130: Porn Addiction Recovery Without Shame: Stop Hating Yourself and Start Healing

What if porn addiction recovery feels painful not because you’re failing—but because the way you’ve been taught to understand addiction is fundamentally flawed?

For many men, trying to quit porn doesn’t feel empowering.
 It feels humiliating.
 It feels like staring straight at everything you believe is broken, defective, or dangerous about you.

I know this feeling personally—because I lived it for years.

The harder I tried to overcome porn addiction, the worse I felt about myself. Recovery became a reminder of shame instead of a path toward healing. And eventually, it felt easier to numb out than to keep confronting the belief that I was fundamentally flawed.

In this episode of No More Desire, I challenge one of the most destructive ideas in modern porn addiction recovery: that addiction means you are bad, weak, or unworthy.

Because what if porn addiction isn’t proof that something is wrong with you—but evidence that good parts of you were forced into extreme roles?

In this conversation, I break down why shame-based recovery backfires, how porn addiction is deeply tied to self-worth and the nervous system, and why self-judgment keeps men stuck in the very cycle they’re trying to escape.

We explore the psychology and neuroscience behind porn addiction, including how shame dysregulates the nervous system and intensifies cravings, why dopamine-driven behaviors aren’t about pleasure but unmet emotional needs, and how addiction often functions as a misguided attempt at connection, comfort, and significance.

Using a parts-work framework grounded in psychology, I explain how healthy inner parts—like the desire for comfort, adventure, rest, and meaning—can become distorted when they’re suppressed or ignored. Porn addiction, in this light, isn’t about moral failure. It’s about good parts in bad roles.

You’ll also learn why simply getting sober doesn’t automatically heal shame, why many men remain unhappy even after quitting porn, and how waiting to feel “worthy” before living your life keeps addiction relevant.

This episode offers a different path forward—one rooted in self-leadership rather than self-hatred.

If you’re trying to quit porn but feel exhausted, ashamed, or stuck in an inner war, this episode will help you reframe your struggle and begin healing without hating yourself.

Porn addiction recovery without shame isn’t about excusing behavior.
 It’s about understanding it deeply enough that real, lasting change becomes possible.

Link to Blog Article for this Episode

If you’re ready to build the mindset and lifestyle that lead to long-term freedom from porn addiction, join the No More Desire free online community and connect with men who are committed to real recovery. When you sign up, you'll gain access to The 4 Pillars of Recovery Online Course FREE. You can also check out my Free Workshop and Free Ebook, designed to help you overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life.

Transcript

Jake Kastleman (00:01.006)
Welcome to No More Desire, where we build the mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from poor. My name is Jake Castleman, and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.

Jake Kastleman (00:19.119)
What if reason recovery feels so painful for you isn't because you're doing it wrong, but because the way that you've been taught to understand addiction is fundamentally flawed? What if every time you listen to a podcast like this one, every time you open a lesson, every time you try to work on yourself, it doesn't actually inspire hope, but instead reminds you of the thing that you hate most about yourself? For a lot of men,

Recovery doesn't feel empowering. It feels humiliating. It feels like standing in front of mirror and being forced to stare at everything you believe is defective, broken, or dangerous about you. More than one man has told me that working on recovery makes him feel disgusted with himself, that it feels like proof he's broken and needs fixing. That shame outweighs hope for many men. And honestly, it shouldn't be this way.

I know this feeling intimately because it was my experience for years. The more I tried to get sober, the worse I felt about myself. And eventually, I decided it was easier to keep numbing out than to keep facing the pain of believing I was fundamentally flawed. So today, I want to challenge one of the most destructive assumptions we carry about addiction. And that is that it means you're bad.

weak or unworthy as a person. Because what if addiction isn't a sign that something is wrong with you, but a sign that good parts of you have been forced into extreme roles? What if you could convert these parts of you to become helpful again, like they were before you became addicted? In this episode, we'll talk about how to shift from self-judgment to self-leadership, and how this can change everything.

We'll discuss common psychological patterns we get into that work against recovery, and how to come out of a mindset of self-shaming and hating recovery, and into a mindset of self-understanding, self-compassion, and empowering recovery. We'll talk about the fallacies of the typical addiction paradigm, and how to view the mind through a lens that sets you free rather than chains you down. This isn't about excusing behavior. It's about finally understanding it.

Jake Kastleman (02:45.204)
So real change becomes possible. Before we dive in, my friend, take a moment to follow, subscribe, and rate the podcast so that other men who feel this same quiet shame can find their way here too. All right, let's get started.

Jake Kastleman (03:08.92)
So today I'm gonna be specifically focused on a question that came in within the No More Desire brotherhood from one of the members. And if you wanna join the community as I share this, go to nomordesire.com and click join community at the top of the site. One of the brothers in my community made a comment recently that struck me hard. I know based on the feedback in the community and my work,

with men that he's not the only one that feels the way that he does. I've seen the same pattern in many men when it comes to recovery. So I thought I'd base today's episode on what he said. So I'm not gonna say his full name, Kevin, this is for you brother. I hope that this episode helps you a lot. I appreciate you sharing and being vulnerable in the community. And I really...

Yeah, I really hope this episode is helpful for you, So Kevin said, I'd love some feedback on this if anyone has advice or thoughts. Working on recovery makes me feel disgusted with myself. Every time I work on a lesson or listen to a podcast or anything like that, it's just a huge reminder of the things I hate most about myself. It reminds me that I'm a defective person and I have to be fixed.

I feel that, I feel that man. I understand that choosing to try and improve myself is a good thing, but it seems to pale in comparison to the shame of being this broken. I feel like I should come with one of those hazard stickers you see on industrial chemicals. I struggle with wanting to pursue recovery when it always leaves me feeling like this.

So, Kevin's not the only one who said this. There are multiple people I've worked with that say that this is how recovery work makes them feel. First off, again, thank you, Kevin, for sharing. So many men know exactly what this is like. So I know that this is, again, the way I felt for years. In fact, when I was 18 and I was trying to get sober from drugs and alcohol, that was at the same time I was going through pornography addiction, it seemed.

Jake Kastleman (05:31.786)
Like the more I worked on it, the more ashamed I felt of myself. So I gave up and I went back to my addictions, including porn. I was really trying to get better. was, you know, taking initiative and I said, you know what? I've been doing this for, I don't know what it was at that point, three months. Kevin, you've probably been going longer than that. But I was like, you know what? This obviously isn't working. I've been sober for...

Three months, I think it was a little bit longer at that point. So I decided to give up. I felt like it was better for me to just continue on in my addictive behavior than to feel bad about myself. I thought, if God is really there, why am I not feeling his peace or his love as I try to get better? Why has he abandoned me? And this caused me to stop believing in God or even to believe that drugs and alcohol were not against his will for me. Now, for those who are not religious,

Another way of putting God's will is to say the will of truth and love. I think that puts it in context. And for those of us that are religious or spiritual, that gives meaning. This is my belief when it comes to God's will, truth and love. Those are the two things and those are intimately intertwined. In other words, the will of truth and love, what is good for me and what is good for the people around me? In the short term and long term, okay, making choices that align with wholeness.

rather than making me feel broken inside or fractured. Whether you believe in God or not, I think that truth and love are still the aim for all of us. And we are all trying to learn more and more about what this means, right? So I want to address something specific that Kevin said. I'm gonna address multiple things that he said. And I'm going to go into some psychology behind what you said, Kevin. I want it to be understood

that my only intent in doing this is to help. So I hope that nobody takes it as a judgment or criticism, especially and particularly you, Kevin, that as I wrote this episode, that was a deep concern to me in wanting you to feel like this was only helpful and something that I'm doing to bless your life. So that would be the last thing that I'd want is for you to feel judged. Because frankly, judgment actually is a big part of what drives our desire to escape.

Jake Kastleman (07:55.114)
through comfort and the fantasy of addiction. We judge ourselves harshly, we criticize ourselves harshly. So here's what Kevin said, every time I work on a lesson or listen to a podcast or anything like that, it's just a huge reminder of the thing I hate most about myself. That line in particular. Now, this is where much of a typical modern view of addiction really breaks down. We tend to view addiction as a part of us that is evil.

that is broken, that needs to die. We need to kill the addict inside of us, right? Smash it, tear it down, stay busy, keep our mind occupied with good things, block out these shadow parts of us. Doesn't work. And if it does work, if it does get us sober, it's not a very good way of living in sobriety. I did it for years. So I speak from experience. My message is something different.

It's the message of love. It's the message of compassion towards ourselves, towards those who struggle with addiction, towards every part of every person. And that is a very high standard, one that I am practicing. So my message is this, your addiction is not a signal that you are a bad person or that you need to suppress, stuff down or destroy that part of you. Addiction is a sign.

instead that there is a part of you that has worked very hard to help you be okay. Addiction, addictions don't emerge because we're bad people or because we don't want to do bad things. They emerge because we're really good people. And we feel unable to live according to that goodness and that happens early in life. For those of us who are spiritual or religious, I believe that this is the goodness of God.

that we carry, we all carry it. It's a part of who we are. It's a part of who you are. And when we feel unable to match the desires, the good deep desires that we have inside, we have to live a good life. We have to do great things. This is what we want. Parts of us then try to fulfill our emotional needs, those gaps through sexual means, especially for guys, but for women as well, this can happen. These...

Jake Kastleman (10:17.418)
parts of us that are trying to fill these emotional needs to fill those gaps between who we feel we should be versus who we feel we are and the unlovability that we feel we hold inside, that we're not enough. These parts that show up to try to fulfill those needs using addiction, they make it worse. Not only this, but the parts of me that act out addictively,

They're really good parts. They're just, again, in bad roles, as I said earlier on. So for instance, let me, I talked about this last week on the podcast, but taken through a lens of the self-code model that I teach my clients of a structure, a framework, a system for understanding the emotional unconscious mind. We all have an adventurer. We all have a peacemaker that is part of this unconscious mind.

And this is a different way to think of psychology than many of us are used to. But it's been extremely beneficial for the guys in my program. So the adventurer inside of us is motivated by excitement, motivated by fun. The peacemaker is motivated by comfort, motivated by soothing. These are really good parts of us. We can use them to serve the people around us, to do great good for the people around us and

bless ourselves as well. But when things happen to us, especially early in life, when we are abused, when we are neglected emotionally or physically, when we are bullied, when we learn to fear the world or fear the people around us, when we learn not to trust ourselves, when we're shown that we're, when we are shamed for the things that we do, right? And we're told, you know, you're being bad. Why are you being like this? I don't trust you. You're a bad boy, right? Whatever that might sound like. We...

And it doesn't have to be explicit like that, by the way. We can be shown that we're not good enough implicitly when our parents feel inside that they are not good enough implicitly. Okay, they can actually share that with us through the way that they interact implicitly every day. And that's why as parents, the more I work on my self-worth, the more I work on my healing to become

Jake Kastleman (12:40.966)
as great and good a person as I can, this impacts my kids more than anything, I think. So.

When we experience this, when we don't believe in ourselves, when we believe that God only loves us if we earn it, when things like this happen, parts of us step in to try to fill the gap. And I always say that addiction is a self-worth game. Addiction is all about avoidance of fear, avoidance of shame, avoidance of grief. And we all experience fear, shame, and grief. None of us are,

immune to this. And we shouldn't, that's not the aim is to make a life in which I don't feel fear, shame or grief. It's to form a life and a mindset in which I know how to relate to fear, shame and grief effectively. And in a way that is empowering, that helps me grow through the pain. So our adventurer, which was a good functional part of our personality that brings enthusiasm, novelty, excitement, fun to situations.

especially as kids, we see a lot of fun in kids. This part gets crushed by other parts of us that are about achievement, that are about standards and perfectionism, parts of us that are about strength and resilience, parts of us that are about creating a life of security and safety, all good parts, by the way. But when we...

crush that adventure in us using these parts, that adventure doesn't go away. It stays. Every part of these nine parts that I described in the self-code model, all are a part of our, all of our personalities. Just depends on whether they show up securely or insecurely. When they show up unconsciously, then they will be insecure. When they show up consciously, then they would be, they would be in a secure way over time. They can heal.

Jake Kastleman (14:48.847)
and actually manifest in really positive ways. So when they are manifesting, when the adventurer is manifesting unconsciously, when it's been suppressed and stuffed down by other parts that are about perfection or performance, right? These manager kinds of roles. Then the adventurer becomes a pleasure seeker, becomes indulgent, becomes endlessly novelty seeking. This is a consistent pattern that we see in people who struggle with addiction.

So instead of the theme of this part becoming, let's have fun or I enjoy pleasure, it becomes, let's have fun at all costs or I will enjoy pleasure at any cost. Notice how I enjoy pleasure or let's have fun are inherently positive things, but when they become too extreme,

Now we've moved off of the straight and narrow path of Christianity, right? Now we've moved away from the middle way of Buddhism. Our peacemaker, which is a beautiful part of us that specializes in giving comfort, soothing, ease and harmony to ourselves and those around us, becomes a glutton for personal comfort and avoidance. Instead of its theme being, I bring comfort, it becomes

I bring comfort at all costs. Again, too extreme, right? Good part, just it's moved into a bad role. In both of these cases, the adventurer and the peacemaker, a good part of me simply becomes too extreme. These parts show up this way when I feel broken inside. And so my unconscious mind seeks to solve that problem. One of the ways that we do this,

is through addictive behaviors, drugs, alcohol, shopping, video games, TV, social media, gossip, attachment to drama, even things like obsessive nutrition or exercise. When I feel a lack of self-worth or that I'm not accepted, seen, powerful, important, living with enough love or connection or ease in my life, parts of me step in to fill the gaps with addictive behaviors. They try to give me those dopamine hits that I should rightfully get from living a life of meaning.

Jake Kastleman (17:11.911)
purpose and a balance between doing and being. A life in which I feel love and I give love, the trouble is every single one of us without exception will experience feelings of shame, fear, sadness. And to guard those feelings, we have been equipped with an emotional mind to protect us, to work with us. And it tries to use anger

and it tries to use addictive behaviors.

These parts can be used well, okay, in order to bring us appropriate comfort, appropriate fun or enjoyment, appropriate protection of my boundaries, right? Anger is, I have a need and I want it to be met. Something is unfair. Something doesn't feel right. I need to protect myself. This is good. We should have these things, but when they're untempered, they're imbalanced. That's the issue. Good part, bad role.

Jake Kastleman (18:20.102)
These are protective mechanisms, parts genuinely trying to keep me safe or to help me feel significant, me feel accepted, help me experience enjoyment in life. Porn, for instance, gives me a fabricated sense of feeling connected to a beautiful woman. Many beautiful, many beautiful women, right? Feeling seen by them, feeling like I'm enough for them. It can also help me feel powerful, important. It can help giving me a feeling of soothing.

or a feeling of adventure, pleasure, excitement, forbiddenness, risk-taking, right? Forbiddenness, risk-taking, pursuing novelty, doing things that are new or interesting or, you know, gutsy. These are all good gifts, just skewed in an improper way. And again, for those of us who are religious, Satan would have us say, those are bad parts of you.

Look how bad you are. man, you're a nasty person. See, if you were good person, you wouldn't have these thoughts. You wouldn't have these feelings. He keeps us from staying with them long enough and digging deep enough to see. At the core, it's actually a really good part of us that holds gifts granted us by God, I believe. But he doesn't want us to see that. He wants us to be defined by thought and emotion.

My point in saying all this is that addiction does not make us bad, it doesn't make us filthy. It is a symptom of a body and brain trying to help us feel better. It is good parts of us that have simply been twisted temporarily, but they can be transformed. And I've seen it happen for myself and for others that I've worked with when we come to understand them and help them take on new roles, these parts of our mind.

Addictive tendencies, they're signals of deeper gifts, good parts of me that have become skewed. I am seeking to fulfill good emotional needs, good emotional desires through sexual means. It's not working for me because it does not fill what I actually need as a human being, but I haven't been taught how to fulfill that. I don't know how, right? So it's not about my worth.

Jake Kastleman (20:43.078)
It's not about who I am as a person, but simply that my nervous system is dysregulated. My emotional mind is functioning in a way that is not serving me. It is not because I'm bad, it's because I'm good. Just misguided. These parts of my emotional mind seeking to solve problems in ways that don't agree with every part of me. They're not whole, or in other words, holy as the root meaning of the word holy is whole.

I'm choosing to make decisions that don't agree with every part of who I am. Thoughts and emotions do not define me or my worth. It's a hard one for many of us to understand. Instead of defining who I am, they are something I experience in my mind and body or the mind-body complex, as I refer to it, because it's all one. Again, many of us are not taught this, which is unfortunate, but it's widely accepted and has been for thousands of years in other places of the world. This does not give me an excuse, by the way.

say, my thoughts and emotions aren't me, my mind and body aren't me, therefore I can do whatever I want because it's not who I am. Okay, part of us, it's firefighter response. In other words, an escape response inside of me. Firefighter is an IFS term. It's an escape response that's trying to justify and give me excuses and rationalization. That is not whole. That is not of truth. It is not of love.

It's not loving towards myself. It's not loving towards other people. This does not give me an excuse to do anything I want because it's not my fault. Instead, it is actually a higher level of responsibility. Here's why. It's a shift in perspective from believing I am my thoughts and emotions to believing I am a steward over my thoughts and emotions. I've said this before, right? Again, key principle of the program. If you want to learn more, much more about this, join the online community. Again, nomordesire.com.

hit join the community, you're actually going to get the four pillars of recovery, a free online course as part of joining with that membership. You will then be able to go through all six lessons, work through the exercises and get an entire foundation for how to live a recovery mindset and lifestyle. It's the foundation of everything that I do in my program and it's completely free to you when you join the free community. So I have a responsibility.

Jake Kastleman (23:07.03)
over my thoughts and emotions to see, to understand, to seek compassion, to transform these thoughts and emotions, these parts of me over time. Through working with them and building trust with the mind-body complex in a different way of seeing things, by stepping outside of my thoughts and emotions to observe them in this way, I may start to change. That is powerful.

But as long as I believe I am defined by thoughts and emotions, I won't change. Not to the degree that I could as a steward. Now I want to move to a more difficult sensitive topic now. It'll make a little bit of a shift. That is our attachment to pain, shame and guilt when we struggle with addiction. These things become part of our identity. Pain, shame, guilt. Okay, and...

All painful emotion. Kevin said specifically, understand that choosing to try and improve myself is a good thing, but it seems to pale in comparison to the shame of being this broken. I feel like I should come with one of those hazard stickers you see on industrial chemicals. I love the work I get to do as a one-on-one porn addiction recovery coach with men across the world.

My clients feel seen and heard and that they are receiving the tailored help they need with clear, structured exercises and tools to get sober long term. I wanted to share a couple of the stories from these men. The first story is from my client John. He said, I spent many years in denial about my problem, blind to how my actions and behavior hurt myself and those around me.

I tried traditional therapists in the past, but none provided the solutions or tools I needed to overcome my addiction on a day-to-day basis. Jake, however, directly relates to what I'm going through, and it gave me comfort to know that I am not alone in my struggles and that I can overcome my addiction. He has given me the tools and support I needed to get through some of the most difficult times of my life. It has truly been life-changing.

Jake Kastleman (25:25.018)
I have been sober seven months now. I have strengthened my relationships with my spouse, children, and friends, and I am more present with those around me, more mindful of my own emotions, and am beginning to take control of my life. The second story is from my client Chris, who said, I found out about Jake through his podcast and was intrigued. The experience working with him has been great to date.

I've worked with many therapists and coaches over the years. Jake stands out partly because he cares so deeply and is so eager to help. He sees my problems and is almost as excited as I am to solve them. I hear him furiously typing notes on his keyboard when we're talking and I hear, am deeply invested in your success in every keystroke. I love his enthusiasm to continually find new ways to help his clients. I'm a big fan of Jake.

If you or your loved one are struggling with the incredible challenge of porn addiction and it is getting in the way of your love, your success, your motivation and your joy, then apply for my one-on-one intensive porn addiction recovery program at nomordesire.com. A structured program with personalized help.

Jake Kastleman (26:48.39)
For all of us who have struggled with addiction, myself included, we carry an attachment to pain. This is really common in our modern Western culture and society. I had a respected friend I was talking to the other day that stated that we have an addiction to fear in our current culture, and I suppose throughout time. I would add we also have an addiction to shame.

This is one of the core truths that I came to during my years of recovery. We also have an addiction to anger. We have an addiction to pain, painful emotion. We have a deep part of us that says, I'm a bad person because of this addiction, right? That's shame. Here's a hard truth that I came to once I got sober. And it is a hard one.

And I really want people to only take it as helpful because this is psychology. It's not who we are. It's just psychology and I'm just sharing psychological insights and truth about how the mind works. And once we become aware of it, it can shift, but not until I accept it. And a disidentification with thought and emotion is why that's so crucial for self-awareness so that when I hear truth of psychology, I don't instantly go to shame and say, and get defensive. Like, I'm not that way. I don't think those things.

We can't get better as long as we do that. That's why believing I am consciousness first and foremost, I am spirit. I am awareness.

and I'm actually observing and interacting with the mind body, very helpful approach that gets us out of shame and into stewardship of thought and emotion. So my attachment to shame did not go away when I got sober.

Jake Kastleman (28:38.884)
I continued to believe that I was flawed, bad, broken, different, that I didn't belong. Getting sober certainly helped, don't get me wrong. I felt much better. I was much happier, but I was surprised to see how I still felt all these things that I thought addiction, getting sober would solve. I really, really thought that.

I was still left with all these burdened beliefs when I got sober. They were still there. My life continued to be one of feeling like an outsider, unloved, like someone who could not fulfill their dreams. I continued to have troubles focusing, right? I had symptoms of ADD and ADHD. I had so much fear and anxiety and depression. And along with all of this, I continued to have cravings. They kept going. This is why I created the program that I did.

to help people build a mindset and lifestyle of recovery because I remember feeling so discouraged, so hopeless that my life sober would be one of suffering. And so I found ways that that could not be the case. And I continued to practice and grow and learn those ways. And so I teach others to do that because I believe you don't just deserve to be sober.

but you deserve to be both sober and happy. I always believed that there had to be a better way. So I explored psychology, spirituality, nutrition, fitness, putting myself out there, getting involved, deepening relationships, particularly with my wife. One of the things I began to understand, particularly recently in my life, is that this attachment to pain that I've had, this addiction that I have had,

to being a victim, to believing that my life has to be one of suffering, that I have to have something to struggle against because that makes me significant. Part of me says, what would I be without my suffering, without this belief in my brokenness? When we believe that addiction defines our worth, when we believe that suffering defines our life, that it defines

Jake Kastleman (30:59.928)
who we are, that we are important and significant and that we are separate. We're so tortured, right? Or we're a victim to life. This plays into our feeling of worth and we become attached to it.

And, this goes right along with the belief, if I were a good person, I wouldn't struggle with this. This belief keeps me stuck. Again, just psychology, not who we are. Part of us continuously repeats, if I were only over this addiction, then I'd finally feel worthy. Then I could finally pursue my dreams. Then I'd finally have the relationships that I want or the relationship.

Brothers, here's the hard truth. You need to pursue all of that now.

And as you do the attachment to your shame, your fear, your anger, your cravings, and this anger towards yourself, towards the world, this craving for more connection, meaning adventure, comfort, joy, significance, safety, all of this begins to shift. My attachments then turn from fear, shame, and pain attachment to these, all attempts at getting my deeper good desires met. And instead they turn to what I have

wanted all along. Those deeper desires, the good ones. Underneath addiction, we carry fear of rejection. We carry fears of failure. Shame about not living up to our potential. Grief about lost opportunities or relationships. In response to this fear, this shame, this grief, we have different responses that come up. Some parts of us try to control. Others try to coddle, right?

Jake Kastleman (32:52.24)
These are coping mechanisms for the pain that we deal with, that we become attached to, that we hold inside these beliefs that we carry around. Again, we all carry them, not just those of us who struggle with addiction, everybody. The mind works in polarities, okay? So jumping around here a little bit. So let me kind of back up and make this clear. In response to the pain inside, some parts of us try to control in order to prevent feelings of shame,

in order to try to earn my self-worth and other parts of me try to coddle in order to distract me from my feelings of fear, shame, or issues with self-worth. Grief that I carry, parts of me think I can't acknowledge, right? My emotional mind is keeping it locked inside.

So the mind works in polarities, multiple sides saying opposite things. once this is described, often, we go our whole lives without realizing this, but it becomes deeply clear. Again, in the self-code model, I teach my clients to break down exactly how this works, these polarities in the mind, a complete structure of the emotional mind with nine parts, roles they take on, fears they carry, gifts they have.

When you understand how all of these sides operate and their polarities, how they conflict with one another, you can begin to become deeply self-aware of your personal patterns and your personal burdened beliefs that are driving your addiction. And you can begin to change them. I wanna share some examples of unconscious emotional polarities that drive addiction. So many of us,

not just those of us who struggle with addiction, carry messages of shame and lack of self-worth. This battle with self-worth illustrates my deeper burden that drives protective responses. Okay, so when I carry these fears of rejection that I don't belong, feeling that I don't match up, feeling that God doesn't love me, that my parents don't love me, that I'm not a good person, that I'm not important, my life's not enjoyable, here are some polarities.

Jake Kastleman (35:07.046)
there are inner conflicts, I'm going to actually list them one by one, of some of the protective parts of the mind, some of the nine that I teach that show up. And again, they go right along with many of the feelings that we can have that are reflected in Kevin's comment, things that go on in our psyche, not who we are, just operations of the emotional mind, the unconscious mind. So things that we can develop understanding and...

passion for. A controlling part of us, okay, I'm going to start with this first one here. A controlling part of us, a manager part, right, might say, stop being such a victim, right? So some hard things happened to you in life, get over it or so you think this addiction is difficult. Come on, why are you so weak? Why is this so hard for you? Get over it.

bottling part of us then responds in the opposite end. This is the polarity. This is the opposite end. Another part of the mind says, you are a victim. It's other people's fault. Your parents, society, circumstances. Look at what the world and others did to you. Look what addiction has done to you. It's not your fault. Of course you have an addiction. Who wouldn't, given what you've experienced. One part, that controlling part that manager is trying to make you stronger, better, in order to

prevent future feelings of shame by controlling you, judging you. Another part, that firefighter part, is trying to give you excuses, rationalizations, justifications as a reaction to the underlying fear or shame beliefs. It wants to distract you from them, to give you an escape from them. Unfortunately, both of these internal responses, these polarities cause further problems. I think we all inherently know this.

Both are too extreme to lead to any real lasting solutions. That's why we have to actually come in between them and seek the middle way of Buddhism or the straight narrow path of Christianity. There is an in-between way. So one is so critical, right? On one end that it drives you down. The other is so permissive that it keeps you down. So we can't go with either, but if we can become aware of these parts and seek to understand and value their core intention,

Jake Kastleman (37:33.903)
One is trying to help us be better, the other is trying to comfort us, then we can feel grateful for both and be led by neither. Instead, we can lead them when we come to understand them, become deeply self-aware of where they come from and why they come from those places. So let's go over some more of these polarities, these inner voices that get in conflict. One manager side might say, have things to get done in my life. I don't have time to worry about this porn stuff.

We can do this behind the scenes to release stress on the back end. Then on the other, on the front end, we'll just get crap done. You know, who cares? Don't worry about it. We don't need to solve it. We'll just do it the rest of our lives. It's fine. It's working. Then the other end, firefighter end. This isn't something you can overcome is what this part might say. Look, when you try, you feel worse. Just stop. If this is always a problem for you, it's always a problem. We can't be blamed.

Right? Very similar voice. again, those manager and firefighter roles there, those are a little bit the way that I'm describing them now that I'm reading through it. Little bit, there's a little more nuance that needs to be put in there. Those, that first manager voice could be firefighter, but for simplicity, right? I think we all know these voices. So another part of us might say something like, don't tell anybody about this problem ever. Keep it to yourself. We'll manage it.

on our own, right? Manager response, preventing feelings of shame. Don't let anyone know, right? Firefighter response on the other end. What's wrong with a little fun? A little enjoyment to take the edge off at the end of the day. I'm not hurting anybody, right? This is the same part of the emotional mind that plans and schemes when our spouse is leaving for the weekend. Now's your chance. We can watch porn while she's right? We tend to hate.

this part, we wonder why these thoughts would even go on in our head. What's wrong with me? Why would I think these things? We actually strengthen that part of us when we respond that way. When we get in conflict with it, it rises up stronger. Doesn't work. But when we understand that the part, who the part is, why it's functioning that way, what its motives are, we can then appreciate where it's coming from. We can love it for its inner strengths.

Jake Kastleman (39:56.871)
That sounds strange to lot of us, but once you start to get it and you practice it, it's very powerful. Okay, another manager response. You are absolute scum. How can you live with yourself? You're watching porn or betraying your spouse. How can you keep doing this? You should be ashamed of yourself. This is a part that is trying to help us become more loyal and trustworthy in our lives. Unfortunately, it often drags us down into despair and shame.

causes us to retreat even further and depleting depletes our ability to actually be there. It then often drives us back to the addiction to escape the critical internal voice.

than the opposite, the polar opposite of this firefighter end. It's not even that bad. You can't blame yourself. We can hide this and not talk about it. We'll do it on occasion and it'll be fine. She never has to know. Besides, what are you going to do? Tell her and hurt her feelings? Keep it hidden. You're hiding it because you care about her. You don't want to hurt her. Good part. Too extreme.

Okay, notice some of the core intentions. But the execution is poor. The context matters.

Healthy response in all this. Okay, healthy response to addiction. And then some practical solutions. I am where I am. Many influences led me here. I'm not defined by my addiction. I'm not defined by my thoughts and emotions. Instead, I am practicing being a steward over my mind, building trust with my body.

Jake Kastleman (41:45.029)
My body and mind, these are not who I am fundamentally. I am consciousness that resides inside the mind and body. I am the awareness that can step back, observe, seek to understand and show love and compassion for every part of myself so that I can change. Okay. And even if you don't believe in a soul, you can take this from a nervous system perspective. We go into ventral vagal when we do that. Rather than dorsal or sympathetic,

go to ventral vagal and we are an observer of the system. But I also believe it's fundamentally very crucial to develop a belief of awareness or consciousness, the root of all things, which goes against much of our materialistic view, which I believe is fundamentally flawed because it's broken. Now I'd like to give you some practical solutions to step out of self-shaming in recovery to self-leadership.

Okay, number one, change the question you ask when you slip or struggle. Old question that's shame-based, what's wrong with me? Okay, automatically comes up. New question, replace it, self-leadership-based. What was this part trying to get from me? This single shift pulls you out of identity level shame and into curiosity and stewardship. You wanna name it, what did I want right before the craving that I'm experiencing or the relapse that I experienced.

Did I want comfort, relief, connection, power, escape? I ask these questions. Okay, it's important to journal, meditate, pray, get curious. What felt threatened or missing in that moment? This isn't letting yourself off the hook again. It's the opposite. It's taking responsibility without self-attack, which actually reduces relapse pressure. shame asks who you are. Leadership asks what happened.

Okay, number two, practice naming the part, not becoming it. Instead of I'm disgusting, I'm broken, I'm weak. Okay, all things that Kevin expressed. Teach these parts of you to practice language like, well, rather teach yourself to practice language like, a part of me feels disgusted right now. A part of me believes I'm broken. A protective part is attacking me right now. Okay.

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Trying to get me to change, trying to motivate me to be a better person. This is subtle, but neurologically very powerful. It reinforces, I'm not my thoughts. I can lead without suppressing parts of me. You're not distancing to avoid responsibility. You're creating enough space to respond instead of react. Okay, number three, reassign the role. Don't try to kill a part of you. Okay, a powerful concrete exercise. You wanna ask, if this part didn't have to use porn, what would it say?

healthy job be. For example, if you're seeking comfort through, again, I've said this on other episodes, if you're seeking comfort through pornography, you wanna learn rest, real rest, presence and embodied ease. You wanna practice that in your life. Many of us are terrible at this. We don't do any of it. We have to, okay? Especially I talked about that last episode, the peacemaker that's inside of us that becomes this destructive force for self-comfort in an extreme way through porn.

The adventurer, okay? We want play, we want challenge, we want creativity, we want novelty, we wanna take real risks in life and do things that are exciting. Otherwise we'll pursue it through destructive means. The organizer, okay? We need structure, we need follow through, we need boundaries. When we don't do that, we feel anxiety. And that can lead to me seeking out an escape, right?

I need some organization in my life. I need some reliability. I need to have follow through. need to have boundaries. I need to have reasonable structure. Okay, not extreme levels, but I need to have some. Then choose one small real world behavior that gives these parts a healthier outlet. Okay, you can do that this week. So this turns recovery from avoidance into reintegration of every part of me. Good parts of your psyche calm down when they feel heard. They feel re-employed.

Number four, pursue a meaningful life now, not after you're fixed, quote unquote. Waiting to feel worthy before you live is one of the ways addiction keeps you stuck. It's a lie, okay? It's not the truth. You don't have to wait until after addiction to pursue the life that you want. You have to pursue the life that you want, and this will bring you out of addiction. And I know that's hard. It takes a lot of activation energy. It's very painful.

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You wanna ask, what would I move toward this month if I didn't believe addiction disqualified me? What relationship, purpose, discipline or dream have I postponed in my life? I did this for years. I did this with masturbation. I believe that because I engaged in masturbation in my life, I wasn't worthy of great things. I believe that once I overcame masturbation, I could do great things with my life. I postponed a lot of things because of that and that was a

manager response, I would say. It was a part of me keeping me down. Stay small, stay safe, stay comfortable, stay in what's familiar. Don't venture out. And it kept using the excuse of masturbation to make me do that. Again, when we understand the mind, we can then shift and change our choices. So take one imperfect step this week towards one of these dreams.

even while still struggling through it. Sobriety alone doesn't heal shame, a life of meaning, connection, and contribution does. So again, if you want to experience brotherhood, if you want to experience true connection with guys who get it, if you want more personal access to me, I engage deeply in the free online community and no more desire brotherhood, come be a part of it.

It's linked in the description or go to nomordesire.com and hit that orange button at the top. Join the community. God bless and much love, my friend. Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners. So thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell and shoot me a rating.

The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. If you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn, or my free ebook, The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome porn addiction. And you can find them at nomordesire.com.

Jake Kastleman (48:58.747)
As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of porn to live more impactful, meaningful, and selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.

Jake Kastleman (49:29.181)
Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you're experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others,

please dial 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.