October 6, 2025 • 26 mins
Why do we sexualize our emotions, and how can we process our emotions without sexualizing them? In this episode, Jonathan Hernandez answers these questions in English. Check out the Spanish version of this episode here.
Jonathan Hernandez is a newly Certified Husband Material Coach with over a year of experience as a Certified Connection Codes Coach. He completed three years at Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry and is passionate about helping couples build deeper connection and guiding men into healthy and fulfilling sexuality.
Connect with Jonathan here:
rueda.jonnythecoach.com/english
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome to the House of Materials Podcast, where we
help first and then how to growfor why our frequency brands
fill your heart and setting yourrelationship.
My name is Rebo, and I'm here totalk about Let's Go for today.
(00:30):
He is incredibly wise, mature,and skilled at helping people
connect with God, withthemselves, with each other.
And his teaching on how toprocess sexualized emotions is
the first episode of HusbandMaterial that we are publishing
in English and in Spanish.
So to make it truly the sameepisode in both languages, I did
(00:54):
not interview him, I justinvited him to teach.
So here is Jonathan's teachingin English on how to process
sexualized emotions.
Enjoy the episode.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Hello everyone, I am Jonathan Hernandez, a very
recently added HM coach.
And I wanted to talk to youabout sexualized emotions.
So if you guys heard theprevious episode in this
podcast, Drew interviewed Dr.
Glenn and Phyllis.
They are the founders ofConnection Codes.
(01:24):
If you haven't heard it yet, Ireally, really advise you to go
and listen to it right nowbecause it's amazing.
It's really good.
I am a really good friend of Dr.
Glenn and Phyllis.
I am also a Connection Codescoach.
So they created the ConnectionCodes framework and I am part of
it.
And I coach couples all over theworld and just teaching them how
(01:48):
to process their emotions inreal time and how to connect
deeply.
But I'm also very passionateabout men and how we as men
understand sexuality and how weunderstand emotions as well.
Because this might be a surprisefor many people here, but the
way we process our emotions canbe sexualized.
(02:10):
And sometimes we don't have acrazy problem with sexuality, or
it's not like, oh my gosh, likeI am a very, very sexual person
that like really really wants tohave sex all the time, and like
I can't control this desire forsex.
And sometimes it's not like youhave a crazy desire for sex, but
it's more that you have a needthat hasn't been met, an
(02:30):
emotional need, and it comes outin a sexual way.
So we're here to talk about allof this.
So if you can take notes,because what I'm gonna show you
here, what I'm gonna tell youhere today, is something that
you can take home and do everyevery day.
And it's something that'schanged my life completely, and
that's why I want to share thiswith you guys.
(02:51):
Let's begin.
Sexualized emotions.
Picture an eight-year-old kidthat's stressed out because they
have to do schoolwork, becausethey can't play video games if
they don't read for an hour, ifthey don't read a book for an
hour, and they are just stressedout of their minds, and they're
like, Oh my gosh, like I don'twant to read, I want to go play
(03:13):
video games, I want to go playoutside, but they don't actually
have a way to process thisemotion.
This emotion might be anger, orit might be sadness, or it might
even be loneliness because theyhave to read their book alone,
and that means they're not gonnabe able to be with their friends
or hang out with their friendsand play or play video games
(03:36):
with a friend because they haveto read first.
So just picture this, go intothis kid's life, and all of a
sudden this kid realizes that hecan masturbate, he can touch
himself, and it feels great, itfeels amazing, it feels really
good, and then he just startsdoing it every once in a while.
(03:59):
That's my story as a kid.
That's me at eight years old.
I learned to process lonelinessthrough sexual stimulation,
through masturbation first, andthen when I was 11, I found
pornography.
I was homeschooled, and so I wasin my computer, I was 11, alone
(04:20):
in my house, and I was really,really curious about sex.
So I was like, what would happenif I look up sex on Google?
Maybe I'll find somethinginteresting here.
And while I did find somethingvery interesting, and it changed
my life completely, I didn'tknow it was gonna change my
life, that what I was about tosee was gonna change my whole
way of looking at the world, butit did, and it violated my
(04:43):
brain.
And from that moment on,everything changed because I
didn't just have masturbation toprocess my loneliness.
Now I had porn, and porn wouldshow me people that were being
intimate with each other, thatwould be that were being
vulnerable with each other,people that were willing to be
naked in front of each other ornaked in front of me.
(05:05):
And I didn't know at the time,but that was a message of
vulnerability to me, and Iwanted so much vulnerability, I
wanted to feel connected withsomeone like that, and so every
time I was by myself in my housetrying to do my schoolwork, I
would go and watch pornography,I would go and masturbate
because I had this sense of notbeing alone when I did that.
(05:29):
My childhood is filled withloneliness.
I went to normal school for thefirst few years of my life, and
then from fifth grade on, I washomeschooled.
And that was a crazy shift forme where I was alone a lot of
the time, and well, that's whenI discovered pornography, right?
So in that moment or in thattime, I realized that if I had
(05:53):
sexual pleasure, I could bypassloneliness.
Of course, I didn't know this inlike a cognitive level where I
was like, oh yeah, yeah, if I dothis, I'm gonna end up bypassing
loneliness.
But that's what I was doing.
And now I know that's what I wasdoing.
And even today, when I am doingwork by myself, when I have to
(06:14):
be in my computer by myself, Ifeel that anxiety, that pull,
that desire to masturbate,because that's something that I
grew up with as a little kid tobypass the loneliness, to bypass
the uncomfortable feeling ofhaving to go through something
by myself.
So I sexualized my loneliness.
(06:36):
I sexualized this emotion in mylife.
So every single time I felt it,I would just go and watch porn
masturbate, I would feel goodabout it, I would be like, oh
yeah, like finally I had somerelease of this stress.
And if you guys have beenlistening to this podcast for a
while, then you might know someof the neurological things that
happened with masturbation inpornography.
(06:59):
Something very, very importantand something very, very
interesting that happens is thatwhen we watch porn, dopamine
gets released in our brain, andthat's the joy hormone.
That's what I like calling thejoy hormone because you just
feel a lot of joy, you just feela lot of pleasure, and it's
like, oh my gosh, this is sogood.
And then we kind of relax afterthat, after having that like joy
(07:24):
hit or that dopamine hit, andthen it's like oh, you're
relaxed, you're processed, youare regulated.
So porn helps us regulate.
It is an answer, it is anantidote, it's not the main
problem.
It is a problem, however, it'ssomething that if you're
listening to this podcast, youprobably don't want to have, and
(07:47):
you probably don't want to bewatching pornography, but it is
something that your body isusing as the antidote.
It's something that your body'susing as the answer to all of
your problems because itregulates you.
It's like hitting the brake inthe car when you're like
speeding up and you're like,ugh, and you just hit the brake
and it's like masturbation andporn help you get to that place
(08:11):
super fast, right?
But what if we could actually beable to process emotion without
having to sexualize it?
What if we can catch it beforeit goes into trying to do
something sexual to release it?
And we can learn to process ouremotions in a way that's not
(08:31):
sexual, in a way that doesn't gointo pornography or unwanted
sexual compulsion, and that issaying our emotions out loud.
So, why would that even help?
Well, once you say your emotionsout loud, your brain is able is
able to make sense of them.
What do I mean by that?
(08:53):
There's five neural regions inyour brain, and you probably
already heard this in theprevious podcast, but there's
five neural regions in yourbrain that house emotion.
They house the emotionchemically.
So when you feel anger, allthese chemicals get fired up in
your brain, and then you feelthe anger, you feel it in your
body, you feel it in yourperson.
Same with loneliness, same withsadness, with every single
(09:15):
emotion.
But when we are able to say theemotion, our limbic system,
which is these five regions thatconnect or that house emotion,
our limbic system gets connectedto our prefrontal cortex.
And the prefrontal cortex isthis part of our brain that
makes sense of things.
(09:35):
So it's a part of our brain thatthinks logically, that can
organize things, it's the partof our brain that thinks, oh,
maybe I shouldn't have anotherpizza slice, because if I have
more than four, it's gonna beway too much and I'm not gonna
feel good.
That's the prefrontal cortex.
And the limbic system is theemotion part of you that's like,
(09:56):
oh my gosh, like I feel a lot ofanger, I feel a lot of joy, I
feel a lot of loneliness, I feelall these things.
And when this is activated, andwhen it's activated on a high
level, our prefrontal cortexdisconnects, right?
So prefrontal cortex disconnectsfrom the limbic system, but when
(10:17):
we're able to name our emotion,they get connected again, and
that's really important becausewhen they get connected again,
we make sense of our emotion,and then it starts getting
processed up in our bodies, andthat is something very, very
powerful.
So you can see that with fear,for example, when when you're
afraid to go on a roller coasteror something like that, maybe
(10:38):
you have a story like this.
I've had stories like thisbecause I hate roller coasters,
but when I'm with someone andI'm able to voice my fear and be
like, oh my gosh, I'm so afraidto go into this game and like I
don't want to.
And when I see that thesepeople, my friends or my parents
are with me in the game.
I'm thinking about me when I wasyounger and my parents would go
with me to this roller coaster.
(11:00):
I would feel way safer and I'llbe able to do it.
I'll be able to go on the rollercoaster, yes, feel the fear, but
it diminishes and it lets me dowhat I want to do or what I am
choosing to do because now theemotion doesn't control me,
because I'm able to say it,process it up, and have someone
there to listen to me and bewith me in the emotion.
(11:22):
So that's why saying ouremotions is extremely important
and it's very, very, verynecessary when it comes to our
recovery from porn consumptionor from sexual compulsion.
Because if you start realizingit and if you start being
curious with your own sexualityand with the way you act it out,
then you might realize that alot of it comes from unprocessed
(11:45):
emotions.
For me, it's been loneliness fora long time, and when I'm able
to voice that loneliness and tosay what's happening for me, it
changes everything.
And for you, it could be anger,it could be loneliness as well.
I don't know.
But when we start gettingcurious, we can name it, we can
make sense of it, and we don'thave to hit the break in a sense
(12:07):
or use something sexual toregulate.
That's kind of like an emergencybutton where it's like, oh my
gosh, I need to regulatesomehow.
Let's go and do somethingsexual, let's go and watch porn
and then I'll be regulated.
But you're able to stop beforethat and name your emotion.
So, how are you gonna do this?
(12:27):
Is this sounds reallyoverwhelming or really hard?
It sounds like how do I evenstart?
Well, I want to start withloneliness first, the message of
loneliness and the need ofloneliness, because every
emotion, every core emotion hasa message and a need.
So the message of loneliness isI'm alone and without support.
This is a tricky one becausesome people think they're never
(12:49):
lonely because they're withpeople around all the time, or
they just enjoy their timealone, and so you're like, Well,
I'm never lonely.
But lonely really means beingwithout support.
So, what does that mean?
Like maybe you have to work onsomething by yourself, like me,
then you don't feel like youhave support from anyone there,
(13:09):
or maybe you have to, I don'tknow, clean up the whole house
by yourself.
You have no support.
Or maybe you are you feel a lotof joy about doing something
that's fun for you and nobodyelse wants to do it with you.
Oh, no support with doing thething that you want to do.
So everything changes when welook at loneliness like not
(13:32):
having support.
And then that's the message ofloneliness.
So, what's the need ofloneliness?
The need of loneliness is that Ineed to find connection and
authentic or safe support.
And to be able to find thatconnection or save support, I
need to be able to voice myloneliness so that someone can
meet me there in love and sothat someone can be in my
(13:58):
loneliness with me.
When someone's in my lonelinesswith me, I actually get the need
met because then oh, I have thatsupport that I needed, because I
was able to voice that I didn'thave support, and then someone
came and supported me in that.
So guess what?
I'm no longer lonely.
Now we can't control ouremotions, we can't control what
we feel.
And if there's something that Iwant you to take from this
(14:20):
podcast, is that very thing thatwe can't control what we feel.
We can't control what we think,but we can't control what we
feel.
Maybe you hear a church like,choose joy, do not be afraid,
don't ever be afraid, becausethe Lord is with you.
And that sounds amazing, but howam I gonna not be afraid?
How am I gonna choose joy?
Like, I can try to choose joytoday.
(14:42):
I wake up in the day and I wakeup in the morning, and then I'm
like, yeah, I'm gonna choose joytoday, and it's gonna be an
amazing day.
And then let's say I go outsideand there's a hurricane or
there's an earthquake, there'san earthquake out of nowhere.
Oh, I'm gonna feel fear.
And you know what?
That fear is good.
There's this thing that Dr.
Glenn says about every singletime that you hear the phrase do
(15:05):
not fear in the Bible, and inthe Greek and in the Hebrew, it
actually says, Don't panic andrun away when you feel fear.
And that changes everything.
Because it's not like Goddoesn't want you to feel an
emotion, He's saying, wait,wait, wait, don't panic and run
away when you feel fear.
Because I know you're gonna feelfear, but I want you to be able
(15:29):
to process it in a safe way orin a healthy way.
So we can't choose what we feel,but we can choose our next
action, we can choose ourbehavior.
When we don't make space for ouremotions, when we don't make
space to process our emotions,then they control our behavior.
(15:51):
So, for example, if I feel theloneliness and I don't make
space for it, and I don't nameit and I don't become aware of
it, I can end up watching pornand masturbating, and that
loneliness is gonna take controlof my behavior because I didn't
make space for it.
Because when I don't make spacefor it, it grows and grows and
(16:11):
grows and grows until it takescontrol of me and then takes
control of my behavior.
So that's why for me it's soimportant to be able to name it,
to say it, name it, to tame it.
Maybe you've heard that phrasebefore.
And it's so so so so importantfor me to be able to do that.
So I hope this is helpful foryou so far.
(16:32):
How are you gonna do this in apractical way?
Well, something that I reallylike doing in my own life is
writing out my emotions.
I write out my emotion wheelevery single morning.
You can do it at night as wellif you want, and it takes only
from two to five minutes becauseyou are only choosing one phrase
or one sentence for eachemotion.
(16:54):
And it's amazing, it's onlyeight core emotions, and when
you're able to do this, you canfeel way more in yourself.
You're way more aware of what'shappening with your emotions,
and then it helps you be able tovoice these emotions with
somebody else that's actuallysafe for you.
So that's something that I do.
I write my emotions out daily,and that just helps me be
(17:14):
processed up.
Where I'm like, oh, I'm feelingloneliness when I work on this
project.
Maybe I need to find supporthere, and maybe I should not
work on it alone.
Maybe I can just go and hang outwith my girlfriend and be with
her while I'm working on my ownthing.
She's working on her own thing,but then she's with me there,
(17:36):
and I feel support just beingclose to her.
You're gonna know what you need,but to be able to get to that
place, you gotta be able tovoice and to know what you're
feeling so that you can knowwhat you need.
Another thing that I want totalk to you about is joy and the
joy of sexual stimulation.
(17:58):
Because this is a whole wholebig thing.
We heard this message fromPurity Culture that if we felt
joy about sexuality, then wewere bad people.
And maybe you heard it indifferent ways throughout life
or throughout purity culture.
This is the message or the coremessage of it.
If you feel joy about sexuality,you're bad and you are not okay,
(18:20):
and there's something wrong withyou, and you're sinful, and
that's not true.
Again, God created sexuality andHe created that joy response we
get from sexuality.
When that gets twisted andhijacked, then what do we do?
So, for example, if I'm able tounderstand that I'm gonna feel
(18:41):
joy when I see a beautiful womanon the street, then I can voice
it.
I can be like, oh, joy, joyabout that girl that's walking
by, joy about that beautifulbody that I just saw.
But I don't need to do anythingabout that joy.
I can just say, hmm, joy.
I felt joy.
Why do I say that?
(19:02):
Why do I voice it?
Because it helps me process it.
And if I don't say it, and ifI'm just like, ah yeah, yeah,
that girl's pretty, but Ishouldn't think about it.
And oh my gosh, my body'sactivated.
No, no, no, I shouldn't feelthis way, I shouldn't feel this
way, no, no, no, no, I'm gonnaget distracted.
If I do that, that joyexperience is gonna grow in my
body, and then it could takecontrol of my body in a way
(19:22):
that's not good.
Like, oh, maybe I need somesexual release, maybe I'm just
gonna masturbate thinking aboutthat girl that I saw on the
street, right?
And all that happened why?
Because I didn't voice my joy, Ididn't put a name to my
experience.
So that's why this is soimportant.
So we're gonna feel joy fromsexual stimuli.
(19:43):
That's just gonna happen.
We are human beings, men andwomen, we all feel it.
We all feel it when we seesomething that we like, when we
see something beautiful, and forme, this is an invitation to
process the joy and to direct itup to God.
So, what do I mean by this?
There's something that I gotfrom Christopher West and the
(20:03):
theology of the body, but hetalks about letting beauty turn
into a signpost to the beauty ofGod.
So, what I like about that iscombining connection codes with
theology of the body and saying,wow, I feel joy about that
beautiful woman right there.
And thank you, Jesus, for makingher.
(20:24):
Thank you for making her so, so,so beautiful.
Thank you because you open myeyes to such a beauty, and I can
direct this to you.
Because if she's beautiful, youcreated her, then how much more
beautiful are you, Jesus?
And then this is a createdperson, right?
She can't actually fulfill mydesire for eternal beauty
(20:45):
because I have that desire deepinside of me.
We all have it in our core.
We have that desire for beauty,just deep eternal beauty, and it
never gets satiated.
We could try with all thesebeautiful women, like Solomon
did in the Bible, and just havea whole bunch of wives and do
all these things, and you're notgonna be filled.
That's what Solomon said.
Like, hey, like I had all thesethings, all these women, I had
(21:08):
absolutely everything, and Idon't feel fulfilled.
What is that saying?
Oh boy, I have a deep desire forsomething eternal.
So for me, when I feel joy,sexual joy, or joy about someone
that activates me sexually orsomething, I can listen to it, I
(21:29):
can give it a voice and be like,oh, I feel joy.
And this is just touching intothis deep eternal desire that I
have that I can actually pointat Jesus and say, Wow, God, if
that person's so beautiful, howmuch more beautiful are you?
And how do I point this joy toyou?
How do I open it up all the wayto you?
(21:51):
So that's something that I lovedoing when it comes to sexual
activation from any kind orbecause we are all different and
we all have differentattractions, right?
Or different attractiontemplates.
But when you're able to makespace for that joy in a healthy
way, where you see something andyou're like, oh, joy, I feel joy
(22:12):
about that, and then you directit to an eternal source, then
wow, that's amazing.
That's so so good because you'redoing something about it.
The message of joy is that feltgood, let's do it again.
And the need of joy is I needpleasure to thrive in life.
So if I'm able to direct thispleasure to the eternal, or even
(22:38):
just voice it, then I have aspace where I can be like, oh, I
have a space to see beauty, tosee pleasure, I have a space for
that, and then direct that toGod.
And then I have the space alsoto honor my wife.
I have the space to honor thepeople around me and to honor
(22:58):
beauty like God created me tohonor it.
And I think this is so importantbecause I think God gave us this
activation to beautiful things,and he doesn't take it away
because he wants to show us howto see beauty like he sees
beauty, because he createdbeauty, and so a step for me to
(23:20):
do that is to be able to voicemy emotion.
I hope you guys can getsomething good out of this and
start doing your emotion wheelevery day, every morning if you
want.
We also have the foundationscourse in connection codes.
So I'm gonna leave you my linkfor you to get a discount,
(23:40):
special discount for thatfoundations course if you want
to take it.
If you want to take it with yourwife or with your people that
are close to you, maybe yourfamily, your friends, you want
to take it with people that youwant to build community with.
This is amazing because whenyou're able to have this culture
together, then you can go andhave space to process your
(24:03):
emotions with the people closestto you.
And they can do the same withyou, and you guys can be safe
places for each other.
So this course is amazing.
I did it with my girlfriend,with my parents, and with my
girlfriend sister, and it'samazing the kind of culture that
you create around your closestpeople.
So this is a beautiful,beautiful thing to do.
And have someone, have someonethat you can talk to, have
(24:26):
someone that you can tell youremotions to daily.
We feel each of the coreemotions every single day.
And you might say, Well, Ididn't feel loneliness today.
Maybe you felt a little bit ofit, just a little tiny bit of
loneliness.
And when you have people aroundyou that you can do this with,
that you can do the core emotionwheel with, that you can tell
(24:46):
your emotions to, then you livea connected life.
And remember that the oppositeof addiction is not sobriety but
connection.
What I'm telling you here, guys,is the framework for deep
connection.
And that leads to freedom fromaddiction because now you have a
connected life.
So, yes, thank you for listeningto me.
(25:08):
Thank you for taking the time.
You guys can see my links downbelow.
I have a PDF where you guys cansee all the emotions needs and
all the emotions messages, andwhere you can actually have a
little template to write outyour emotions daily.
So you can go out into the linksection and go see it.
(25:31):
It's$7 right now, so it's cheap,it's just less than a meal, it's
like a coffee, and you can goget it and start doing it daily.
And then you're also gonna havethe link for the foundations
course down there.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you would like to connectwith Jonathan, go down to the
links in the show notes.
Always remember you are God'sbeloved son, and you, he is well
pleased.
Welcome to the House of Materials Podcast, where we
help first and then how to growfor why our frequency brands
fill your heart and setting yourrelationship.
My name is Rebo, and I'm here totalk about Let's Go for today.
(00:30):
He is incredibly wise, mature,and skilled at helping people
connect with God, withthemselves, with each other.
And his teaching on how toprocess sexualized emotions is
the first episode of HusbandMaterial that we are publishing
in English and in Spanish.
So to make it truly the sameepisode in both languages, I did
(00:54):
not interview him, I justinvited him to teach.
So here is Jonathan's teachingin English on how to process
sexualized emotions.
Enjoy the episode.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Hello everyone, I am Jonathan Hernandez, a very
recently added HM coach.
And I wanted to talk to youabout sexualized emotions.
So if you guys heard theprevious episode in this
podcast, Drew interviewed Dr.
Glenn and Phyllis.
They are the founders ofConnection Codes.
(01:24):
If you haven't heard it yet, Ireally, really advise you to go
and listen to it right nowbecause it's amazing.
It's really good.
I am a really good friend of Dr.
Glenn and Phyllis.
I am also a Connection Codescoach.
So they created the ConnectionCodes framework and I am part of
it.
And I coach couples all over theworld and just teaching them how
(01:48):
to process their emotions inreal time and how to connect
deeply.
But I'm also very passionateabout men and how we as men
understand sexuality and how weunderstand emotions as well.
Because this might be a surprisefor many people here, but the
way we process our emotions canbe sexualized.
(02:10):
And sometimes we don't have acrazy problem with sexuality, or
it's not like, oh my gosh, likeI am a very, very sexual person
that like really really wants tohave sex all the time, and like
I can't control this desire forsex.
And sometimes it's not like youhave a crazy desire for sex, but
it's more that you have a needthat hasn't been met, an
(02:30):
emotional need, and it comes outin a sexual way.
So we're here to talk about allof this.
So if you can take notes,because what I'm gonna show you
here, what I'm gonna tell youhere today, is something that
you can take home and do everyevery day.
And it's something that'schanged my life completely, and
that's why I want to share thiswith you guys.
(02:51):
Let's begin.
Sexualized emotions.
Picture an eight-year-old kidthat's stressed out because they
have to do schoolwork, becausethey can't play video games if
they don't read for an hour, ifthey don't read a book for an
hour, and they are just stressedout of their minds, and they're
like, Oh my gosh, like I don'twant to read, I want to go play
(03:13):
video games, I want to go playoutside, but they don't actually
have a way to process thisemotion.
This emotion might be anger, orit might be sadness, or it might
even be loneliness because theyhave to read their book alone,
and that means they're not gonnabe able to be with their friends
or hang out with their friendsand play or play video games
(03:36):
with a friend because they haveto read first.
So just picture this, go intothis kid's life, and all of a
sudden this kid realizes that hecan masturbate, he can touch
himself, and it feels great, itfeels amazing, it feels really
good, and then he just startsdoing it every once in a while.
(03:59):
That's my story as a kid.
That's me at eight years old.
I learned to process lonelinessthrough sexual stimulation,
through masturbation first, andthen when I was 11, I found
pornography.
I was homeschooled, and so I wasin my computer, I was 11, alone
(04:20):
in my house, and I was really,really curious about sex.
So I was like, what would happenif I look up sex on Google?
Maybe I'll find somethinginteresting here.
And while I did find somethingvery interesting, and it changed
my life completely, I didn'tknow it was gonna change my
life, that what I was about tosee was gonna change my whole
way of looking at the world, butit did, and it violated my
(04:43):
brain.
And from that moment on,everything changed because I
didn't just have masturbation toprocess my loneliness.
Now I had porn, and porn wouldshow me people that were being
intimate with each other, thatwould be that were being
vulnerable with each other,people that were willing to be
naked in front of each other ornaked in front of me.
(05:05):
And I didn't know at the time,but that was a message of
vulnerability to me, and Iwanted so much vulnerability, I
wanted to feel connected withsomeone like that, and so every
time I was by myself in my housetrying to do my schoolwork, I
would go and watch pornography,I would go and masturbate
because I had this sense of notbeing alone when I did that.
(05:29):
My childhood is filled withloneliness.
I went to normal school for thefirst few years of my life, and
then from fifth grade on, I washomeschooled.
And that was a crazy shift forme where I was alone a lot of
the time, and well, that's whenI discovered pornography, right?
So in that moment or in thattime, I realized that if I had
(05:53):
sexual pleasure, I could bypassloneliness.
Of course, I didn't know this inlike a cognitive level where I
was like, oh yeah, yeah, if I dothis, I'm gonna end up bypassing
loneliness.
But that's what I was doing.
And now I know that's what I wasdoing.
And even today, when I am doingwork by myself, when I have to
(06:14):
be in my computer by myself, Ifeel that anxiety, that pull,
that desire to masturbate,because that's something that I
grew up with as a little kid tobypass the loneliness, to bypass
the uncomfortable feeling ofhaving to go through something
by myself.
So I sexualized my loneliness.
(06:36):
I sexualized this emotion in mylife.
So every single time I felt it,I would just go and watch porn
masturbate, I would feel goodabout it, I would be like, oh
yeah, like finally I had somerelease of this stress.
And if you guys have beenlistening to this podcast for a
while, then you might know someof the neurological things that
happened with masturbation inpornography.
(06:59):
Something very, very importantand something very, very
interesting that happens is thatwhen we watch porn, dopamine
gets released in our brain, andthat's the joy hormone.
That's what I like calling thejoy hormone because you just
feel a lot of joy, you just feela lot of pleasure, and it's
like, oh my gosh, this is sogood.
And then we kind of relax afterthat, after having that like joy
(07:24):
hit or that dopamine hit, andthen it's like oh, you're
relaxed, you're processed, youare regulated.
So porn helps us regulate.
It is an answer, it is anantidote, it's not the main
problem.
It is a problem, however, it'ssomething that if you're
listening to this podcast, youprobably don't want to have, and
(07:47):
you probably don't want to bewatching pornography, but it is
something that your body isusing as the antidote.
It's something that your body'susing as the answer to all of
your problems because itregulates you.
It's like hitting the brake inthe car when you're like
speeding up and you're like,ugh, and you just hit the brake
and it's like masturbation andporn help you get to that place
(08:11):
super fast, right?
But what if we could actually beable to process emotion without
having to sexualize it?
What if we can catch it beforeit goes into trying to do
something sexual to release it?
And we can learn to process ouremotions in a way that's not
(08:31):
sexual, in a way that doesn't gointo pornography or unwanted
sexual compulsion, and that issaying our emotions out loud.
So, why would that even help?
Well, once you say your emotionsout loud, your brain is able is
able to make sense of them.
What do I mean by that?
(08:53):
There's five neural regions inyour brain, and you probably
already heard this in theprevious podcast, but there's
five neural regions in yourbrain that house emotion.
They house the emotionchemically.
So when you feel anger, allthese chemicals get fired up in
your brain, and then you feelthe anger, you feel it in your
body, you feel it in yourperson.
Same with loneliness, same withsadness, with every single
(09:15):
emotion.
But when we are able to say theemotion, our limbic system,
which is these five regions thatconnect or that house emotion,
our limbic system gets connectedto our prefrontal cortex.
And the prefrontal cortex isthis part of our brain that
makes sense of things.
(09:35):
So it's a part of our brain thatthinks logically, that can
organize things, it's the partof our brain that thinks, oh,
maybe I shouldn't have anotherpizza slice, because if I have
more than four, it's gonna beway too much and I'm not gonna
feel good.
That's the prefrontal cortex.
And the limbic system is theemotion part of you that's like,
(09:56):
oh my gosh, like I feel a lot ofanger, I feel a lot of joy, I
feel a lot of loneliness, I feelall these things.
And when this is activated, andwhen it's activated on a high
level, our prefrontal cortexdisconnects, right?
So prefrontal cortex disconnectsfrom the limbic system, but when
(10:17):
we're able to name our emotion,they get connected again, and
that's really important becausewhen they get connected again,
we make sense of our emotion,and then it starts getting
processed up in our bodies, andthat is something very, very
powerful.
So you can see that with fear,for example, when when you're
afraid to go on a roller coasteror something like that, maybe
(10:38):
you have a story like this.
I've had stories like thisbecause I hate roller coasters,
but when I'm with someone andI'm able to voice my fear and be
like, oh my gosh, I'm so afraidto go into this game and like I
don't want to.
And when I see that thesepeople, my friends or my parents
are with me in the game.
I'm thinking about me when I wasyounger and my parents would go
with me to this roller coaster.
(11:00):
I would feel way safer and I'llbe able to do it.
I'll be able to go on the rollercoaster, yes, feel the fear, but
it diminishes and it lets me dowhat I want to do or what I am
choosing to do because now theemotion doesn't control me,
because I'm able to say it,process it up, and have someone
there to listen to me and bewith me in the emotion.
(11:22):
So that's why saying ouremotions is extremely important
and it's very, very, verynecessary when it comes to our
recovery from porn consumptionor from sexual compulsion.
Because if you start realizingit and if you start being
curious with your own sexualityand with the way you act it out,
then you might realize that alot of it comes from unprocessed
(11:45):
emotions.
For me, it's been loneliness fora long time, and when I'm able
to voice that loneliness and tosay what's happening for me, it
changes everything.
And for you, it could be anger,it could be loneliness as well.
I don't know.
But when we start gettingcurious, we can name it, we can
make sense of it, and we don'thave to hit the break in a sense
(12:07):
or use something sexual toregulate.
That's kind of like an emergencybutton where it's like, oh my
gosh, I need to regulatesomehow.
Let's go and do somethingsexual, let's go and watch porn
and then I'll be regulated.
But you're able to stop beforethat and name your emotion.
So, how are you gonna do this?
(12:27):
Is this sounds reallyoverwhelming or really hard?
It sounds like how do I evenstart?
Well, I want to start withloneliness first, the message of
loneliness and the need ofloneliness, because every
emotion, every core emotion hasa message and a need.
So the message of loneliness isI'm alone and without support.
This is a tricky one becausesome people think they're never
(12:49):
lonely because they're withpeople around all the time, or
they just enjoy their timealone, and so you're like, Well,
I'm never lonely.
But lonely really means beingwithout support.
So, what does that mean?
Like maybe you have to work onsomething by yourself, like me,
then you don't feel like youhave support from anyone there,
(13:09):
or maybe you have to, I don'tknow, clean up the whole house
by yourself.
You have no support.
Or maybe you are you feel a lotof joy about doing something
that's fun for you and nobodyelse wants to do it with you.
Oh, no support with doing thething that you want to do.
So everything changes when welook at loneliness like not
(13:32):
having support.
And then that's the message ofloneliness.
So, what's the need ofloneliness?
The need of loneliness is that Ineed to find connection and
authentic or safe support.
And to be able to find thatconnection or save support, I
need to be able to voice myloneliness so that someone can
meet me there in love and sothat someone can be in my
(13:58):
loneliness with me.
When someone's in my lonelinesswith me, I actually get the need
met because then oh, I have thatsupport that I needed, because I
was able to voice that I didn'thave support, and then someone
came and supported me in that.
So guess what?
I'm no longer lonely.
Now we can't control ouremotions, we can't control what
we feel.
And if there's something that Iwant you to take from this
(14:20):
podcast, is that very thing thatwe can't control what we feel.
We can't control what we think,but we can't control what we
feel.
Maybe you hear a church like,choose joy, do not be afraid,
don't ever be afraid, becausethe Lord is with you.
And that sounds amazing, but howam I gonna not be afraid?
How am I gonna choose joy?
Like, I can try to choose joytoday.
(14:42):
I wake up in the day and I wakeup in the morning, and then I'm
like, yeah, I'm gonna choose joytoday, and it's gonna be an
amazing day.
And then let's say I go outsideand there's a hurricane or
there's an earthquake, there'san earthquake out of nowhere.
Oh, I'm gonna feel fear.
And you know what?
That fear is good.
There's this thing that Dr.
Glenn says about every singletime that you hear the phrase do
(15:05):
not fear in the Bible, and inthe Greek and in the Hebrew, it
actually says, Don't panic andrun away when you feel fear.
And that changes everything.
Because it's not like Goddoesn't want you to feel an
emotion, He's saying, wait,wait, wait, don't panic and run
away when you feel fear.
Because I know you're gonna feelfear, but I want you to be able
(15:29):
to process it in a safe way orin a healthy way.
So we can't choose what we feel,but we can choose our next
action, we can choose ourbehavior.
When we don't make space for ouremotions, when we don't make
space to process our emotions,then they control our behavior.
(15:51):
So, for example, if I feel theloneliness and I don't make
space for it, and I don't nameit and I don't become aware of
it, I can end up watching pornand masturbating, and that
loneliness is gonna take controlof my behavior because I didn't
make space for it.
Because when I don't make spacefor it, it grows and grows and
(16:11):
grows and grows until it takescontrol of me and then takes
control of my behavior.
So that's why for me it's soimportant to be able to name it,
to say it, name it, to tame it.
Maybe you've heard that phrasebefore.
And it's so so so so importantfor me to be able to do that.
So I hope this is helpful foryou so far.
(16:32):
How are you gonna do this in apractical way?
Well, something that I reallylike doing in my own life is
writing out my emotions.
I write out my emotion wheelevery single morning.
You can do it at night as wellif you want, and it takes only
from two to five minutes becauseyou are only choosing one phrase
or one sentence for eachemotion.
(16:54):
And it's amazing, it's onlyeight core emotions, and when
you're able to do this, you canfeel way more in yourself.
You're way more aware of what'shappening with your emotions,
and then it helps you be able tovoice these emotions with
somebody else that's actuallysafe for you.
So that's something that I do.
I write my emotions out daily,and that just helps me be
(17:14):
processed up.
Where I'm like, oh, I'm feelingloneliness when I work on this
project.
Maybe I need to find supporthere, and maybe I should not
work on it alone.
Maybe I can just go and hang outwith my girlfriend and be with
her while I'm working on my ownthing.
She's working on her own thing,but then she's with me there,
(17:36):
and I feel support just beingclose to her.
You're gonna know what you need,but to be able to get to that
place, you gotta be able tovoice and to know what you're
feeling so that you can knowwhat you need.
Another thing that I want totalk to you about is joy and the
joy of sexual stimulation.
(17:58):
Because this is a whole wholebig thing.
We heard this message fromPurity Culture that if we felt
joy about sexuality, then wewere bad people.
And maybe you heard it indifferent ways throughout life
or throughout purity culture.
This is the message or the coremessage of it.
If you feel joy about sexuality,you're bad and you are not okay,
(18:20):
and there's something wrong withyou, and you're sinful, and
that's not true.
Again, God created sexuality andHe created that joy response we
get from sexuality.
When that gets twisted andhijacked, then what do we do?
So, for example, if I'm able tounderstand that I'm gonna feel
(18:41):
joy when I see a beautiful womanon the street, then I can voice
it.
I can be like, oh, joy, joyabout that girl that's walking
by, joy about that beautifulbody that I just saw.
But I don't need to do anythingabout that joy.
I can just say, hmm, joy.
I felt joy.
Why do I say that?
(19:02):
Why do I voice it?
Because it helps me process it.
And if I don't say it, and ifI'm just like, ah yeah, yeah,
that girl's pretty, but Ishouldn't think about it.
And oh my gosh, my body'sactivated.
No, no, no, I shouldn't feelthis way, I shouldn't feel this
way, no, no, no, no, I'm gonnaget distracted.
If I do that, that joyexperience is gonna grow in my
body, and then it could takecontrol of my body in a way
(19:22):
that's not good.
Like, oh, maybe I need somesexual release, maybe I'm just
gonna masturbate thinking aboutthat girl that I saw on the
street, right?
And all that happened why?
Because I didn't voice my joy, Ididn't put a name to my
experience.
So that's why this is soimportant.
So we're gonna feel joy fromsexual stimuli.
(19:43):
That's just gonna happen.
We are human beings, men andwomen, we all feel it.
We all feel it when we seesomething that we like, when we
see something beautiful, and forme, this is an invitation to
process the joy and to direct itup to God.
So, what do I mean by this?
There's something that I gotfrom Christopher West and the
(20:03):
theology of the body, but hetalks about letting beauty turn
into a signpost to the beauty ofGod.
So, what I like about that iscombining connection codes with
theology of the body and saying,wow, I feel joy about that
beautiful woman right there.
And thank you, Jesus, for makingher.
(20:24):
Thank you for making her so, so,so beautiful.
Thank you because you open myeyes to such a beauty, and I can
direct this to you.
Because if she's beautiful, youcreated her, then how much more
beautiful are you, Jesus?
And then this is a createdperson, right?
She can't actually fulfill mydesire for eternal beauty
(20:45):
because I have that desire deepinside of me.
We all have it in our core.
We have that desire for beauty,just deep eternal beauty, and it
never gets satiated.
We could try with all thesebeautiful women, like Solomon
did in the Bible, and just havea whole bunch of wives and do
all these things, and you're notgonna be filled.
That's what Solomon said.
Like, hey, like I had all thesethings, all these women, I had
(21:08):
absolutely everything, and Idon't feel fulfilled.
What is that saying?
Oh boy, I have a deep desire forsomething eternal.
So for me, when I feel joy,sexual joy, or joy about someone
that activates me sexually orsomething, I can listen to it, I
(21:29):
can give it a voice and be like,oh, I feel joy.
And this is just touching intothis deep eternal desire that I
have that I can actually pointat Jesus and say, Wow, God, if
that person's so beautiful, howmuch more beautiful are you?
And how do I point this joy toyou?
How do I open it up all the wayto you?
(21:51):
So that's something that I lovedoing when it comes to sexual
activation from any kind orbecause we are all different and
we all have differentattractions, right?
Or different attractiontemplates.
But when you're able to makespace for that joy in a healthy
way, where you see something andyou're like, oh, joy, I feel joy
(22:12):
about that, and then you directit to an eternal source, then
wow, that's amazing.
That's so so good because you'redoing something about it.
The message of joy is that feltgood, let's do it again.
And the need of joy is I needpleasure to thrive in life.
So if I'm able to direct thispleasure to the eternal, or even
(22:38):
just voice it, then I have aspace where I can be like, oh, I
have a space to see beauty, tosee pleasure, I have a space for
that, and then direct that toGod.
And then I have the space alsoto honor my wife.
I have the space to honor thepeople around me and to honor
(22:58):
beauty like God created me tohonor it.
And I think this is so importantbecause I think God gave us this
activation to beautiful things,and he doesn't take it away
because he wants to show us howto see beauty like he sees
beauty, because he createdbeauty, and so a step for me to
(23:20):
do that is to be able to voicemy emotion.
I hope you guys can getsomething good out of this and
start doing your emotion wheelevery day, every morning if you
want.
We also have the foundationscourse in connection codes.
So I'm gonna leave you my linkfor you to get a discount,
(23:40):
special discount for thatfoundations course if you want
to take it.
If you want to take it with yourwife or with your people that
are close to you, maybe yourfamily, your friends, you want
to take it with people that youwant to build community with.
This is amazing because whenyou're able to have this culture
together, then you can go andhave space to process your
(24:03):
emotions with the people closestto you.
And they can do the same withyou, and you guys can be safe
places for each other.
So this course is amazing.
I did it with my girlfriend,with my parents, and with my
girlfriend sister, and it'samazing the kind of culture that
you create around your closestpeople.
So this is a beautiful,beautiful thing to do.
And have someone, have someonethat you can talk to, have
(24:26):
someone that you can tell youremotions to daily.
We feel each of the coreemotions every single day.
And you might say, Well, Ididn't feel loneliness today.
Maybe you felt a little bit ofit, just a little tiny bit of
loneliness.
And when you have people aroundyou that you can do this with,
that you can do the core emotionwheel with, that you can tell
(24:46):
your emotions to, then you livea connected life.
And remember that the oppositeof addiction is not sobriety but
connection.
What I'm telling you here, guys,is the framework for deep
connection.
And that leads to freedom fromaddiction because now you have a
connected life.
So, yes, thank you for listeningto me.
(25:08):
Thank you for taking the time.
You guys can see my links downbelow.
I have a PDF where you guys cansee all the emotions needs and
all the emotions messages, andwhere you can actually have a
little template to write outyour emotions daily.
So you can go out into the linksection and go see it.
(25:31):
It's$7 right now, so it's cheap,it's just less than a meal, it's
like a coffee, and you can goget it and start doing it daily.
And then you're also gonna havethe link for the foundations
course down there.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you would like to connectwith Jonathan, go down to the
links in the show notes.
Always remember you are God'sbeloved son, and you, he is well
pleased.
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