311 - Rewiring Our Brains Sexually

Welcome to the Pyrrtazara Podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal drama. Hello hello, I'm your host Trevor Windsor and you're listening to episode 311311 of the Pyrrtazara Podcast. Here joining me as always is my co-host Nick Stembo. Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo I wanted to do the little riff there but it's still kind of sick and it would have been off key and I'm not really ready for that. Ooh, a duet. Our listeners would really like to do that. Do not put that. Trevor and Nick. Listen, duet. Dwight, Justin and our two producers here. I just want you to hear me. There's not been a single time that I have thought, oh yeah, we should totally cut that. We should do it. We should do a single time. No, no, no. Let me expect it. Let's just get into the stupid episode. Okay, it's not a stupid episode. It's not a stupid episode. I think your car might make me feel like that. You're all making me feel like that. Okay, that's hurting my feelings. Today we had on Heather Cole who is our neuroscience expert content manager and we talked to her about and you'll get why I'm going to slow down when I say this word later but rewiring our brain sexually is what we talked about today. Yeah, and I think when we're recovering from sexual addiction, we think, man, if I can just kick this habit and I do those bad things, abstain from this behavior for X number of weeks, months, years, you know, then my relationship, like here comes the sign. It's just all going to be great. It's sunshine and roses and daisies and everything's awesome. But you can forget that there's also a relationship that's been damaged and there's a pattern within that relationship of how we connect sexually that was maybe connected. I wouldn't even say maybe I'd say more often than not connected to our dysfunction. So maybe we've amended some of the behavior but then we turn and realize, oh, I also have to kind of relearn this connection and our relationship and that can be a process. But as you'll hear in the episode today, there's a lot of hope. It's all connected to the process. And I think if we consider a couple of the tools or things that we talk about today, we really can see health coming back into our physical relationship and our marriage along with the sobriety that we're gaining a momentum over our addiction. It is a really good episode and Heather's great. And you know, Heather's also a part of and teaches a lot of this stuff in our course Sexual Integrity 101. And the reason why I wanted to bring it up now is it is one of those resources that we have that really gets you going in this area, gets you on the road to recovery, to healing. And so maybe describe the course a little bit, Sexual Integrity 101. Yes. That's a great point in the episode today, you're like, I had never thought about it this way. Or I didn't know the brain was so instrumental or key to this whole process. That's a huge indicator that you need to go and watch Sexual Integrity 101 because that is the goal of our whole, the whole video series is that you would have an understanding of the brain, the body, sexual addiction, the Bible, how it all ties together and what does healing look like that goes well beyond just trying harder and actually implementing a strategy of success and long-term change so that someone can be fully and finally free. And we've talked about this series as needed whether you're a struggling or a spouse or just a concerned leader, a pastor that wants to do this in your church or just a parent that has kids, the idea is to equip and train so that we all have an understanding of this area that then makes us part of the solution, whether a solution in our own life or helping others around us. And I just can't say how valuable it is if you haven't been through it. Can't say enough. So you can get it in multiple platforms or multiple options. You can get it digitally with the digital workbook to go along with it. You can have the DVDs with the physical workbook. We also sell a church kit that is digital DVD and comes with 10 workbooks. So if you want to start a group at your church, you can do that as well. You can find all of that at paredazire.org/101. Okay, subscribe to the podcast. We're on all the major platforms. Write us a review. We need some trickling in nowadays and I'm thankful to see those online. We kind of guilt trope people for a while there. It's like, hey, you need to do it more. You know, in that episode 300, when I got to be the host, I was like, hey, it's finally my turn to be like, this and leave us. That's right. We're huge. Yeah, that's right. Now people are like, okay, fine. Yeah, so do it. Just say, okay, fine and fill it out for us. And then also follow us on social media at paredazire.com/101. We're on all the platforms. And with that, let's get into our time with Heather Colbert, content manager and neuroscience expert talking about rewiring our brain sexually. Heather, welcome back. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me back. We know that, and we've talked about this a lot. And if you're familiar with paredazire and our material at all, you know this is something we talk about often, but we know that in order to break free from sexually compulsive behavior and addiction, we have to rewire our brain. We talk a lot about Romans 12, too, how important that is. We have to create new neural pathways and habits in order to really step into sexual integrity. But something that I don't think that we talk a ton about is specifically how pornography, sexual addiction, really the sexual culture that we live in, wires our brain specifically on our views on sex and what sex should look like inside of a marriage, inside of relationships. And so that's what we're going to talk about today is how to rewire our brains sexually. So to make sure that we're all starting from the same place, what does sexual addiction, pornography, what does that actually do to our brain? Okay, and I'm going to try and keep this brief. I know, seriously, I can't. I know. It's a huge question. But if you just think about it in the context that every single thing that we do throughout our lifespan, that it creates a condition that causes our brain to respond to that condition in the same way over and over and over again, because our brain loves what is familiar. And it's going to automatically do what's familiar to it when we condition it to do the same thing over and over. And in fact, to take that a little bit farther, that explanation is to say that for, you know, if I feel this way and I do this every single time I feel this way, then of course, that's going to strengthen the neural pathways in our brain. And so then our, we don't even really need to think about it. It's the minute that we start to feel that way. And the second we start to feel that way, our brain is going to say, okay, I know what to do, we're going to go to this. So, and when we do that, because our brain operates on a reward punishment model, so to speak, that the more that we do things that is going to give our brain a reward, so a hit of dopamine, along with other chemicals in that mix. But when we do that over and over, then of course, our brain is going to say, okay, do this thing that makes you happy, do this thing that makes you feel good, do this thing, you know, every single time you feel this way. So, in taking it into that context, then with pornography and sexual addiction specifically, when people use sex or pornography or masturbation or any combination of those things, then it does create that condition by which your brain says, when you feel this way, do this every single time. And so, I think that that's one of the important things to recognize is that if our brain, if we've conditioned our brain to do the same thing over and over and over when we feel this way, that really when it comes to rewiring our brain, we need to have strategies that are going to disrupt that in order to create a new pathway, a new neural pathway in our brain that's going to lead us toward health. I think one of the most encouraging things to me in recovery, you know, in those first early years was just discovering that God really has designed the human brain for monogamy, that it's reinforced by the brain chemicals. Because I think a lot of us maybe think of monogamy and marriage as more about a commitment or honoring our vows or like, well, it's just the right thing to do, but don't necessarily believe that our brains back that up because we do live in a culture that kind of teaches or trains us for novelty, new, different, you know, the next thing. But really, we can see neurologically that's a byproduct of, you know, pornography and sexual addiction because it's creating, if we're stuck in a pattern of using pornography and stuck in a pattern of lust and fantasy, that is creating confusion in the neurochemical response and is always needing something more novel, something different. And because of that, it does feel like, well, how could anyone be committed to one person because we always need something a little more, a little more exciting to reach that same level of pleasure or, you know, to hit that reward system. And yet what research shows is that when the brain is properly bonded to one person in a safe relationship and the right neurochemicals are released at climax, that the brain actually reinforces that pathway and finds equal levels of satisfaction in the same experience even over time and actually can be much more pleasurable over time than some of this continuing to seek out the next best, biggest thing. And I just remember that was one of those moments where like the Bible and science so came together and was like, this is amazing. That I mean, and you should know it's true, right? Like we should know in our faith God is wise and he knows what he's doing, but to actually see it scientifically like, God wired the brain form an agony when we use it in the way he designed and yet when we don't, we're really creating this cycle where what we're receiving is never enough because the brain is always looking for that higher hit or that higher level of pleasure. And the other thing I would say about it too is how sex and pornography and other sexual activities really wires us to think about sex being all about what I need and what I feel. and so on, I feel somethings like that. like I'd have sex. And that puts our spouse in a very, very difficult position to be the one that has to meet those needs. Versus what God designed is that sex is about that mutual intimacy we're feeling for connection. Yes, for pleasure and for fun and joy and excitement, but coming out of a sense of connection, not just a sense of what I need. And so when we grow up as Heather was saying, always going to the same place like, well, when I feel lonely, when I feel angry, when I feel frustrated, when I feel rejected, I go to pornography. And I think many people inadvertently then just put that on their spouse that I have this need. I'm feeling lonely. Well, now I need sex. And it may not actually be about sex. It may be more about our addiction or our struggle. And so there's just so many ways. And I agree with Heather, I think we could just talk about this one question for the whole episode. Oh, totally. Totally. I think one thing I do want to mention too, and it was helpful. I learned about the process called myelination, which basically it's that neural, that highway, right, that we create. And basically the explanation I heard was that it's basically like electrical tape that gets wrapped around that highway. And so it protects it. To the point where your brain batches stuff. So if you think about, you know, like this morning on my way to work, I didn't think about where I was going. I didn't think to turn on my turn signal. I didn't think to get off on the right exit ramp. Like my brain batches that. So now I have to spend a lot of time in energy and cat release calories. And then you ended up with Starbucks. I was like, there you go. Money goes. She took my money. I'm going to walk up. I was like, oh, no. But what's so what I love about that is that that helps me, especially when I was in like starting recovery to understand why I went from, you know, something happened to then relapse happens. Like, whoa, what just happened? I don't even know how I got to this point. It brought information and awareness to me. I'm like, oh, okay, there was a trigger. And my brain has batched this pattern or this habit to a place where I don't even have to think about it anymore. It has go there. And so I think that for me also, it diminishes shame just understanding that. And also then when we'll talk about it, that then there is a possibility to create another highway to then undo that. So yeah, so using pornography, being stuck in sexual addiction creates a lot of unhealthy pathways in our brain takes us down roads that become harder and harder to resist if we continue to go that way. And so we see that impact in the brain. But let's look at another aspect of this as well that when we're stuck in patterns of using pornography, when we're stuck in patterns of lust and acting out sexually, not with our partner, it's also impacting just our views of sex, views of the body, views of relationships. So let's talk about that a little bit Heather. How does pornography and sexual addiction shape our views? Just about what is sexuality or what we might think is healthy sexuality? - Yeah, so and this is a great question because I think that at a really deep level, it kind of convinces our brain. We convince our brain that this is normal, that everything that we see in pornography because people tend to gravitate toward the same types of pornography, but that this is normal. This is what is normal in relationship. This is that women like this, women like to be treated this way. I think that it also tells our brain that this is an expectation that if I want sex, like using your example, Nick, that if I feel this way and I want sex, then I now have created this expectation that really does put a lot of stress on the partner for sure. And especially because pornography isn't real, right? What you're watching isn't real. It isn't the way that relationships work and it's not the way that people respond and react and interact in relationship or even in a healthy relationship. You know what I mean? And so I think that it really does set yourself up and set your brain up to respond in a way that is based on false expectations and it also creates those chemicals. So you were talking about those chemicals that are unique to bonding. It also creates those chemicals because your brain is only gonna do what it's supposed to do, right? It doesn't know that you're looking at pornography instead of having sex with your wife. And so are your spouse. And so it's gonna do what it's supposed to do. It's gonna still create those chemicals and then your brain is gonna bond to whatever it's looking at, right? And so and this becomes really problematic, I think. And creates a really strong inner conflict in people because their brain is bonding to something almost to a point where they can't have sex with their spouse anymore because their brain won't do it. It's like this isn't right, this isn't familiar, this isn't what we've been doing. And so I don't know what this is like. - We're seeing unprecedented levels of erectile as function at all ages of men. - Yet? - Yeah, I think. A few other things I wrote down is I think it prioritizes an orgasm that you're chasing that as if that is what sex is about, which I don't think that is. I think it's mutually like pleasure for both spouses, but like if you don't orgasm, it doesn't mean you didn't have sex. And I think I'm speaking more specifically to men 'cause I think that's what it teaches men to chase orgasm. Also your point of emphasis on the man and his pleasure, that's what pornography teaches us. And so it's not about what a woman is experiencing or the pleasure that she's experiencing inside of that. But then also that emphasis really, and we know this connection that that shows like a devaluing of women on screen when viewing pornography, which also like devalues a woman in general. And I think that expectation creates like, well I can do these things even if they're not comfortable with it. This is what sex is, so this is okay. And I also think the novelty Nick that you were talking about, the variety all the time and that expectation that creates for couples. But then another thing too, I think for specifically for men and women who are watching pornography is that if I can't perform what in the ways that I'm seeing on screen, that there's shame that I feel. Like these people are lasting for an hour, I can't do that. Or this position is pleasurable for this person, but it's not pleasurable for me when I'm having sex with my spouse. And so there's the shame that creates something. - Wrong with me. - Absolutely right. - And that is awful. That's a terrible, terrible impact. - Yeah, and on top of that, there's a ton of body comparison that takes place in terms of the size and shape of my body and how athletic or young or whatever am I compared to those perfected images. And I like that you said, Heather, I mean it shouldn't need to be said, but I think we need to say it that pornography is not real. Whether it's images or video, and what we're seeing is an artificial fake reality. And if we're honest, a very male version of it, it's a personification of what men want because men are the primary consumers and the primary spenders. And so porn producers have learned what men want and like and so of course, they're gonna depict a scene where basically anything a man does, the woman finds pleasurable or is acting like they're completely into it too. And so I think that happens in a lot of relationships is that men in a marriage are expecting the wife, like how come you don't like that you're supposed to always be turned on, always be ready, and the feeling that if my spouse is not, not just what's wrong with me, but maybe there's something wrong with them that this could be fixed if my spouse was just more fill in the blank. And we maybe haven't even realized where that comes from because it's not only pornography, I think it's also just movies. And it's our culture that honestly depicts two people that are passionately into it and typically have very fast sex that is mutually enjoyable to both the woman and the man. And yet we know physically speaking, men and women have very different response rates. - Yeah. - That most of a large majority and Heather can probably give the stats, a majority of women don't reach climax by thrusting alone. There are other pieces of the puzzle that are needed. And it's a slower process. And yet if we watch movies that the couple rushes into a room or a hotel room and a minute they're having sex and three minutes later it's over, we feel like, well that's real sex. - Yeah. - Well, actually, they're both smoking cigarettes. (laughing) - They're drinking a glass of whiskey. It's like, wait, what? - Yeah, it honestly, I think is intended to be a much slower process where the needs of both are considered and sure, I mean, there can be times, I mean, in every marriage you decide what you enjoy and what's fun and there may be a time and a place where it's fast and it's, you know, it's passionate like that. But I think there are more realities of just normal sex that doesn't look like what's in the movies. And if we can embrace that we can move towards healthier relationships. And I think the other thing we have to mention, it is the extreme of this, what we're kind of talking about, is the way that today's pornography is more violent and far more violent than it has ever been before. And some of that's because it's the next novel thing that porn producers have figured out is needed for someone to really be turned on. It can't just be normal sex now it has to be violent. Put the problem with this and this was done in a study by Anna Bridges and a team of people that they went and watched the top 50 films from a year of pornography, which obviously we wouldn't recommend but for research they did this. And in those 50 films they found that like, in a high 80s percentage, the scenes depicted violence against women. And what was more troubling is of those scenes, over 90% of them, the woman's reaction was either positive or neutral. And so it's training currently, people who watch pornography, training their brain to think violence is not only acceptable, it's good and my spouse or my partner wants it. And we're hearing a lot of stories about young people that have been trained honestly by pornography, think that's normal sex, and are into a relationship with another person who's then horrified by what they're doing to them or even are turning them into illegal proceedings. Like, I've been abused. and the other person is thinking, what do you mean I abused? I just did what I've seen on film. And it's like, yeah, because that's not real and that's actually very, very dangerous to believe that that's healthy or expected. So from the extremes to violent porn, to just the normal of the movies we watch, I think we have to be willing to disengage and say, oh, this isn't real. This isn't how real people act and respond. And I may have to unlearn some things that my brain is adopted. - Right. Well, and I think another thing that happens too is if you can just think for a second, all the things that we just talked about. So you have the behaviors, what you're watching, what your eyes are seeing, what you're feeling. So if you're feeling excitement, but you're also feeling shame, and all of these things, your brain is gonna store all of that together. Not just the good parts, not just the parts that you enjoyed, but even the feelings you have after that you're gonna carry for the next couple of days, your brain is gonna store all of that together because that's just how our brain works. And so I don't think that in the long term, well, even in the short term, that you can ever separate out what your response to pornography and unhealthy or unwanted sexual behaviors from the emotional component that you're left with. I don't think that that's ever possible 'cause that's not how our brain is designed. - I remember when I first heard Dr. Ted teach on that at the Puritazar University, and then I got to be the one that taught that session about how like fear and risk and danger actually amplify adrenaline and thus amplify pleasure. And so sometimes because people have combined those things, even pain and sex, it's now what they're looking for and not maybe able to see, well, this is actually because of an unhealthy pattern, not really the way my brain and body are intended to work. - Like it gets grafted into our rouse with template. That's what gives us the ability to get roused. - Okay, so experts in the field of addiction say that breaking a food addiction or a sex addiction can be one of the most challenging addictions to break. Why is that? - Because those things are tied to our survival. So all of us are born with this innate desire, let's call it a desire to survive. And so, and we need food and we need water and we need sex to survive. Those are like your top three things. And even though like we talked. - Do you mean like procreation? - Yes, the human race, the sex. - Yes, yes. - Because we have the whole myth busters on that one that is not me, but my van der Mir says like, if you don't have sex, are you gonna die? - No, it's never dying. - But humanity would die if there's no death. - Exactly, right. And so, and also not only is it tied to our survival, but when we have those behaviors where we're looking for food to meet a need that we have or sex or whatever it is, that our brain is then creating the chemical that we're addicted to. So it's not like we can just stop eating or stop reproducing or stop these things because our brain then keeps telling us, you need this, you need this, you need this. And to some extent, we do need those things, but we need them in health, not in a destructive way. - Yeah, I think that reality of that even in health, even in complete health, someone eats food and is a sexual being and has sexual desires and sexual hormones and body parts that don't, unlike alcohol, drugs, gambling, you can remove those things from your life and as a healthy person, never need them or have them in your life again and you'll be completely fine. But food and sex are a reality of our humanity. And so when they've been distorted, as you said Heather, into meeting needs that they're not needed to meet, like our fears or loneliness or other places where we're just using it to medicate, those feelings are still there. And the other thing I've thought about is how, they're connected to so many things, right? I mean, if I've learned throughout my day to eat, I also get hungry throughout my day and there are so many thoughts, moments, memories that remind me of food. And so if I'm struggling with a food addiction, it's like all that I can't stop being around or seeing food and we're in a similar reality with sex and sexual content, the world we live in, like you're going to see triggering images or people or body types that hit your arousal template, there's gonna be reminders of past patterns. It's just the world we live in. And so to think I can, you know, that I can be the alcoholic that just never goes to a bar again. That's a great idea. And there are certainly healthy boundaries and guard roles that we've talked about, but with food and sex, like it will be around me. And I will have to learn not just to avoid it, but how to navigate through when it is present and make healthy choices with my hunger, with my sexual appetites, even as I'm walking in health. - Yeah, I keep thinking of like a pes dispenser that gives us that reward or gives us the, you know, the drug in that case, and that's what our brain is, our brains are the dispenser. And if we're do you say that, and that's you can't cut your brain out and still live. You can't take that out and that's why it's so tough. - And how many studies have they done on those poor rats where they hit the door for me? - Yeah, seriously. - It's like, and we have that, but we have to start to move right now for those rats. - We can just hit it all the time. And whether it's rats or humans or any species in between, like we're wired for that pleasure, and it's right there accessible in a moment, really. So it, it's something, I think it reminds us to, I would just say this real quick, of why we have to take this journey so seriously, because it's not just sex. It's not just pornography. It's deeply integrated into our humanity. And if we're gonna find health, it's gonna be a difficult road because of all the things we've just talked about. And so if that helps anyone rethink their journey, it's like, oh, I've never thought about how challenging this is gonna be. That's why I need to step up my game and give it a full on effort to find health. It's what we're just talking about here. - Yep, absolutely. - So Heather, because of the damage sexual addiction causes the partner, you know, the relationship being two people, how is it possible to rewire our brain sexually if sex is off the table? Many couples in recovery are going through time of absence or maybe they're even separated or espoused to saying, I don't trust you, we're not gonna be intimate. And some people may think, well, if I'm not having sex, how can I rewire my brain? What would you say to someone who's in that place? - So I think that it's reasonable to think that if somebody has conditioned their brain to respond a certain way, every single time they do something that they need to have a time where they disrupt that pattern. And a lot of couples will go through like a 90 day, at least 90 days of an abstinence period where sex is off the table, because it's during that time that if a person is, you know, seriously wanting to recover from this, that they're going to work through that process of retraining their brain to look for something different than the solution that they found in sexually acting out. And so a lot of times for couples, they will take sex off the table for at least 90 days. And I think that this is really helpful because we're not trying to reset the brain back to what it used to be. We're basically trying to weaken some of those neural pathways so that we can put new behaviors, new patterns in place that are going to create a stronger neural pathway. And really, that's kind of, I think, the beginning to rewiring our brain is when we can look at it almost objectively to say, I've been doing this over and over and over and over and it's hurting me and it's hurting my spouse. And so I need to totally disrupt that pattern so that I can put something new, something healthy in its place. And that's really what this process looks like. So in a lot of times, it's at least 90 days. Yeah. I think that creates opportunity as you were talking about where you're learning new habits or you're learning new responses. And I think some of that can be like non-sexual touch. I know I've had some conversations with our clinicians on staff that like even saying like, this is not going to lead to sex, but can I hug you right now? Things like that where you can practically rewire your brain that not every touch means that we're going to have sex or means that I'm going to initiate it or my spouse is going to initiate it. And I think too when sex is off the table and you're not acting out, you become much more aware of where you're at emotionally. You become aware of your triggers. You become aware of the things that impact you good or bad during a day. And you have an opportunity then to share those emotions and grow an intimacy in these other areas where it's not just physical intimacy that we're after. It's I'm getting to know my spouse at a deeper level. And I think that when sex is off the table, it kind of is that like pressure valve that gets released where this is not going to lead to anything. And I can just engage in these other areas, which I think in the long run, is going to impact their sex life when they do re-engage. But they're going to get to know each other in all these other areas. And I think that's what's cool about all of this is that even doing that stuff, even though it doesn't lead to sex, that is going to rewire your brain when it comes to your perspective on sex. Yeah. And I think I want to say that I'm going to be able to Yeah. And I think I want to point out that if someone is asking this question, well, how do I rewire my brain sexually for not having sex, they're asking it, I think, from a faulty assumption. And the faulty assumption might be that the way to rewire my brain sexually is only through having healthy sex. Yeah, that's good. It's kind of like the food addict who says, well, the only way to get healthier is to replace bad food with good food. But if I'm still eating 5,000 calories a day, at all times through the day, and just, anytime I feel like food, I just now I go. go make a strawberry smoothie, I'm still going to be in a very unhealthy place. Maybe a little better than all the bad food, but not really getting healthy. And so I think there's a fundamental shift that says what healthy sex will be the outcome of the work that I'm doing. As I retrain my brain, as I renew my mind, as I identify the lies that I listen to, the false expectations I have where they came from. I know for a lot of guys the way I've attached my sense of masculinity or respect to am I getting as much sex as I think I need or deserve. And as I unlearn a lot of those healthy patterns, then when I do enter in to sex with my spouse, whether that's quickly in recovery or takes a long time in recovery, the healthy sex becomes the outcome of the work, not the way that we get healthy. Now, I think they certainly can work together that if you're moving towards healthier patterns of sex in your marriage, that can reinforce some of what you're learning. But it would just be a mistake if we think, well, until we're having sex, I can't unlearn these bad patterns. Like, no, a lot of that happens in the work you do with group, with your counselor if you're doing that, with reframing the way you think about this whole area. So just be aware if you're asking this question, maybe you need to question your own assumptions when you ask that question. Totally. Well, and because it goes back to that, we tell people this all the time, is that sexual addiction is not about sex. The same way that a food addiction or an eating disorder is not about food. It's about something else that's driving the behaviors. And that's really, I think, the most pressing part of recovery is determining or discovering what is that need that you're trying to meet in this way that's hurting you. Yeah, it's like the guy that says, well, I just have such a high sex drive. Well, I'm just so horny. That'd be like someone saying, well, I just have an unusual desire for Oreos. I can't help it. That's just the way it is. It's Heather, by the way. I'm just a perfect illustration. But we say that like, well, that's just a given. I can't help it versus looking at, oh, maybe my choices over the last years or decades have created these drives, needs and feelings. And I need to question what I'm feeling, not question what I'm doing to get that feeling met. Another question, and it's funny, I can hear this question from multiple perspectives, but one is definitely someone who's in recovery. I've heard addiction is a two to three baby five year journey. So how long does it take for me to rewire my brain? By the way, rewire is such a hard way to say. I'm just going to, I'm like, it's taking so much mental energy. I don't want this to be another math thing. So I'm going to work hard. Say the new right now. It's in the stupid question that I wrote. Anyways, what does that timeline for rewiring your brain? Does that actually look like practically how long would that take? So I think that that, and that timeline came originally from Dr. Patrick Karns and his, yeah, his research with sex addicts. And I think that it's accurate when you look at it in that our, we don't usually struggle with only one addiction. Those of us who have an addictive prone personality, we usually have multiple addictions. And really when it comes to changing our brain or rewiring our brain, that can actually happen at a rapid rate, but we have to be intentional about it. We have to decide that, okay, these things that I've done for all of these years over and over and over again, I'm going to not only stop doing those, but I'm going to replace those behaviors with something else that is healthy. And what we often see too in this, in recovery is that, okay, maybe I can get sobriety or abstinence from sexually acting out in the first, you know, two to three months into recovery, but then because my brain wants what it wants and it, my brain wants what I've conditioned it to do, I'm going to then go to the next thing. The next thing that is what I do when I'm feeling lonely or angry or tired, the next thing that is going to give me that hit of dopamine because that's what our brain wants. And so really I think that the three to five year process looks at it and says of all the different things that you do that create this pattern of behavior, not only in your actions, but in your thoughts and your feelings, we're going to totally transform every single part of who you are in this three to five year period. I think that that's really what it's looking at. So to say, okay, well, I'm going to be able to abstain from looking at pornography and masturbating absolutely. That's going to be possible probably within the first couple months, you know, and then also taking into consideration the fact that relapse happens, you know, and when relapse happens, you don't just start over at, you know, ground zero, but you're learning. You're learning what you need to do different next time. You're unlearning things that, okay, maybe if I know that this is going to be a trigger for me, I need to have guardrails around that so that then moving forward, that's not going to be an area of relapse for me again. And so it really is looking at not only what am I doing right now, but it's like, let's look at all of these behaviors, all these patterns that you've established in your lifetime, and we're going to transform and recreate all of those and it takes time. Yeah, I think this question like so many that we do, the answer is it depends. It depends a lot on the individual and the work they're doing. So if someone's just saying, well, how long is it going to take for me to have, you know, healthy sex in my marriage? And yet they're still in a binge purge pattern. I mean, maybe it's less often than it used to be, but every month they're still acting out with pornography or engaged in masturbation. Yeah, that's not going back to ground zero, but it is a setback and your brain is still learning like, oh, well, that felt really good. And when I had a need, I could meet it by myself and I don't need my spouse to be into it. And if that's what you're trying to break through, but you're still kind of tiptoeing in and out of that, it's prolonging the process. And I think if we're able to be honest with ourselves about that, it actually can become an aspirational motivation of something we want to, because rather than just avoiding, you know, pornography and masturbation because it's bad, we can be looking to avoid it to say, this is going to make my marriage worse. It will make the sex life I want to have in my relationship more challenging. And so I don't want that to happen. I'm avoiding it because of what I do want, what I am looking for. And if we really are motivated by that, I think it can sometimes accelerate the process. Another thing I would look at is what level of engagement is a person making in emotional connection with their spouse? What level of intimacy is developing? Because like we're saying, if sex with my spouse is just my new quote unquote healthier way to meet my need by not looking at porn or masturbating, but I haven't really changed the nature of our relationship, it may not improve for a while. But if I'm really investing in emotional connection learning to be real, developing intimacy that's not just physical, but as emotional, mental, spiritual, and then my spouse and I are beginning to engage in sex that is a byproduct of that kind of connection, well, my brain is going to begin to learn from that and learn there's something deeper and more meaningful. And like what I've heard couples talk about and what my wife and I experience is like, there is something happening here that's not just about technique or simple physical pleasure. There's like this deeper satisfaction. And we're like, why is this been missing? It's like, well, because we didn't have real true intimacy. We didn't have emotional connection. We didn't have the right level of trust. And there were, on top of the things I was doing that my wife didn't know about. So it was all of it beginning to work together. I think that created health and for myself and others I hear from. So I think if you're looking to ask how long will it take, it's good to know some of it depends on the work you're doing. And what are you doing on your personal sobriety and to learn emotional connection with your spouse and really developing that healthy relationship of trust so that the sex you do have is really completely different than just getting your climax or the pleasure you're seeking. Yeah. I remember reading a book by Daniel Quil called The Talent Code and he says in it, research tells us that you can't unlearn a habit you've created. You have to learn a new one in its place. And Colossians 3 is just what comes to mind for me, that idea of taking off the old and putting on the new. And this is probably a terrible illustration. But I was thinking if you get cold and you put on a garment, but one that's like hurtful to you, you get rashes, it scratches you, it hurts you, it's not good for you and you take it off, that's great. Like that does half the battle, but you're still cold. You need to put something else on and that idea, I hate this illustration. I'm committed to this one. You're already a non-arty individual, but it's that idea. Make it work. You need something. It's a cover you. And I think that that's really important. And I would even say practically that I'm in, you know, year eight and nine, really close to nine in recovery. But I still am finding ways that I have to rewire my brain sexually, that my expectations that I have, if my wife is not in the mood for it, how I respond so deeply in this like rejection of my identity and who I am. So that is evidence of the porn addiction that I had for years playing out that still my brain is holding on to certain perspectives. So I think that you, it doesn't mean that you can't have a healthy sex life and still be moving toward health, but there still may be things, you know, 50 years into recovery that you're still figuring out. So I think keeping that perspective is helpful at least for me. So Heather, what about the person who's listening and is single? What does this process look like if we're single? We have to wait until we're married to figure out how to have healthy views of sex and relationships or are there tools and processes that the single person can employ to be developing healthy sexual patterns in their brain even before we're in. for their own marriage. - Yeah, so I think that the journey, the tools, the practices, all of those things are identical for somebody who is single. Really it's the variable of having a spouse because when you're married, everything that you do that your wife knows about and doesn't know about is gonna impact that relationship. And so I almost think that in some ways, easier for them in that they really only have to think about themselves when they're applying the tools and those kinds of things. - The consequences are. - They're not moving somebody out of the office. - Sure. - So actively, yeah. - Right, and so, and I think that there's a lot of potential for really growth and change in somebody who wants to actively pursue recovery before they get married. And I think that sometimes a few months into marriage, they might have to restart this process a little bit different. Because marriage being married is gonna change how they view sex and all of those things. But like you said Trevor, those, the things that they've been doing for so long that created those neural pathways in their brain, those might be weaker, but they don't go away, right? And so if a person who's done all their recovery work, they get married, there are a few months into marriage and their brain is saying, "Hmm, something's missing. "Something isn't making us as happy as this other thing "that we're so familiar with is, "what are we gonna do with that?" And so I almost sometimes think that for people who are single in their inner relationship and they get married, that it's so, so important that they're still in group. That they're in group, that they're doing the work, that they recognize that even though this is, they've done great work in the past, that this potentially could be an area of vulnerability for them and so that they are reinforcing it with all the good tools, practices, everything that they know that they're gonna need and not having the attitude of, well, I'm married now and it's gonna fix everything. - Yeah, I'm in a group right now that has other than me and the co-leader, all of them are single guys. And I've told him this, like it excites me about where you're at right now because this is something, like I know one of the guys is engaged and when he gets married, if he really does this, proximate we're early on in seven pillars, but if he does this process, his marriage is gonna start off on a much better place. And my growth group at church has been going through Julie Slattery's God sex and your marriage course and one of the things that she talked about in that is that no one comes to marriage with a clean slate when it comes to sexuality. And so that idea of addressing that now before you're married is so important. It's not gonna make sex amazing every single time. It, you know, you're also considering the variable of the other person and what they're bringing into the marriage and their perspectives on sex as well, but it's such a better starting place. If you can work on this stuff now because then you're not bringing in, here's the thing, you may be bringing baggage in, but it's baggage you're aware of and you're addressing versus just, you have no idea all the baggage you're just heaping on top of this person you get married. So absolutely, it's a great place if you're single to be in recovery for this. - Yeah, one as we're saying, you have the opportunity to enter into a relationship with someone you haven't already wounded, which for married couples, that's what we're navigating is I'm both trying to relearn these patterns and then also figure out how to help heal the woundness that I've created in the relationship. And so for a single person to have that, again, that kind of inspiring motivation of, I want the joy of getting to figure these things out with my spouse and learn together what's a healthy, mutually satisfying sex life gonna look like for us. And so you might not have that yet, but I think if you have that vision of your future, that it can motivate you to be making the right decisions now. And I also think of, I've heard past Randy Stanley talk about relationships for single people and to say, imagine the kind of person you want to marry and what should they be doing in this area? What kind of health do you want them to be experiencing? And then he says, and then just turn that story around and work to become that kind of person yourself. Become the kind of person you hope you'll meet and marry someone who's dealt with their secrets, who's dealt with their wounds and trauma, who doesn't have addictive behaviors, has healthy expectations about sexuality. And if you're saying, well, that's what I want in a future spouse, just say, okay, well, how am I doing that? And the last thing I'd say for singles too that I think applies to this area is at some point, I would encourage you just to sit down and write out what you expect sex to be like in marriage. And then share it with a married person or share it with someone that you perceive to be healthy who's gone through pure desire or been a group leader. - Prepare to maybe get laughed at a little bit. - Yeah, and just say, here's, I've never really, 'cause I think single people haven't really thought about it. I know I didn't. - I didn't either. - I had all these expectations about how I would perform, what it would be like, what my wife would be like. And I didn't realize, probably the majority of them were unrealistic. Not because I was trying to be unrealistic, but just that's how my brain had been shaped. And so if you can actually put that in writing and see it and have healthy conversations with mature people in your life that go, you know, I understand where that came from, but that's probably not a reality. And where that really depends on the person you marry. And as you start to think that through, if you can develop healthier expectations, you're just setting yourself up for success in that future relationship. - Yeah, that's a good one. - Oh, super good, actually. That was super practical. I'm gonna use that with my group. - There you go. - Okay, so what does it practically look like to rewire our brains sexually? Like what habits, tools, exercises, can we implement to do that? - This is a great question, because we could actually come up with a huge long list of things that would be helpful. And this also is one of those areas where, you know, give yourself grace and time because all of this is going to take time to create new habits. It just, whether you subscribe to the 21 day, to the 30 day, to the year long, you know, whatever people say that it takes to create a new habit, just give yourself all the time that you need. - Treat it like you're learning how to ride a bike. Do you remember how awful and awkward and weird that was? How many times you fell in script your knee and trauma, trauma, trauma. - Yeah. - Okay, sorry. - Yes. Okay, I would say that probably one of the best tools or the best things that you can do for yourself is to have awareness, you know, just awareness of how you're feeling about things and being able to sit in that. Because when it comes to addiction recovery, our brain isn't just compulsive about one thing. It seems to run on a compulsive loop. And whether it's, you know, that I feel this way, so I need to do this immediately. It really is training yourself to be aware of when you're feeling compulsive and sit in it for a while. And I remember this being something when I was coming out of my eating disorder, treatment. And I remember being one day at the college and my brain was saying, "You have to do this today. You have to do this today. You have to do this today." And I got in my car because I was leaving campus and I got in my car and I sat there for a minute and I said to myself, "What if I don't do it today?" You know, and this is what I had learned through counseling and therapy was to kind of push back on that a little bit and say, "What happens if I don't do this today?" And it's a million of those self-conversations that you have to say, "If I don't do this today, this will happen." But if I do it tomorrow, this will happen. And it really is giving yourself that choice, I think, is huge in recovery. And then, of course, it's all the other things that we always know about. It's sleep and eating well and getting exercise and spending time in prayer and meditating on scripture. Those things right there, I mean, even just our thoughts, they rewire our brain in ways that I don't know if scientists will ever understand, but there's research to support that every time that we think something new, every time that we do something different, it's creating a brand new neural pathway in our brain, which should be so exciting. I mean, and a lot of times, you can even test this, like most of us drive home the same way from work every single day, but if you're feeling a little bit dicey, go a different way. And watch how your brain responds to it because it won't be something like you mentioned early on that it won't be something that's automatic. You'll actually have to think about the direction you're going and how you're gonna get home and it will change your brain. It's those type of things that we do intentionally over and over and over again, so that we can create new, strong neural pathways in our brain. And then tools like the three circles. I mean, the three circles is a great tool, and I know that we use that in our resources, but I've also talked to counselors who they use those every week with their client. So instead of using a faster scale every week, they're using the three circles every week to just kind of have a realistic plan that this is how I'm gonna maintain sobriety. And these are gonna be the things that I'm gonna do work on that are gonna be healthy for me. Also, we have on our tools page, we have the sobriety plan that says, for me to be physically healthy, I need to do this every day or once a week or whatever it is for me to be emotionally healthy. I need this, for me to be spiritually healthy. I need this. And so just having a plan like that, I think is really helpful. - Yeah. - In some of our curriculum, we have people make a list of 10 things that you can do right now. So when your brain is tempting you to go back to some of those unhealthy behaviors, it's what can I do right now that doesn't rely on anybody else. It could be day or night. These are my 10 things. These are my go-to's that are going to help me disrupt my previous pattern and create a new pattern. so to speak. I mean, it's dozens of these kind of tools that really that we need to put in place every single day that are going to help us to rewire our brain. Yeah, I think what we want to acknowledge is any tools that I'm using to develop sobriety from my addiction and to move towards sexual health are helping rewire my brain sexually. Yes. Because like Heather said, and we've said many times sexual addiction is not about sex and so sex isn't what fixes you. It's all these tools you're using to develop a healthier mindset, a renewed mind, a healthier way of viewing relationships and valuing other people and respecting their boundaries. I mean, all of that in the end will help. And I'm so glad you mentioned the three circles because I think we could look at our three circles through that lens if we're married of our marriage sexuality. And maybe we define a relapse as something like I'm not ever going to pressure my wife to have sex to meet my needs. That that's just not how I want to view my sexuality more. Well, if that's if we consider that like a middle circle thing, then what would the inner circle be? What are the ways that we realize we start to try to coerce or get them, you know, to say yes, even though we can tell they really don't want to. What does healthy boundaries look like? What would it look like to do healthy things instead and invest in the relationship? And like what I would say an outer circle tool that in this area can really help is that commitment to dating your spouse, to being their friend, doing things you just enjoy that don't have to lead to sex at all, but are just learning to enjoy the person that you're married to beyond the sexual connection. And then if that physical outcome happens, great. But the goal is really relearning what the foundation of a relationship is because I think some of us in our unhealthy have made sex the foundation of the relationship and it's not. And so using a tool like that is great. I think also practicing the habit of gratitude that we've talked about a lot on this podcast for other reasons, but the way that sexual dysfunction and I think our addiction can cause to be more focused on what our spouse is not, how come they're not more this, how come they didn't do this, how come they're not, you know, more willing for that or what I've seen or heard from other people. And all of that is really putting our spouse in a negative light and our brain is learning from it. And then there's this phenomenon where we start to see more of what we're looking for. And if we're looking negative, we find negative. But the reverse is also true that if we're looking positive and thinking positive and maybe even right now your relationship is in a really, really bad place, but you could start with some gratitude of my spouse is still here. Okay, let's let's focus on that every morning. Just write a little prayer and thank God that your spouse is still here. Maybe your spouse is still willing to engage sexually at some level. Like make that part of the gratitude that every day you're just looking for what can I appreciate about my spouse. And over time, you know, you find your brain will find more of what it's looking for in a healthy way. And I think that retrains the brain not to see my spouse as this sexual object that needs to be my needs, but to see my spouse as this person that I've gratitude for and then out of gratitude moving towards them for healthy purposes and not just meeting my needs. So I think tools like that that we've talked about for so many other reasons just take them and ask, well, how could I apply this to rewiring rewiring their brain sexually? I got nothing to add. I just keep thinking about that person who takes a different way home today and is like an hour late. I was like, what would you do? It's the purest of our time. Heather, tell me to take a new way. I'm terrible. I'm going to have a drill. I'm absolutely. I drove an hour down the road and now we're back. That's all I had to add to that one to go ahead. Okay. So Heather, we've I think talked a lot in this episode about the perspective, maybe mainly from the addicted spouse, the one who's trying to overcome addiction, relearn new patterns. But there's also a reality for the betrayed spouse that they maybe need to relearn new patterns. And obviously, this doesn't apply to the spouse that is separated or doesn't know if the marriage is going to make it. And maybe that's a wise decision because of safety issues and I mean, just a whole lot in their story. But for the betrayed spouse who's committed to the marriage, you know, looking to make it work and they're trying to relearn how do I reengage in healthy sexuality, retrain my brain for healthy sex when maybe it's been a spot for a lot of wounding or fear or whatever. What suggestions would you make for them? What does it look like for the betrayed spouse to rewire their brain? Yeah. So this is also a great question because the betrayed partner, um, their brain is, it'll look different for them because their brain, sense disclosure, discovery, they basically have an alarm that's going off in their brain. And some areas of their brain like in their limbic system and singular gyros, those become really hypoactive or hyperactive because they're afraid, right? Because something in their environment has caused them to feel unsafe and their brain is reacting that to that because that's how God created our brain, right? And then there's other areas of their brain that really are inactive. So like their prefrontal cortex, some of these other areas that we rely on for decision making and other things that those kind of fall off line. And so there's really a lot of dysfunction, let's call it dysfunction and chaos happening in a partner's brain. And so for her to get to a place, I'm going to say her, I'm sorry, that was just out of habit, but okay. So for her to get to a place where she wants to reengage in sex, then she has to feel safe in the relationship, which is going to take time, right? Because her world has been rocked in a way that she never thought would happen, that she never could have imagined. And her brain is basically reacting to now the stress and threat that she's perceiving in her environment. And so really for her, it's going to take time. But then also like we've talked about, for her to see her spouse doing the work that is going to rebuild trust like using the tools and changing some of their patterns, those kind of things are definitely going to help with that. And sometimes it takes a trained counselor to work with a couple to when they get to the point that they want to reengage in sex because it's kind of a scary deal, I think for a lot of partners, is that okay, if I am going to reengage in sex with my spouse and I've been so hurt and my brain is holding on to these feelings, how am I going to feel safe? And so and they even counselors will work with them to help them give, give them practical tools like have sex with the lights on, have sex only in this position where you're face to face. And so you can see each other and you know what I mean, all of these things that are really practical and might feel weird at first, but it really is the point is to for both people in the relationship to retrain their brain to respond in a way that is going to be mutually satisfying. And the other piece to this, I was going to mention it earlier, but the other piece to this is that if we know that all of these different chemicals are stimulated through orgasm and we also know that because of the way that our brain captures information and stores it, that we have to get to a point where we're having sex with our spouse and we're not feeling any shame. We're not feeling guilt. We're not we're not having images of these past things coming up in our brain, which I think can happen for both spouses, you know, and so I think that again, giving yourself time and space and also for a partner communicating well, you know what I mean, to being able to say when this happens, I feel this way, you know, and which again is going to take time and if she's going through betrayal and beyond, then she's going to get some of these practical tools. But to be able to say, you know what, it scares me to reengage in sex with you because I feel this way and I'm afraid of this, you know, and just letting it be a point of conversation even before you're in the middle of having sex or engaging in sex. And I think that like I said, counseling for both for this couple is so important, I think with this. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote the same thing down, voicing wants and needs and that idea too that not just during sex outside of sex voicing those and I think that that's one thing we found in betrayal and beyond is that women find their voice and realize that their voice has value and carries weight in their relationship. But I think too, especially I'm thinking through maybe how sex has been pursued or played out in relationships that have pornography or sexual brokenness impacting it is to create and maintain boundaries and like stand firm by those boundaries and know that you're not, you know, because I think a lot of the messages we get maybe sometimes inadvertently, maybe sometimes like straight up from the church is like you can't deprive your husband, you can't, you know, we're talking specifically from the woman's perspective as the betrayed partner, you can't deprive him or else, you know, that every 72 hour kind of perspective, which we know to not be an actual thing. I think that that is just the encouragement is create boundaries that make sure you feel safe and then maintain them and don't flex on them because flexing on them is not a way of loving your spouse doing that is just, I mean in some ways you're kind of just rolling over and giving back into the pressures maybe you're experiencing it first. Again, this is not my experience so correct me if I'm wrong but I just feel like from my vantage point that's something I would encourage a betray partner to do is create those boundaries and maintain them. Yeah, I think we've talked on the podcast that we believe that healthy, mutually satisfying sex is part of a good marriage and so if you're committed and again if the marriage is in jeopardy and because of behaviors you don't know if it's wise or right to make it work you're in a different scenario but for those that know I'm committed to this marriage and I want to make it work then that future hope of sat at mutually satisfying sex together is what you should be looking towards and not ever just settling for well we're just never gonna have sex again it's off the table because if that's where you're at I think you do need to ask some questions of why do I feel that way and what what do we maybe need to face but at the same time as I say that if you're in early recovery you know as Heather talked about those first 90 days might be the first six months and you're not there yet that's okay you you don't need to guilt yourself you don't need to feel obligation like well he's been an addict and so I better make sure I'm helping even if you're not ready don't feel safe like actually research would show it's gonna make things worse and a longer process and so I would just echo what you guys have said be honest about where you're at and if you're not ready say that at the same time if sexual connection is something you're craving because you find into the sea in it yeah share that be honest and expect your opinion to be valued by your spouse because that is I think a sign of a spouse moving towards health is that whether you're saying I need time and space or I would like to engage more frequently so that we're connecting that they go I really respect that and I want to I want to honor what I'm hearing from you and if you're not getting that from your spouse they're they're not respecting your voice you're not being heard I think that reveals some deeper symptomatic things that are maybe right for you to be cautious about re-engaging sexually and so I think communication is so important of being honest where you're at and giving yourself time to get to that place where you feel safe and feel ready and I think for many betrayed spouses too if they've been in a pattern where sex is really just about their spouse and doing it for them and they've maybe been ignoring some of their needs where they're even experiencing physical pain or discomfort it's being able to communicate those things and then do what it takes if that's visiting a doctor or getting you know better forms of lubrication I mean all the kind of things that can happen you shouldn't have to resign yourself to uncomfortable painful sex that's never what we're saying and never what we want you to do but we do believe there's a lot of things we could move towards that would help address those so all that I think starts with being honest having our voice in in the relationship and if your spouse is also committed to making the marriage work I believe they're gonna want to hear that and and really honor you because they've realized boy in my sex addiction I've dishonored you and I know for this marriage to work I'm gonna need to be honoring of you and so what does that look like and if you don't tell them they don't know they don't know if you're wanting more or less if you're not ready if you are so I think just communicate be honest and if that's really hard to do back to what Heather said that's a great reason to go to a counselor together to say we don't even know how to talk about this without an argument or without just shutting down and going into different rooms but we know we want to we want to get where we can just talk as a couple would you help us and and that's what you know certified sex addiction therapists are trained to do and and to help you navigate how to get back to that place as a couple so all that to say if you can keep hope in mind that one day we will have mutually satisfying sex together as part of a healthy relationship but right now that's a pathway that's gonna take some time that's okay just keep taking whatever the next step is and I keep hearing the book the Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Regragoire come up in all the comments like oh Sheila addresses that in the book oh Sheila addresses that in the book oh Sheila addresses that so especially for betrayed spouses if you haven't read that book pick it up and then you know tell your spouse say if you love me and want us to have a healthy sex life I think you should read this book because I really believe it is it is paradigm shifting yeah and it would be really good for your marriage if if you haven't read that yet yeah that's a good one so the conversation it's funny to have conversations we have podcasts we do with you tend to be on the shorter end that's just I mean like we get through it and it's great it's efficient this episode felt like we're all pretty passionate about this and have perspectives to share and so if you aren't picking up on that this is an important piece to being healthy sexually and also having a healthy sex life in your marriage and really just the bottom line having a healthy relationship with your spouse or your future spouse so I just I know this conversation is gonna be helpful for a lot of people so have thanks for your expertise we know that you're the neuroscience nerd and we like having you with us so thanks for being here thank you this was a great conversation and wherever you're at on your journey Pyrrh desire is here to help you take back your life from a one-in-sexual behavior in betrayal trauma if you or someone you know needs recovery and healing go to Pyrrh desire dot org and begin the journey today if you like this episode or a fan of the podcast please share it with others and make sure to check out the full episode up on YouTube as well and lastly never stop being healthy