Don't go into 2023 hooked on porn
Initially published Dec 2022, if you're reading this in 2023 or beyond start now.
If you’re reading this in 2023 or beyond, today is the day to start. Clap your hands now, write this date in your diary. No turning back.
This article is primarily targeted at heterosexual men but is relevant to many others. This is not medical or psychological advice. Please see a qualified professional for professional advice.
www.streettheologian.medium.com
You’ve spent another year throwing your free time at pixels of women you’ve never met nor will meet being degraded. You’ve spent another year wasting your life force on these pixels, stumbling through life like a zombie because you have no energy to do anything else. Accept and acknowledge this disappointment. Feel the guilt but don’t beat yourself to the ground. We are all fallen. Now is the time to make a change.
You’re reading this because you want to do something worthwhile with your life, you want to be in control of your mind and you want to make progress. The barbs of life will hit you hard at times in 2023, lay the groundwork now. Here’s 3 quick ways to make progress in 2023:
(1)Know your triggers. HALT. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Which of these do you tend to feel when you get an urge to watch porn? What circumstances led to you feeling this way? Observe and accept the urge. It is there. You observe yourself feeling the urge to watch porn, admit it to yourself. You feel lonely, admit it to yourself. You feel mistreated at work, accept and admit it. Your brain just wants a dopamine hit for you to feel better temporarily but this is only a trap and will be followed by you “falling off a cliff.”
Instead of trying to pull the rope away from lust, watch from a distance the fight within you, let the rope fall to the ground, accept the urge is there but only focus on observing your emotions, not watching porn and see what happens. It is no coincidence Satan sought to tempt Christ when he was hungry, alone and tired in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Yet Christ, who lived a celibate life with utmost purity towards his close female friends did not give in to temptation of any kind (Heb. 2:18).
12 Reasons most Christian men are hooked on porn and what to do about it
Source: Doc Goldernberg
(2)Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Engage in meaningful pursuits. Feel the sweat, feel the pain. Few good things come easy. Be someone today the future you will be proud of. Find things to challenge you- intense workouts, cold showers, intellectually heavy books, expanding your social circle, growing a business, learning a new skill, apologising to someone you’ve hurt. Life is short.
Start being comfortable being uncomfortable. Baby steps. Each day try to be a bit better than the day before. Small incremental progress. The narrow, unpopular and uncomfortable path leads to life while the broad, popular and more temporarily comfortable path leads to death (Matt. 7:13–14). The way of Christ is the way of sacrifice, the road to Golgotha but the path of meaning and love. There is a way which seems right to man but its end is the way of death (Prov. 16:25). Don’t fall for what is popular or mainstream if it harms you. More here:
12 Reasons most Christian men are hooked on porn and what to do about it
Source: Doc Goldernberg
(3)Face reality about yourself. Don’t live in a fake reality. Don’t engage in fantasies which flood your brain with chemicals but numb you from reality. Accept when you’re hurting. Accept when you’re lonely. Accept when your ego has been hurt. Accept when you are jealous. As Marcus Aurerlius noted in Meditations “truth does no harm.” Christ said in John 8:32 “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Admitting our own brokenness, humbling ourselves before Christ and accepting our need for him is how we accept Christ’s gift of salvation. He humbled himself from equality with God temporarily by adding on humanity to his divinity to suffer and die for you (Phil 2:5–11). He faced the uncomfortable in his mission, the political and religious elite of his time. Though exalted, he became lowly for us who, though lowly, seek to exalt ourselves.
You have fingerprints of divinity within you but you aren’t God. You didn’t choose where you were born or your DNA or that you would have 100,000 kms of blood vessels in you on a planet moving around the sun at 107,000 kilometres per hour. You are simultaneously connected yet disconnected from the divine. Christ paved the way, adding humanity to himself to connect the disconnected. Admit your sin, pain and hurt. Throw yourself into the arms of Christ.