In part one of this blog I talked about the power of the addiction cycle and how you can use it to stop being a porn zombie and wake up. If you didn’t read it, please do – it will help you better implement the powerful and simple tool I’m going to teach you here.
Do you remember the addiction cycle from my last blog? In the model I teach, there are three phases: Trigger, Thought, and Action. When you are in the throes of your addiction, you blast through these phases fast with lightening speed. You cannot perceive even a millimeter of space between each phase, it just happens automatic . . . Trigger (see a hot girl), Thought (I wanna watch porn), Action (drop trow and watch porn). Bang, you are done, you wasted your sex and you feel like crap again. “How did this happen again?” you scream. Does this cycle sound familiar?
Actually, we only perceive the cycle as automatic. It’s not. You literally have lots of thoughts, and take hundreds of actions before you actually start watching porn from the onset of a trigger. Watch what happens . . . You have a Thought, lots of them. The thoughts ruminate and repeat over and over again in your head. Like a porn zombie, you quickly become consumed with one thing. Pooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!! As for Actions, you probably take hundreds if not thousands. You reach for your phone, swipe to unlock it, click on your browser, and search and search and search, and open your pants, start rubbing, and search and click and search and click, more rubbing, more clicking, faster stroking . . . and well . . . you know. If we were watching a video reenactment we’d probably count hundreds if not thousands of discrete actions that preceded orgasm.
I want to share a quote with you from survivor of the Holocaust. Read it very carefully and think about it in terms of the addiction cycle you learned about earlier. Here’s what he said, “between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor E. Frankl. Powerful stuff right?
So what does this tell us? What does Frankl’s quote have anything to do with porn addiction? It has everything to do with it. It tells us that we need to create space in between the phases of the addiction cycle so we can use that space to make decisions that enrich us, not hurt us like watching porn. In that space lies our power, our strength, and our ability to stop being a slave to pornography.
For the rest of this blog I’m going to focus on phases 2 and 3, Thought and Action. We want to create space after your Thought but before you take Action. And the tool I’m going to teach you to do just that is easy. Anyone can do it anywhere. It’s so simple that you may laugh when you read it. Trust me and don’t knock it till you try it. Do so at your own peril.
Before I tell you what it is, I am going to tell you what material you need to build the tool. This is all you need.
I know what you must be thinking. “I read two blogs, tracked my Triggers, Thoughts and Actions for a week and this is what I’ve been waiting for. “An Elastic Band??? Seriously??”
Yes, this simple elastic band can change the way you think, bring a deeper awareness to your compulsions, and drive behavior change. Period. If you don’t believe me try if for a week. All you have to do is:
- Find elastic
- Put elastic on wrist
- Snap elastic immediately after you experience an unhealthy sexual or self defeating thought.
- Use slight pain to snap back to reality
- Take positive action instead of watching porn
- Repeat as necessary
Yup, that’s it. That’s the secret. I have successful clients, leaders in their respective industries and communities, clients all over the world using this technique. Why? Because it works. Let me explain. Read on on watch the video.
When I was a porn zombie, asleep and oblivious to my addiction cycle, I needed to take Action to wake up, to snap out of it. After a powerful Trigger and a Thought I needed to shift the energy in my body, fast . . . I wanted a snap, pow, so one day after reviewing a large batch of documents in my lawyer days, I snapped the elastic band on my wrist in complete and utter frustration. I quickly realized that it was a major distraction from sex or porn, and the short flash of discomfort literally woke me up and helped me make a powerful choice.
I drew the analogy here to an emergency medical technician who comes upon an unresponsive patient (can you relate to being unresponsive when you’re a porn zombie?) – EMT’s sometimes use painful or uncomfortable stimuli to wake an unconscious patient up. They might put smelling salts under the patient’s nose, or rub their sternum with their knuckles (very painful) or pinch their arms like a “monkey bite.” This is critical to assess the patient’s altered level of consciousness.
An EMT manual says, “Altered level of consciousness is defined as an altered state of awareness and/or disorientation to time, place, purpose, or person. This can present as confusion, lethargy, disorientation, impaired cognition, or coma.” It sounds like the symptoms of a porn zombie to me. How about this, “Inappropriate aggressiveness or hostility should alert prehospital care personnel to the possibility that the patient’s thinking process may be impaired.” A masturbating monkey maybe? Regardless, you need to wake up and the elastic band just might do the trick.
In psychology, they call this aversion therapy. “Aversion therapy is a form of psychological treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort. This conditioning is intended to cause the patient to associate the stimulus with unpleasant sensations in order to stop the specific behavior.” Wiki says, “Aversion therapy is also used in the self-help community to treat minor behavioral issues with the aid of an elastic band, the user or patient would snap the elastic band on his/her wrist while an undesirable thought/behavior presents itself.”
I thought I invented the “Snap Back to Reality Technique” when I first starting using it. I was very excited because I love to invent things. I’ve invented a powerful modality to get men off porn fast, but this one I didn’t make up – I just borrow it. Rubber band therapy as it’s sometimes called has been featured in Psychology Today, recommended by Kelly Osborne’s therapist to thwart negative thoughts, featured on a major health insurer’s blog, written up in lots and lots of online articles and someone has already beat us to the market selling rubber bands for this very purpose. Who knew? It’s doesn’t matter who invented it and frankly, I was happy to see some science behind the technique. It works so try it.
By snapping the elastic band you can disrupt your thought process, throw a monkey wrench into the addiction cycle, slow it down, and create space between Thought and Action. In this space, you can find and embrace your power of choice and not compulsively act out and watch porn.
To break a habit you have to make a habit. Fact! So use this easy technique to create a new habit to deal with your compulsive thoughts. It’s not a cure all but it will help you bring attention to your porn zombie slumber and help you snap back to reality. Life is too short to be a slave to pixels. Wake up!
