Listen to “Summer And Ogling And Objectifying – Critical Steps To NOT Do It” on Spreaker.

     

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So it is summertime and today we are going to be talking about ogling and objectifying.

I’ve been helping guys overcome their compulsive sexual behavior, all of their compulsive behaviors, and create healthy sexuality and live great lives with my team for over the past decade. And today, we are going to be talking about ogling and objectifying. We’re going to talk about its biological components. We’re going to talk about the cultural components. And most importantly, we’re going to talk about what to do about it.

Let me give you kind of the setup for this. So I just got back from Hawaii with Michelle celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. For those of you who’ve been listening to me for some time and know my story, no. Wow. Like we made it. And what was so cool about it, it wasn’t just a celebration of the past decade, but but, but.

But a celebration of what we’ve accomplished over the 25. It was like a kickoff. It was a kickoff in terms of what’s next. And so that was awesome. And I’m in Hawaii and I notice that bathing suits seem to be getting smaller and smaller. I instantly walk into a resort like area and just for a second notice, there’s skin everywhere, everywhere.

And I said to myself, I said, I am so glad that I have tools right now, because if I didn’t and I remember back to when I didn’t, I would lose myself in fantasy. I would engage in behaviors that would upset my wife and ultimately come to traumatize my wife when I was directing that energy someplace else. I would have not just locked in notice, but I would have I would have held on to it.

I would have held on to it. I would have ran with it. I would have taken something that wasn’t mine. So what I want to do today is I want to give you not just some tools, tips and techniques to help you not do it, but building an identity, not an identity of someone who is a prude, not not an identity of someone who is walking with their head down.

I can’t look. I can’t look. The mindful man walks with his head out. Right? The mindful man has changed his relationship with the female form. And yes, he notices. Okay. We’re going to talk about that in a second. Yes, he notices, but he does not get swept away into the undertow because he’s built an identity. Not as someone.

I can’t do that. I better not. Look, if I look, it’s going to trigger me and lead me to fantasy. It’s not. No, I can’t do that. It’s. I don’t do that. No, no, I don’t. I don’t do that. It’s disrespectful to my wife. It’s disrespectful to the person. It’s not consistent with my moral ethos. It’s not consistent with a man that I want to be.

It’s not consistent with the type of father that I want to be in, the type of leader that I want to be. The mindful man has changed his relationship with the female form in his journey to creating healthy sexuality. So we’re going to talk a little bit about that. And for those of you joining me. Hey, Joel, post your questions in the chat.

And if you’re not joining me live, all you have to do is to subscribe to this channel on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn or Twitter, and you will get notified when I go live. And you can join me and Joel and you can take me questions. So I love to hear those questions. So please, if you have any, put them in the chat.

Here’s a reality that I want to start with, and this is a difficult pill to swallow. And this is a difficult pill for partners to swallow. And this is a place where men make promises that they cannot keep when they tell their partners, I am never going to look again, I’m never going to Google again, I’m not going to do it.

I’m going to stop doing it. Brother. I’m going to explain to you why that is a promise that you can’t keep. I want to start with the premise that you will notice, and I’m going to give you two categories of reasons why you’ll get results from acknowledging that reality. One, because it’s reality. And I’m holding a cup and this is my headphones and you’re watching to me on some electronic device, right?

We’re sharing the same reality, right? Guys who don’t fail, guys who don’t fail and they make promises they can’t keep and they make their relationship worse. They make their relationship worse. When you acknowledge the biological reality that’s happening here in the cultural and environmental framing that’s happening here, you will agree that you will notice. And by the way, there is ample scientific evidence that that that well, let’s let’s get into it.

Let’s get into it. Let’s get into it now. I want to be I want to be quick. Two, one. There is a strong biological pull to Engel and objectified scientists believe that we men are more visual, more visually wired than women, which explains our higher use of pornography, at least in part. Evolutionary biologists believe that the male Homo sapiens is wired for variety.

From a reproductive evolutionary perspective, there’s a biology around noticing breasts noticing. But that that that initial attack portion is deeply ingrained into our evolutionary wiring. The noticing. Now, let me let me let me be clear, because sometimes I don’t want anyone to think that I’m being an apologist for men’s disrespectful behavior. I am not. And it is absolutely so disrespectful to the partner whose husband has got the sunglasses on and is losing himself and other women for his own face that she self is cheap thrills.

It’s not even something that he’s proud of doing. It’s cheap, he and his wife. I am not apologizing. I’m not making excuses for that. But the noticing part and when you combine the biological underpinnings around the noticing with the cultural training that we men and I, I want to I, I, we have to do a better job for our sons and for our children.

But we were trained to objectify the female form. And I’ve been playing this peekaboo, hide and seek game with what you can’t see and what you can’t see, what you can, what you can’t. And in the look in and the peak in in the shadow, please. And in the excitement in the showing and the not showing that game since we were children.

The posters at the fear the posters at the in the magazine job knowing it was bad not to look like the objectification of the female form is wired into our reality as young boys and as we grow into men. And unfortunately, some of us get stunted by our girls get stunted. I was stunted. Stunted in the sense that my sexuality or my identity to as a healthy sexual male didn’t evolve.

And that’s the opportunity that this presents you. Listening to this podcast is an opportunity for you to create healthy sexuality. And let’s talk a little bit about that. So a strong biological pull, a massive reinforced train conditioned environmental component to ogling and objectifying. You will notice, or at least accept the reality that you will notice for the time for for for the foreseeable future until you were to to retrain and recondition that automatic instantaneous pull that you have to notice.

And I’m going to give you some tips to do that number. And I’m going to also give you some guidance and support for some things that you can do in your relationship to so I worked with a therapist, George Collins. He wrote the book Breaking the Cycle. There were two techniques that I learned from him and a doula twice, right?

Because, you know, you look right. You go back again. You go back again. Sometimes if you were in the store, you maneuver the shopping cart to get the better position so you can look again or look from a different angle. Not now, no, but I certainly did it back then. So the not looking twice is like, wait a minute.

Like, okay, I noticed. Move on. I notice, Move on. The other is don’t look for more than 2 seconds. I think it might have originally been a three second rule and I would kind of one is said pay to sit be. So I exploited that rule and so I shrunk it to 2 seconds and here’s the identity play, right?

Because those are tools to not do something. Those are tools to not do something. And that’s important. And wouldn’t it be great if we can build an identity around like who you are and who you want to be? So here’s the bridge to identity. Oh, and rock. Yeah. So easy comes on natural. I mean, go out in public and do a study on yourself and watch what pulls your eyes automatically and instantaneously.

If that was a skill set that could somehow benefit national security, me and many of brothers like me would be in like video game, like, like jobs with us, with with the National Security Administration, like, identify, identify, don’t look so quick like ninjas. Ninjas can see I’m an exposed something, you know, from three clicks away. I didn’t even know what that means.

But I’ve heard my military guys say that from really far away. So a strong, trained, conditioned response and study that conditioning I’m giving you, there’s a cultural you dig into what’s yours? What was the training that you received on not looking? What was the training that you received around looking? And it’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty, pretty crazy. A lot of conflict, a lot of shame, a lot, you know, tapping into a natural wiring of like, excitement and titillation and arousal, like, oh, my God, like a perfect storm for our teenage brains.

The bridge to identity is to use the trigger to objectify as the trigger to personify, to humanize that person. And this technique has brought me great value. And let me tell you what I mean by that. So you are going to get triggered to objectify. And I behoove you men where it’s safe to do so, to tell your partners that I am going to get triggered, to notice that that that pull is going to happen.

Okay. But what you can do is you can train yourselves to develop such an awareness of when you look what happens in your brain, what are your automatic instantaneous thoughts, how that feels in your body. Right. You use you’re aware of that trigger to objectify as a prompt, as a cue, as a trigger to do something else. It’s like reaction and then action.

And so around this personify, what does that mean? And that might be who am I, you know, looking at like a piece of meat? Who am I? Have any thoughts about maybe a mind moves to fantasy and taking something that isn’t mine that I don’t have permission to take? Or how would I feel if someone was thinking these thoughts about my kid, my daughter, you know, my niece, my nephew, whatever the the perspective is, it’s shifting your perspective.

Is this healthy? Is this bringing me any value beyond high fructose corn sirup? And it’s going to really hurt my wife. Right. And the opposite of a objectify is to personify and to humanize that person as a human being. Now, some people like the technique of picture, that person with doing something gross, like a ship stain in their underwear or getting sick to their stomach or some poor script.

This gross perspective, I don’t recommend that. I don’t like that. And I don’t think that’s healthy for most people. It’s it’s it’s not. And it may help initially with the ogling and objectifying, but those kinds of thought processes tend to have negative downstream ramifications. And why do you have to get growth? Why does it have to go growth?

Why can it be hey, I noticed. That’s nice. Move on. You know, wish you well. Maybe if you’re a spiritual person, you say a prayer. Maybe if you’re a mindful person, you, you know, direct, positive energy. Maybe you thank the person for the opportunity to wake up, to snap out of it. To do so, you use your trigger to objectify us, to trigger, to personify.

And so in that trigger, to personify, you are building an identity that is changing your relationship with the female form where you are in control. Again, you’re not a prude, you’re not looking down. You will notice, but you’re not. It’s not consuming you. You’re not losing yourself in it. You’re not disrespecting your partner. In fact, if we, you know, perfect cases to go in public where she feels good.

Now, listen, there’s a lot of this that you can do yourself, okay? A lot of when that insecurity wound that gets touched through the lying, the compartmental slicing is a preexisting world and is sometimes important for the partner to treat that wound, the core wound or the stack trauma that insecurity to give you an example, one partner we worked with became so obsessive compulsive around her, ruminating, thinking she was unable to go out in public and thank God she was able to get the help that she needed, you know, And she had her path and she had, you know, her plan.

And so while I’m focusing on the guy here, you know, let me know in the chat or let me know in the comments if you’d like a perspective on from, you know, what we’ve shared with the partners over the years and learning how to treat that core wound and build a framework for going forward and creating safety to be able to go out in public.

So just generally speaking, be proactive around risk management. If you brother are in a relationship where you know, going out in public is going to trigger your partner because she’s really insecure and deeply wounded by, you know, her awakening to the reality that you’re directing that sexual energy to someplace else. Right. That can be really, really traumatic. So what can you do?

What can you do in public? Sometimes taking off the sunglasses, taking off the sunglasses, not hiding behind the sunglasses exam in your habits. And if hiding behind the sunglasses is one of your habits, take them off. Take them off or certainly take them off in a place where she’s wondering, okay, number two is have a plan with each other and brother, that means you say, Honey, if you’re out on public and you notice me like drift and often, you know, I’m not going to try not to.

Obviously, I’m going to try not to. But, you know, give me a little. Hey, sweetie, you know, over here and I might be looking at the flowers. I might be looking and I might you know, I’ve been looking where I shouldn’t where I don’t want to look where I want to look here. So please tell me right. And the reason why you want to create an environment so your partner tells you so it doesn’t, you know, blow up.

You can address it in the moment. You can address it in a moment. And so so having a plan and if you’ve heard us talk about the emotional safety plan, that’s also a critically important tool that you can customize when you’re going out. What is our emotional safety plan? So when we go out, you feel so supported. And when I go out, you know, we’re both going to feel good about ourselves and we’re both going to have fun and we’re both going to create joy because life is too short to stink.

And it is the summertime. It is time to enjoy the outdoors. It is the time to be free and experience new adventures and do things that make you feel good about yourself. That’s the aggressive pursuit of a great life that’s feeding the right wolf. That’s to break a habit, you have to make the right habit that meets the right need.

And if you’re in a relationship and listening to this broadcast, you may have caused a significant amount of damage with your partner. And here’s one of the things that I learned that worked for me. And it doesn’t mean it’ll work for you, but it might. So here was the pattern. Michelle and I are holding hands. We’re out in public.

This is early on post hospitalization fired hadn’t certainly got and started coaching but but but you know counseling 1 to 3 times a day but we were making progress and so we to go out in public and I ogling objectifying and she noticed I’m going to objectify and you know I pull away you know, she doesn’t want me she doesn’t want to touch me.

And she you know, of course, she’s angry at me. She’s upset with me. And a lot of rejection issues that I came to realize how much of my mother that I was projecting onto her, projecting authority, projecting control, projecting, you know, all sorts of things that were kindness and love and empathy and support, which is all the things that she was and is.

And so I would pull away. She would pull away and we would, you know, not feel good about ourselves and it would feel like a setback. I get angry at myself and certainly probably at times get angry with her. So one of the things that I realized is and so that action reaction thing, that proactive versus reactive thing, instead of like, let’s say, is I think that she thought that I was looking someplace on whether I was or whether I was that I would grab her, by the way, or I have her by the waist, or I’d pull her closer.

I’d immediately direct the tension through her. I’d immediately do something that says that she is a priority and she is an important to me. And if I noticed sorry back and quickly we were able to listen. Michelle was a patient person very, very forgiving and was able to accept the reality. That was the reality that I was going to notice.

And that’s not every partner needs to make that choice. I certainly respect a partner saying that’s not what I want. And it’s we know this and there’s a reality there that acknowledging that reality, acknowledging the conditioning, acknowledging the training, acknowledge the reality of that which you resist persists. Any guy who’s going out in public knows don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look what happens.

Don’t don’t put you that. Don’t look at that. We better not think about that. What happens? It’s all you can think about. It’s all you can see in your mind. And it becomes consuming. Ruminating for some people, obsessive for others, because that what you resist persists. So that’s why it’s so important to acknowledge the notice, to use the notice, to take steps to increase your self-control, reinforce the identity of the man that you want to be, reinforce your moral compass about how you want to see other people out in the world, how you want to treat other people out in the world, how you want to feel about other people out in the world.

This gives you the opportunity to do that. I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much for watching. We’re going to have more on this as we continue to go throughout the summer. So please ask your questions and if there’s any good ones that I really like, I will do a broadcast around it and certainly welcome anybody’s questions now.

But thank you so much for listening. If you need more help and you’re out of place, you’re like, I can’t do this alone. Visit www.themindfulhabit.com and you can check out our different programs and trainings and podcast episode. So thank you for listening. I hope all Paul, Paul you do everything you can to have a wonderful summer.

Rob in the chat says the mindful habit works. Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother. You know what I know. I know it works for me and I know it works for our best clients, man. And you’re one of them, So love your brother. And for those of you guys who are knee deep in the training, whether you’re doing it formally with us, whether you’re doing it with a therapist, whether you’re doing in your 12 step meeting, study your eye trajectory, notice where it automatically instantaneously goes, the better you understand that, the better you will able to say, Well, I know this feeling and the thought associated with this feeling, and I know where my eyes

went and what I’m looking at and what I want it to be, but not ignoring it. But study that the habits brother around ogling and objectifying your training that you received regarding your ogling and objectifying is crazy, incredibly powerful. And. Nathan Right. It works. Thank you, brother. You guys rock. You guys rock. All right, well, listen, I wish everybody luck not ogling in objectifying.

Look forward to the next broadcast. Thank you, guys for being so awesome. Embrace your power of choice. See the right wolves inside you. Thanks for listening. Peace and love, everybody.