Abused, Abuser, Addicted, Adopted

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken play and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ all right everybody welcome back to another great episode I I am so excited about the podcast interviewer I have today Joe mik all right some things you got to know before we jump into this conversation Joe has had a deep past we're going to go through a lot of it about overcoming shame rediscovering his god-given identity and he is the founder of the freedom group and Joe's story is GNA be extremely moving he's going to talk about addiction abuse just a lot of the things that he went through and how God has redeemed him so I'm super excited to for all of you to know him so Joe welcome to the podcast man you have an amazing testimony of how God redeemed your life man and we're going to go into that but before we go too deep and too heavy man just tell people something fun about you that they should know if they were just starting to get to know you yeah something fun about me uh I've been a DJ since I was uh a seventh grader I was homeschooled up until High School most people when they meet me that's the first thing they think is weird awkward homeschool kid uh so I was homeschooled up until high school so we used to drive to this co-op with me and a buddy we had two dreams one was to be DJs and the other was to start a garage band so I would say that in my life the DJ Pursuit has worked out a lot better than the garage band we didn't get we didn't get much farther than uh our garage uh with the garage band we started but we started both um it was the first the DJ stuff was the first LLC I ever started I started it when I was in eighth grade because we started making money DJing weddings uh for some of our relatives and then some of their friends started requesting us because we were cheap uh and I started building that business all the way to the point I think I peaked probably around my junior year was actually amazing part of really rediscovering how much God loves me as his son and sees my heart which is too long for the question that you're asking uh that side of the story but I had the opportunity to DJ for Red Bull Crashed Ice so like middle of January 20 degrees outside uh 7th Street down in St Paul 15,000 people in a tricked out fire truck uh that Red Bull had built and it was the in Inspiration later in my life I built my own mobile DJ booth that I still own and operate just for fun now so so that's yeah I guess that's the most fun side of me and I always get the itch like once a quarter like I got to go I got to go play some music somewhere and God's given me opportunities to keep doing it that's awesome so how did you know typically you don't think homeschooler and DJ so like how did that happen that you like just got hooked into DJ honestly because of how lame the stuff I would go to was if I'm being completely honest like my distinct memories or thoughts about getting into it was like this can't be this lame like we can't have this little fun as Christians when the people out there look like they're having so much fun we got to be able to raise the bar so that's honestly like as a seventh eighth grader I was just like energetic boisterous like trying to find my own way in life like loved being outgoing and creating experiences for people and frankly being the center of attention I didn't mind that so much and so was I saw we had this I don't I don't want defame him but his name was DJ Bill he was just not really good at doing anything much than what you would imagine from a classic home school dance if you picture it that's what it was it was like corny line dances punching the air to an insync song my experience was like we got to be able to do better than this oh I I love hip-hop rap EDM energetic music and really when I walked away from the Lord which we'll get into a little bit like that music and the darker side of that music really had a place in my life and so as I rediscovered my faith uh I wanted to find redeeming music talking to producers and other people that were making the stuff and then my favorite kind of music is taking stuff that's out there that has been remixed into not just a clean version in the sense that they don't curse or there's no references in it but really like amazing music that has a Twist that people hear something they're familiar with one of my favorite remixes Christian remixes is another in the fire and I think it's Billy Dean I think his name is but he has this amazing EDM remix to that song that's just like that song has so much meaning for my wife and I especially the season that we're walking through right now and I I turn that on and I just get like it's inspirational and I get amped up all at once so anyway that's that's sort of the short story uh the funny reason why I think I got into it because we we got to be able to do it yeah can't be that lame Christians can't be that lame that's what that's what it was so my brother he was a DJ for for a while and he's about eight years older than me so when you said his name was the DJ for for your dances was DJ Bill I'm like yeah that's not gonna work because I just remember DJs always had their own nicknames and they like they came up with stuff so DJ bill was not a heck of a moniker yeah awesome okay Joe I think you and I could talk about uh music all day long you're gonna have to send me the the song because I'm now so curious to listen to the bil abely there's a couple other other guys that I know that on Instagram that I follow that do remixes and they do a really great job I'm sure you probably follow them because that's your world but when I find them I'll send them to you uh okay that let's get into today's topic because we could talk about DJing and music probably for hours uh that's a fun passion of mine what we're gonna talk about is your story yep right and uh when you and I first met we shared stories and it was very similar to in a lot of ways but walk a through your journey at the beginning your childhood what happened and what did God start to or not God but the enemy really started to affect your life yeah so I grew up in a pretty typical Midwestern family just north of the Twin Cities here grew up in a you know faithful Church community but so much of my experience when I was young was colored by the fact that I was introduced to sexuality very early in my life seven eight years old there was another person relatively close in age to me but older than me so somebody I saw as big brother if you will that started doing what a psychologist would say is child sexual experimentation but I experienced frankly as abuse like being introduced to things I wasn't comfortable with that made me feel dirty that made me feel shameful and I had no Outlet to talk to anybody about that stuff or didn't feel like I did my parents weren't super emotionally expressive it's one of the three Hallmarks that they talk a lot about in people who struggle with sexual addiction is emotionally distant parents and that's a reality of the world that I grew up in and not feeling like I had that outlet or older people to go and confide in and I found right around that same time U my older brother and my uncle built a computer that we had outside of our room and threw lime wire on that computer I thought I was downloading MP3 files for some of that rap music I talked about earlier that my brother was introducing me to and one of them was pornography and from that moment I got that same rush in that same thrill and that same experience of dirtiness shame hide don't tell anyone that I had through some of these early sexual experiences with this older guy and so through all of that I mean porn became my everything right it was the only thing that I needed to cope with in life I hated it but I loved it at the same time and I mean so early in my developmental life seven eight nine years old it became deeply rooted as the place that I went for emotional Escape so I'd seek it out as frequently as I could I mean I wasn't good at hiding so you know get caught and then you know what am I you know what oh no that wasn't me I didn't do I didn't do that that was somebody else you don't forget to delete the files on the computer or something was still pulled up or whatever and I'd always I'd always be able to escape somehow and so it never really got like truly pinned on me all the way throughout my life and so that really created a foundation for that colored all of my experience colored a lot of the I think what early on I was experiencing this dislike or distaste for myself feeling dirty feeling that sense of worthlessness feeling deep shame like something was wrong with me which is not uncommon for somebody who's been abused or who has had that happen to them and in addition to that shortly after I mean it was a few years probably five six years after that time I started to act out with others particularly one sibling that was younger than me that really became the thing I was most deeply shameful for right I I mean again a psychologist would call this child sexual experimentation there was a level of Innocence to it that I was below to some degree the Age of Reason or whatever that I was just acting out what had been done to me but I realized that I was perpetrating the same thing especially later on in life the same kind of uh I don't want to say Force because it wasn't forceful but the same kind of pressure to be able to engage that activity with somebody who was innocent and so I bury that stuff deep within me you know as one thing to have experienced pornography that I didn't feel like I had permission to talk to others to have had these experiences with other people or particularly this other guy outside of me and not be able to talk to anybody but this was the stuff that that I was deeply wrong for even if it is again some level of innocence in the activity itself that adults would understand if I had gone to a therapist that they could have helped me work through the way of all of that but I didn't have any of that and so I buried that stuff to the point where honestly until young adulthood I had forgotten most of it because of how deeply I buried some of those core memories yeah well first Joe for those who are listening that is some deep stuff and thank you for for sharing that right cuz you just communicated and correct me if I'm wrong you went from abuse so someone sinned against you and they took your innocence and then you got addicted to pornography and then you started to abusing others right and again you were still trying to figure out what's going on and you were just doing what you learn from others you're like this must be it's crazy and you tell me if I'm right or wrong here like you're like in some ways this is all you kind of knew but deep down inside your conscious was telling you this is wrong yeah is that kind of how you were feeling yeah certainly with all of it to be honest it was just I mean I think at that age most of my experience was confusion and disassociation if I'm being totally honest is I don't think I put a lot of it together I don't think I could have articulated it 10% of what I just articulated to you of what was going on what was happening to me cuz I didn't even really understand what I was doing or what was it felt so out of control it felt so not me and and and both sides both when it was being done to me when I was participating in something like pornography or when I was pressuring somebody else to do something or trying to elicit that experience from somebody else that it just was all like I was propelled into it and searching and trying to find that high or that same pleasure that same fulfillment again really it did what experienced for so many years after is it just colored all of my life as gray and agitated and emotionally unwell unless I was getting that Peak experience so I would answer your question by just simply saying that most of my experience is frankly just simply confusion and disassociation and I and I also want to add like I shared that and my heart is to share that for two reasons is because one you know a counselor in college when I started to finally get help told me that somewhere around 55 to 60% of young people in America today will experience childhood sexual experimentation so I know I'm not alone and people have so much shame I mean I met I've met hundreds of people doing this work for even just a a few years I mean it's been over 10 years now but yeah I want people to know that they're not alone in that because I think many people say oh yeah I struggle with porn it's easier and easier to say I think that's good and healthy and that we're lowering the barrier on shame to be able to admit that now I think there's a lot of guys that still have a lot of resistance around that but going to those deep places like I just wanted I also say it for the reason that I I want uh I want to be understood first and foremost and it's part of a therapy process for myself to be able to put it out there and say this is me this is what I've walked through this is who I am and the Redemption that God has worked in my life has been so fulfilling as a result of being able to experience that kind of hell as a Young Man early in my life and for people to know that they're not alone in that in that experience of feeling not just like someone abused me which again I think the me too movement or other things have made it easier to like I have been perpetrated against yeah but to acknowledge the shame which again nobody was telling me I should bury that stuff and forget those memories I just did it which to your point I just buried that stuff in me because I had such deep shame that I had to completely disassociate from its existence versus just came up like oh that memory flashed across my mind I feel bad about that let me go medicate it's like that stuff I didn't even allow that stuff for a very long time to come up I just want people to know that you're not alone in that I see you I I know what it feels like and especially if you've not done the work to get beyond that like you can do it I mean certainly it started as a free gift from God in my life to be able to introduce me to the things that I needed to be able to help me work that stuff out but it's never too late it's never too late to start that process 100% man and I love how you were just talking about it because most people that I've talk to you they feel like they're completely alone and they're isolated and that's what shame does right it isolates you to think you're the only one who has this struggle and if you were to share this one they're going to reject you and two you're G to be like exiled and then three God is gonna hate you forever but the reality is it's the complete opposite right when you share this especially within a a gospel god- centered Community right you're going to see the love of God and you're going to see people kind of come to you be like thank you for sharing it and you're right man like when I think about the statistics I remember people would say like one in every three yeah women would be sexually abused and one in every four guys would be sexually Abus and I was like when you do the math I'm like that's like 50% I'm like that's like half of the room so I remember sharing my story and I would go I would get in a group of people you know it's 50 to 100 people and I would say something like one in every three and one in every four of you statistically and this was back in like 2010 right has been abused so I know I'm talking to at least half of you right now but none of you are gonna say it none of you are gonna raise your hand so I'm not even G to bother asking you right right I'm just gonna go with that assumption and time and time again man I would have people at the end when I'm done talking and sharing my testimony they would just come up to me just in tears because they're like you're the first person and especially a guy who vocalized their pain and their emotions and then the hope they saw the hope and the joy they're like how are you so joyful because they're like I do not have what you have and they've been going to church for years you know they've been a Believer for years and they're like I need help and it's beautiful to see that so Joe for you man how then well first let's talk about the depth of the shame right because you you talked about it you know especially when you think about the disassociation that you had all of a sudden you grow up and at what point does it just kick in and you realize oh my gosh look at all the things that have happened to me and look at all the things that I've done to others yeah again like I said Ken for so long I didn't I didn't stop long enough to think about it most of my life was geared towards keep numbing or keep moving yeah in order to not have it to face it and you know I I developed what was diagnosed softly diagnosed at one point uh by a psychologist as trauma induced add because I think I had spent so long I mean I think I had certain proclivities personality-wise to that yeah but there was so much energy in my life geared towards Escape Escape Escape move move move that that I just became wired like that and so I went for a very long time not facing it learning frankly how to not face it yeah that that with it in different area in different ways yeah yeah whether it be just being with people all the time my parents used to joke that the front door was revolving they stop they stopped locking the front door because buddies of mine would be knocking on the door like all day every day you know and stuff like just filling my life with stuff with people with buying stuff with eating and then with pornography and uh that really colored my experience all the way through high school and that how I was doing emotionally the weight of my life ebbed and flowed I mean it wasn't all dark I wouldn't say I was deeply depressed throughout all high school throughout all Middle School it was far more the roller coaster of high highs and low lows going in and out of those experiences and just keep moving just keep numbing being really how I went about my stuff so I didn't really acknowledge it at any point until I got to college when I went to college I remember making a conscious choice if I had lived a very two-faced life at high school I never really largely I think because of all of this stuff yeah and being homeschooled up until then I had no idea how to fit into social peer groups and so I went to high school and immediately even though I went to a private Christian High School that whole system became inaccessible to me so I spent four years I mean oftentimes going Tire days where I didn't say a word even though my personality is pretty outgoing pretty comfortable pretty able to make relationships and have conversations with people so that was excruciating and I just felt such a shell of myself at high school and could never I never learned how to break out of that and then I go to my youth group and then it was like once a week it was like let loose time and I was the class CL boisterous loud outgoing talking to everybody there making a fool of myself just trying to fill my bucket of all of the social engagement I wasn't getting when my nin to5 if you will uh in in high school and so those two experiences and I really chased godlessness in high school and was whoever anybody wanted me to be yeah and so I had I had sexual relationships with girls and was acting out and trying get into the party scene and trying to have fun and do whatever and there really was no moral code over here with with limits of being a good little Christian boy and then over here there was was be a good person do everything be really faithful be involved on the core team be the guy right and so when I got to college it was like I don't want any of that I just want to be me and so I threw myself into the party culture because I was a DJ I knew how to have energy and fun and experience life through that my brother was a senior in college at that point he had a house so I was the cool freshman kid who knew where to go to have a party and so I just threw myself into that lifestyle and by the grace of God I only lasted about eight months before I hit my personal Rock Bottom I gave my virginity away the one thing a good little Christian boy is supposed to hang on to and I woke up the next day and it was one of three times in my life that I feel like I've heard Audible Voice to me and he said is this the life that you want and it wasn't a voice of condemnation or shame or like what the hell's wrong with you how could you do this to me look at everything I've given you in your life and you threw it all away like you're the prodigal son like no he didn't pile on me in that way he says is this what you want because you can have it like you can go have it and I just knew in that moment it's like that's not what I want I want you but I don't know how to get you so I went to the church down the street and I got on my knees and cried out to a god I barely knew for a life I didn't know I could have and went out the next week and and did it all again and then I went back there like no God I'm actually serious like I really need help and it was the first time in my life that next month and a half that I started to meet men who weren't walking in crippling shame that were walked like they knew who they were that seemed comfortable in their own skin that were normal average likable attractive dudes that I wanted to be like but more than all of that they love Jesus and were following him with all of their life and I was like whatever you have I want that to answer your original question as I Circle the water of both the questions that you wanted me to go down is my experience up until that point was disassociation because of the deep shame and then having to face the Deep shame because this spiral life early in college was created was creating in me was so unsustainable to continue to exist that I eventually fell flat on my face sometimes literally like like just fa just fa with how broken and how numb I had become and really if I'm being totally honest that's when I started to actually begin to face the weight of shame to face how much I disliked myself you know one of the memories I have from freshman year of college is I go play basketball pick up basketball in the gym and I'd play really poorly or poorly for what I considered poor play and I'd go back to the room and I'd looked myself in the mirror I'd say I aine hate you wow I hate you and I'd say that out loud to myself because I'd be so angry with how I didn't perform in that moment that this thing would just come out of me and it was almost like surprised but like where did that like I don't think I do but it there's like this vital towards myself that was starting to emerge at that point in my life when I started to get independence and I started to use it to spiral out of control and what's crazy is that it wasn't the basketball that you were upset of your performance right it it was all the other stuff that's just trying to come out and just like it's the shame and the guilt and all of it just like this is who I really hate dude I remember having those moments too of just like who the heck am I I remember manipulating women I remember when I hit my rock bottom I was 16 I I I almost committed suicide and I was just like I hate this life and I hate myself for this and just wanting to be done and and I remember God just had to break me and it sounds like you started to have that breaking moment and it's funny because I dude I we didn't talk about this but like similarly I remember saying Lord I need you and then a month later or like a week later I'm falling back into the things and I'm going back and forth I'm like God I need you I didn't know how like I'm serious yeah yeah yeah like I'm serious no so I had to be yeah I had I had nothing I had nothing to offer I had nothing to give I was done performing I had nothing at that point and it was that's why I said earlier by he started to bring guys into my life who had started to do the work who could be like hey come over here and they didn't know any of that stuff actually a lot of the guys that started to minister with guys who have very similar stories and it was just by coincidence uh or God's act and bringing them into my life that allowed me to start experiencing you're not alone yeah we've been 100% we've done that too we know what that feels like which that felt like like I told you on our call earlier that felt like the 10,000lb gorilla coming off my back yeah so then what was the stuff that they started walking you through that you started to find healing and you're like oh my gosh I can see one hope and two transformation yeah so some of those earliest relationships introduced me to a book in a small group process called Dangerous men written by LOL seore who's here local in Minnesota but it's a ministry that's extended across the world but often on college campuses and it was a small group that the first chapter is about identity and the second week you share your story with what he calls lemonies sharing your story with sexual sin it's the first time I'd ever looked anybody else in the face and said any about about anything about that you know I think I remember having one time in high school I like asked two buddies of mine if if looking at porn and jerking off was a sin I think I asked him that and they were like yeah you should confess that and then and then I never i' never brought it up again that was the only time that I'd ever had a conversation in my life even though this was the predominant experience or lens that I looked at life through never had one conversation about it and that time I shared 60% of my story because everybody else seemed like they were sharing 100% of theirs so I shared what I could access at that point or what I was willing to get out and I walked out of that room feeling like the 10,000lb gorilla is off my back I was like holy cow that was amazing amazing and those dudes from that moment became Brothers they saw me they accepted me they were me in a lot of ways yeah and they didn't they weren't repulsed not that I thought they were going to be but I I didn't know what I had no context for what that would be like for me and so really it was like a kind of exposure therapy to have to face that racing heartbeat holy cow am I about to do this experience and then to get through it and like body brain Spirit like oh my gosh like that's what I needed and so from that moment there's there were six other weeks where we walk through different stuff about sexuality and the way that God sees our sexuality versus the way that it's been taught to us by the world and then goes into spiritual warfare and how to actually take authority back of your life and how to fight as a man and then you go on this steps to Freedom Retreat where you do basically a life inventory confession and I went through 80% of my life then and like felt way more free and for three months after that I was like completely off the sauce I was like I felt like a free man didn't think once about porn didn't even I maybe I'm ere exaggerating now because it's been so long but I honestly don't think I had one Temptation in that three months I just felt so free so locked in like new life this is amazing like this is what I've been after and then it came back into the picture and from then for forward for about another 13 years it was this one to 3 week cycle of trying to get free going back to it as this thing that I reflexively needed and I struggled with that for a long time until a couple years ago yeah you know it's fascinating that moment where you're were like I felt like I wasn't sinning for three months right where you're just like everything was great and I love how God does this right because sometimes we feel like our freedom is GNA be this 100% moment right where everything is gonna be gone but you're like 60 yeah but then you were like first 60% then 80% then after a couple years later now you're like okay I'm fully there now I've given everything I'm fully known I think that's just the process of Salvation and sanctification right of you slowly giving little by little and all of a sudden God's like hey I'm going to work with whatever you give me he's not condemning us he's like I'm proud of you I know this is as much as you can go right now but that's okay and then once you feel that freedom you're going to have the empowerment to keep sharing the other stuff so you went through this whole process talk to me about like you know fast forward now to today right you've been off the sauce for several years now right you are helping men what's kind of like your framework or what are the ways that you're helping men overcome just this de sin and the shame of lust and pornography yeah it's what I discovered that finally Set Me Free and it's at the core of it is the difference between craving and Temptation and the way that it manifests in the brain you can think about it like addiction versus like being tempted to look at a girl or something like I didn't realize that my brain had been hijacked and wired to need this stuff when I experienced tension discomfort pain in my life because I had done that my whole life and I think many men don't think they are I think they just feel like they're undisciplined or they're not trying hard enough or they're not praying hard enough or they haven't prayed the right prayer and that's how I felt for a very long time until I realized that this fight ORF flight center of my brain was the thing that was being activated and when your fight ORF flight center of your brain is being activated you react not act so I was no longer making a conscious decision or choice to use or to not use I was reacting to whatever would keep me safe and what felt like would keep me safe is using this thing to alleviate the tension that I was carrying and I had never learned and allowed my brain and body to learn how to work that stuff out so I learned about the Neuroscience of craving and I got super excited about it and I deployed a new process in my life that was relatively simple that required activating my appraisal cortex or my thinking brain through reframing learning to practice being present to slow down I use a lot of breath work techniques to be able to slow myself down and calm down when I'd start to get activated which was such a comment multiple times a day many times a day when I first started that that I didn't even realize and then I started to work with another guy calling him every single day like not being accountable of like have you fallen today but what are you carrying today because we know that porn isn't the problem porn is the solution to the problem it's the thing that I need to solve my problems my stuff for me when I go to it and it's not even primarily for most of us a matter of sexual arousal the fact is that sexual arousal has overtaken that more deep true experience and just allowed us to have a cheap alternative to go to to alleviate it without having to do the Deep interior work of how am I actually doing what am I carrying where am I carrying what does that feel like and then learning how to be able to work that stuff out of you and so really how I experienced it was a holistic approach Body Mind and Spirit taking all of who God created me to be into consideration and within three months that one to three week cycle that I had been trying to work myself out of for over 13 years I went from that one to three we cycle I fell once used porn once within that three-month period and then from that time forward that was a couple of novembers ago I think two two novembers or three novembers I'm losing track I think two novembers ago I haven't experienced a single craving to pornography since then and it was the most amazing edification for me of rewiring is actually possible what we've all heard about neuroplasticity and your brain's ability to rewire your brain can become unaddicted it takes work it takes conscious effort it takes intentionality but I don't have to manage an addiction for the rest of my life if you had told me that a month before I started to do the work I would have told you we were full of crap because I would have just been like you don't know me you don't know what I've watch you don't know my whole story but the reality is it's so true and that's what we do in the freedom group now that's what my heart burns for is to be able to introduce those guys to other men to that same experience of knowing what craving is being able to visualize it when it happens and then to deploy the couple tools that I just shared and many others so when they're living real life they can uncouple sexual arousal from the stuff that they're carrying confront the stuff and learn to welcome it rather than to fight or flee from it and then see pain as the path and discomfort as your teacher and as I've shared with you that was two years ago my son now has cancer for the past couple of months we've been dealing with getting him the treatment that he needs it's the toughest thing I've ever faced I tell people all the time if this had happened to me two years ago I would have been flattened I would have needed porn multiple times a day again because of how much pain this has been but because God by the grace of God my life has been reordered to actually not just see like because I think positively see pain is the path or discomfort as my teacher but to actually experience it pain good for me suffering an invitation trial tribulation as an invitation to be fashioned into the man God wants me to be rather than an aversion of something to be able to just figure out how to get more comfortable in life through food porn alcohol anger being the four things that we most times experience when we get this lyic activation that we go to for the alleviation we're after that I don't have to go to those things anymore and that's completely changed my life and so that's what the work that we do in the freedom group is trying to replicate that we lead small group cohorts of guys that are doing that work that are serious about it we're serious about it serious enough that I think we're the only people in the marketplace right now that put a guarantee behind what we do we say if we're going to get you free from the craving to porn in a year or less or we're work with you completely free until you are because we believe that the science supports that God tells us that we're supposed to be free for Freedom's sake and that science supports that that is a between three and 12 month process that your brain needs to actually rewire and again I think so many of us have heard hey you can rewire your brain and my mission in my heart is to show guys actually how to do it yeah 100% man because the reality is most people don't see it right and then for some people who are listening to this they're like can you really rewire your brain well Romans 12 talks about this like it says therefore offer yourself as is Living Sacrifice with the renewing of your mind right like that renewing of your mind I love when when the science you know matches with the Bible like we know for a long time yeah we've known for a long time and it's just like oh we can do this and I love how you were just talking about that like we can it's possible let's make the effort and for those who are listening I and I know Joe I I know you well enough that you're not saying hey we're going to do this on our own like it's our own effort it's God working through us it's the grace of God empowering us and one of the things that I always used to do is when I did my breath work and just slow my life down I would just say Lord how are you redeeming this moment like in this season of life right now what are you trying to do what's going on why am I acting like like because sometimes I I can't see my blind spots but I love how Psalms 364 says in the light you shall see light like when you are in presence he's just going to reveal things and I would just be like God reveal to me why why am I craving this thing so much and even today right fast forward I've been free for for 15 plus years now but whenever there's like that lustful desires or like the sinful flesh kind of starts to kick in I ask myself like God what's going on and I'm like oh I really just feel lonely or I'm really stressed so my fantasy life or these things that I want to attach to I could just say God I don't need that I need you and I come to you and I separate and I'm like oh thank you God you know and I move forward but Joe you know as we wrap up here what's one quick in like 30 seconds if there was a encouragement you could give to men who are like I hear you Joe I know I need help I want to but I just don't know where to start what's a good first step that they could do in a few seconds my number one advice because it's over and over again the guys that we're coaching say is the most practical and transformative habit that they've deployed in their life by running our process is to start working with another guy every single day you call each other every single day 5 10 minutes a day and all you're trying to answer is where am I experiencing discomfort today you're not talking about sexuality you're not talking about have I Fallen have I not Fallen you're not trying to give each other a therapy session You're simply trying to answer the question where have I been uncomfortable today and that exercise of self-awareness will expose the stuff in you faster than you can imagine and create connection with yourself that you didn't know was possible and is going to like you said I think breath is one of the best ways to develop a deep prayer life this isn't detached from God this is tapping into the way that God wired us the way that he made us to use the tools that he's given us our body our brain our spirit to be able to bring ourselves back to him to experience Restoration in him because he first loved us and so that's where I would start and that's where I tell any guy who's saying either the coaching process isn't right for me or just what you just said what's the one thing you would tell me to do three months at least persist every single day five to 10 minutes a day talk to somebody a lot of times guys in our process do voice memos back and forth you know don't even need an immediate sounding board I just need to get my stuff out verbally in front of me and then notice where I'm carrying it feels like tension in my chest like a bowling ball in my stomach like weight on my shoulder it feels like I had this massive hard neck a couple days ago that was like a nine out of 10 painful and I did five minutes of breathing and then recall just processed real briefly what it was like to hold that and it was to one three years ago would have been all I needed to be able to need to release sexually but it took me three minutes four minutes to be able to do the work to be able to get it out of me in a way that was actually deeply healing restorative for me and took me back to levelheaded Ground Zero not Fireflight just deep rest and digest state of being so do it because it might just change your life I I'm assuming when you tell them hey do the audio note or whenever it's in the moment where you're probably are they doing it when they're most stressed out or it could be any time of the day doesn't matter any time of the day I would do it at 400 p.m.

most days I would either do it at the beginning of my day like talking about yesterday or I'd do it at 4 4 p.m. on my drive home from work and it was just trying to process or articulate real briefly like what did I experience today and that's where I started maybe most guys that are listening is like I already know what I go through on a daily basis I feel it very well I don't think that's true because I don't think that's true of the vast majority of men but me articulating it was the first time often times I noticed that it existed I noticed that it was there so it was bringing into my awareness of what I actually was and that's what I meant by earlier saying it'll draw such deep self-awareness in you for me that's what it did and I've seen so many other guys in our coaching program benefit from that because they start to see themselves clearly in a way that they never knew existed even though and they're like oh my gosh i' actually felt this way for 10 years I've always felt this way but I never I never even noticed it which is a crazy dichotomy that you could always be experiencing something and never be aware of it but this process is the tool NE NE to be able to actually grow in Practical self- awareness sweet man I love it Joe for those who are like I I want to know more about what you do I want to follow you a little bit more and just gain more trust and maybe even work with you what's the best way to get a hold of you yeah you can go to our social media the freedom group uh pretty much anywhere or Freedom Coach unor Joe on most platforms I guess Instagram and Facebook are the ones I use most frequently and then the freedom group.co CEO is our website you can find our intensive that's coming up in March that we're doing to capture all of this stuff in a real succinct deep way over the course of five days in Estus Park Colorado we got a couple of uh Adventure Wilderness excursions next year we're only going to be taking four five guys out on with another coach that works with our team um and then there's a link on the website to schedule the discovery call with me free 30 minute Discovery session I'd love to get to know you and your story it sends you straight to my calendar or you can Pi a time that works for you to chat I'd love to chat with you I love it Joe thank you so much for sharing your story and using your story to bring Redemption for others and that God would be glorified man I love it so thank you thank you thank you again for those of you who are like oh I didn't get all those uh website links don't worry it's going to be in the show notes so go check out Joe again thank you Joe so much and uh for those of you who keep listening I say this every single time but remember you're not alone and as men okay the purpose of this podcast is to help you kill shame stand strong and be on Mission until next time hope you guys have a great day and God bless thanks for joining us today if you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has for you