physical pain, extreme
emotional pain, extreme feelingsof I'm a burden, low self worth
.
The physical pain was like Icouldn't even have a
(51:43):
conversation.
A lot of the times I have to gohide in like a dark, quiet room
, and so what I did do, though,is I would dive deep into the
scientific literature.
One of the things.
So I'm a former wildlifebiologist and I had training and
reading.
You know the scientificliterature and this and that,
and so I transferred that skilland just switched and looked at
(52:07):
neurobiology, and I was readingall these published scientific
papers and about the nervoussystem and the brain and the
limbic system and so many partsof of our nervous system and how
it ties into our emotions andhow our emotions can change.
(52:32):
You know our parasympatheticversus the sympathetic nervous
system, and the healing for thephysical body has to take place
when our emotions and ourneurochemicals are in the
parasympathetic.
So we have lower stresshormones, elevated serotonin,
elevated oxytocin, and so Ilearned all of these different
(52:53):
things that I needed to do inorder to make those
neurochemical switches forhealing.
And as I was reading abouttrauma and brain damage and all
this different stuff, therewould be all these addiction
articles, and addiction would beintegrated and kind of laced
into these, these papers, andI'm like I'm not here for
addiction, I'm here for traumahealing and healing my brain and
(53:15):
nervous system.
And I was in dire straits withso much stuff or sometimes, like
my memory was so bad that if,if it was, you know, five years
ago and you and I were havingthis conversation come tomorrow,
I wouldn't even remember thatwe were talking.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
So it was really scary.
It was really scary and I justkind of formulated my own
protocol to heal from trauma.
I kind of learned that throughall this research I kind of put
the pieces together oh, myphysical body is only going to
(53:55):
continue the healing processunder these set of neurochemical
and emotional conditions and Ireally have to do trauma healing
in order to create what myphysical body needs, like the
myth of normal and DrGohormati's book.
And so this was before thatbook was even out and I just
(54:16):
kind of had learned that throughwhat I was researching and
working with the limbic systempart of the brain, there is a
program called DNRS by AnnieHopper which helped me to
identify limiting beliefs andpattern, interrupt away from
(54:37):
them and work on reducing thehyper vigilance of the limbic
system part of my brain which islike the command center for the
stress response.
And eventually, like my solepurpose was like heal from
Sigwitera, neurotoxin illnessheal from adult PTSD.
And then during that I learned,oh, I have childhood trauma that
(54:59):
I have to heal from.
As part of this healing journeyto heal from the Sigwitera
neurotoxin illness and as I wasgoing through all of that, it
eventually it hit me one daythat like, oh my gosh, I.
This is a perfect formula foranyone with any addiction to
overcome any addiction to thecore of who they are, to the
(55:22):
depths of their soul.
And with having been in lovewith a man who was addicted to
pornography, my subconsciousmind presented the question who
needs this the most?
Men suffering from pornographyaddiction?
It was all just sort ofhappened.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
I think that's really really good Like.
It just seems like you know ourlife.
We always think about purpose.
Actually had a conversationwith another guest Recently when
we're talking about purpose andhe mentioned the three P's,
priority principles and passionright, and I think you know,
based on what you went through,I think you developed a passion
(56:01):
for healing and moving throughaddiction and then that also
unraveled different things inregard in regards to trauma and
all of that stuff which becamelike probably a life principle
for you is just like healing andmoving through in trauma and
then it eventually became apriority and you found purpose
in this work.
So that's really interesting tohear.
(56:24):
And another thing I saw on yourwebsite is that you know a lot
of men that have gone throughyour program and they've given
their testimony.
There's there's like a patternof a lot of them getting closer
to God or becoming morespiritual.
Can you just talk about that alittle bit more?
And why do you think walkingdown that path of healing and
(56:44):
addiction recovery brings peoplecloser to a spiritual practice?
Or, you know, getting closer toGod?
Speaker 2 (56:52):
This is a powerful question, and so you know my
course is designed for anyonewho wants to over, any man who
wants to overcome porn addiction, even atheists.
I have it set up in a way sothat they feel welcome.
When I got brain damage, I wasan atheist.
My healing journey Interesting.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Oh we need to get into that.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah, yeah my healing journey sent me also on a
spiritual awakening.
It's it and I don't put that onanyone.
It is zero part of my agendafor anyone else to believe what
I believe.
It is so personal that itdoesn't matter to me if other
people believe it.
It is like it's mine.
(57:36):
And if other people you knowmost of my, my clients, I would
say probably at least 95 percentof my clients are men of faith,
of different religions.
A lot of them are Christians,lds, jewish, I mean they're
(57:58):
Muslims, and then I do have afew atheist clients as well and
I love and welcome them all.
And I do teach a little bitabout the, the neuroscience of
spirituality.
There is a book.
There is a book by Lisa Miller.
I think it's called theAwakened Brain.
I believe so, by Lisa Miller,and she did a really robust
(58:23):
study on the science ofspirituality and I was
interested in it because I hadalready dove into my spiritual
awakening.
Well, I don't want to say I doveinto my spiritual awakening.
That makes it sound like I wasseeking it out and it was just a
something that beautifullyshowed up in my healing journey,
and so I allow my clients, ifthey want to, to speak about
(58:49):
that, but in a way where it'snot there's no agenda for
another person to believe whatthey believe it's.
How is it helping you in yourown personal journey?
And so I almost never talkabout my own spiritual
experiences with my clients.
I will, if they ask if it's oneon one, but if it's in a whole
room, I'm like I just I onlywant to share it if everyone in
(59:11):
the room wants to hear it andthat's there's.
I don't know if there's anyother thing in my life where
that's the case.
Speaker 1 (59:20):
I'd love to hear it.
I'd love to hear if you don'tmind sharing right?
Because I think, on a word tothe wise, I part of why I love
having these types ofconversations is just really I
think you know there's a mind,body, spirit connection.
I'm a huge believer in that andwe are not just our bodies,
we're so much more than that andthe spirit part of it kind of
(59:42):
talks dives into themetaphysical components of being
a human being and keeping usgrounded in addition to our mind
and our body.
So I would love to hear if youdon't mind sharing your
spiritual awakening.
Being an atheist prior to youknow having your addiction
triggered to healing and thenhaving a spiritual awakening and
(01:00:05):
you know, getting closer to ahigher power.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Yeah.
So I was raised as a Jehovah'sWitness and then found, found
science and then turned atheist,even though a lot of people
find science and they find thatit deepens their spirituality.
And essentially getting intomeditation, where I was doing a
lot of Dr Joe Dispenzameditations and I had some
(01:00:33):
pretty profound experiences,especially when I went to one of
his seven day advancedmeditation retreats Experiences
where I don't even know how toput words on it or explain it or
describe it, but just kind ofthat feeling connected to it,
kind of that feeling connectedto everyone and everything, and
like just having that feelingthat there is, there's something
(01:00:57):
at play here that's larger thanme, that's larger than all of
us and is all of us in a way.
It's really hard to put towords and there were just
certain experiences that I beganto have in my life, that I
still continue to have, that itcan't be coincidence, like there
(01:01:22):
is something big and powerfuland special and important here
and I think that, whatever thatis, I believe it's the same core
essence that every religionaround the world experiences.
There's just as human beingsthere are enough of us around
(01:01:45):
the world for, as far as we know, that humans have been here
that we've just had certainexperiences that say, wow, this
is bigger than me, and we try tomake sense of it.
That is the best that we can.
And so these experiences thatjust keep happening to me, like
(01:02:07):
I'll give an example, if that'sokay, yeah, that's okay.
So, oh, maybe two years ago orso, I had just enrolled a client
into my program and it was soexciting and at the end of our
call he asked if he could prayfor me and my atheist version of
(01:02:33):
the past would have been likeit would have been.
I would have just said yes, outof common courtesy, even though
I would have hated it.
But this was a new experiencebecause I felt open to it.
I felt open to the experienceand I realized I would have felt
open to the experience nomatter what religious faith he
was in.
He happened to be a Christianman and his gift was the gift of
(01:02:56):
prayer and it was his favorite.
He loved praying, he loved it,and there were certain things
that he said, certain with hiswords that it was like how the
heck do you know this about me?
I have anyone this andbeforehand he goes.
(01:03:18):
I just he's like, I just wantyou to know that I just let the
divine, like, speak through meand I don't know what I'm going
to say, but stuff just comes outand I just didn't think much of
it.
And then, when he was speaking,I was floored.
I was floored by what he wassaying.
It was like he knew thingsabout me that he shouldn't have
(01:03:39):
known.
But the words were like oh mygosh, how are you saying this
right now?
How do you know me to thislevel?
And that was a spiritualexperience for me.
And other things beganhappening where I would approach
the divine, would a person inmy life who I care about would
(01:04:00):
enter my mind and I would have acertain emotional response
about them, and then I wouldhear from them like immediately
after, and they would get, theywould share something with me,
and what they shared with mematched the emotional response
that I was experiencing andthinking about them as and I'm
like what the heck is going on.
Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
That is crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
And I just have to think, like you know what, if
this is happening at a frequencybeyond coincidence and there's
nothing, there's nothing specialabout me that this is happening
, Every single human being cando this or something.
I don't know what to call it.
We all have some unique abilityor we can all do this.
(01:04:45):
I don't know.
It's almost feels like it feelslike empathy from afar.
It feels like empathy from afarand it makes me feel like we're
all connected in the same exactway, on the same level, and
when we are tapped into ourspiritual side and have that
more openness and we payattention, that we begin to
(01:05:09):
notice these things, I thinkthere may be happening to
everyone to some level.
Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Thank you for sharing such a powerful story.
I think what you weredescribing a little bit sounded
like clear sentience, which Ihope I'm not getting this wrong
but it's when you have psychicknowing and you feel it in your
body.
I believe that's what it is,but, like you said, it sounds
(01:05:35):
like empathy from afar as well.
So thank you for sharing that.
I think that was a great way tokind of round up our
conversation, and I always askmy guests for final words of
wisdom to the listeners.
We've had such a powerfulconversation, so it could be
related to what we've beentalking about or it could be
completely.
It could be somethingcompletely different, that you
(01:05:58):
kind of keeping your back pocketas you go through life.
Yeah, you know the first thingthat's coming to mind.
Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
It's a conversation I had with my clients in bravery
boot camp recently, and theconversation was about honor and
it's honor yourself, but that'seasy to say, but there's all of
these things that come aroundwith it.
Like, what does it even mean tohonor yourself?
Most people don't know what itmeans to honor themselves.
Most people don't knowthemselves deep enough to honor
(01:06:28):
themselves.
Most people aren't makingchoices that have to do with
self respect and honors, thatself respect is part of the
honor conversation and that whenyou honor yourself, it's not
selfish, because the more youhonor yourself, the healthier
you will be as an individual.
(01:06:48):
The healthier you are, the lessstress you have, the more
resilient you are to handlestress, and when we're living in
those conditions, our abilityto give back to others is so
much more.
The way that I honor you is byhonoring me, essentially, and so
(01:07:08):
honor yourself know what itmeans to honor yourself.
Know what that means.
If you were to take a pen andpaper and write out what it
means to honor yourself, writeout what it means when you're
not honoring yourself, would youknow what that looks like?
Would you know what that lookslike?
And when you know what it lookslike, are you acting on it?
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
That's good.
Thank you so much, Jessica.
Where can people find you ifthey want to learn more about
your work or work with you?
Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Yeah, so it's essentially selfcraftedkingcom.
Selfcraftedkingcom as of rightnow.
I'm probably one of the onlypeople who says this.
My front page says don't followme on social media.
Everything you need is righthere and you can either sign up
for my email list or you canstart my program for free.
(01:07:54):
You can watch some of thevideos, you can hop on a free
call with one of my amazingcoaches Once you do an hour
worth of the intro to my courseand it may change in the future
where I have some social mediastuff.
Everyone's telling me I got todo it.
Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Why aren't you on social media?
Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
So it's highly addictive.
There's that one and being onsocial media it's almost.
A lot of people use it as aform of external validation
seeking.
Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I don't want to fall back into that.
I'm okay with like I'm notreally worried about that it
takes up.
Here's why I mean there's a lotof reasons.
How do I go into this?
The times when I'veexperimented with it in the past
, almost everything coming backat me was inappropriate sexual,
(01:08:50):
flirtatious behavior for men whohave no desire to heal or
recover.
They just see a woman talkingabout sex and they want to flirt
with me.
Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
So that's one reason and I'm not signed up for that.
And if, really, everything thatyou need from me is on my
selfcraftedkingcom website, Ihave a bunch of free content on
there to get you going, to getyou to know everything that you
need to learn.
(01:09:19):
If you know you want to workwith me or not?
Yeah, and a lot of my clientswho are the most serious about
recovery, they're not spendingany time on social media.
Social media is a domino effectto relapse, very much so
they're falling.
Even when they delete all theInstagram models, things like
(01:09:41):
that, it still shows up in thealgorithm, no matter how much
you try to delete it.
And so a lot of the people whoare the most serious about
recovery they already know tostay away from social media.
And so that's in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
That's good, yeah, I mean, I think I need to use
social media a lot less, and Itry to do that because, you're
right, there's just so much onthere, hyper stimulating and
very addictive.
So you are ahead of the curve.
Thank you, jessica, forstopping by.
A word to the wise I'm going toput your website in the show
notes, but this is a greatconversation, thank you so much.
Thank you so much, jumi.
Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
This has been an honor.
This was a way to honor myselfand thank you A big shout out to
Jessica Jordan for stopping bythe show.
Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
If you are interested in learning more about Jessica
or you want to send her an emailand you want to work with her,
please check out the show notesfor a link to her email and her
website.
And, most importantly, if youenjoy this episode, if you found
it useful, insightful, if youwere able to gain some resources
(01:10:47):
, if you're struggling with thisand this episode, or this two
part series, has helped youreach out, let me know.
You know because I'm doing this, because I'm hoping that it
reaches the right people whoneed this information, and if
you are one of those people, letme know how you resonated with
this episode.
Thank you so much.
You can follow or to the wiseon Instagram and TikTok at award
(01:11:12):
to the wise pot.
We're also on YouTube at awardto the wise podcast.
Please be sure to subscribe.
If you are enjoying the show.
Please rate, leave a review,share and subscribe wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Till next time, peace and love,always, always, always.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com