BraveMen S4E139: Cameron Staley-A New Way to Look at Porn

In the book of James, it says that we all face temptation. It also says, don't say it came from God. So temptation comes from our own desire. It says James, chapter 1, verse 14. James, chapter 1, verse 5, also says, if a man needs wisdom, let him ask of the Lord who will give it to him without reproach, that means you don't have to qualify for it. You simply ask the Lord. And the same is true in dealing with temptation. Every single one of us is tempted. Every man faces temptation. Jesus faced temptation, right? So what do we do with it? And what do we do with a temptation to porn? The guest today, our friend, Dr. Cameron Staley. And I love the title because it's sort of, if you will, a double way of looking at it, he says, a new way to look at porn. So I thought, well, that's a funny title, but it's a TEDx talk that he gave. And I was so taken by it when I saw a DM them, got a hold of them. And I got a hold of some of his materials. And I thought, man, this guy has got it nailed. And so this is a great conversation, on dealing with temptation and the temptation of unwanted sexual temptation. He's got a great phrase. He talks about it as unwanted sexual or unwanted porn viewing, unwanted porn viewership. So he says it. And so Dr. Staley, the beauty of this is in dealing with porn and the things that tempt us as men is when you approach her from a legal or a lost standpoint or a man, I'm just, I'm just going to crush this thing. What happens is you find out how weak you are. When you approach her from a grace place, you find out how strong he is. And that's the difference. And the beauty of it in approaching her from a grace place, as Dr. Staley does, is that he, there's no condemnation. He just, this is a great conversation. You know, I was going to love this. Did this a couple days ago? Now we finally got it onto the podcast for discipleship, discipleship, disciples, men, for everything you need in your church, parish, wherever you may be, anywhere in the world to go to cmn.men, that's Christian men's network, Christian men's network.com or cmn.men get to the same place. We have tools and materials now in over 50 languages because of the dangerous nations outreach and the generosity of so many friends who have given into that. And so moving into countries with never been in before and helping, undergird and helping encourage and equip the underground church around the world. Hey, let's get right into this. I want to thank you for being in brave men today. You made a good choice and make sure you tell somebody else about this particular podcast. There's a place on there to click like, to click follow so you don't miss anything. The one with, that we just had with Rod Jones, the ones we've had with Chad Hinnings, Benjamin Watson right on down the list. Absolutely fantastic teaching ministry encouragement inspiration and you're going to love it. Hey, listen to this right now. Dr Cameron Staley on brave men. It's brave men with Paul Lewis Cole wisdom encourage for the journey. I'm talking with Cameron Staley and Cameron Staley is a clinical psychologist who has become an avid proponent of getting men healed and everybody. But for us with brave men, it's about it's about reaching men helping men get mentored. And you said something in you did a Ted talk called changing the narrative around the addiction story. And you said something you said it may not be addictive talking about another phrase I'm going to get into this unwanted porn viewing. So it may not be addictive, but it is contagious and it is an epidemic. And what are you finding right now in terms of mental health, particularly where we live in the United States, which is indicative of really men around the world, where do you find a mental health and men in pornography and how to all kind of dovetails in your work? Yeah, I think we're at this interesting place in the states where there's a lot more awareness around mental health and stigma for help seeking is going down. So there's a lot more conversation, which I think is really good and promising. But I would say the sophistication around those conversations is still pretty low. So we're understanding about how mental health works and what treatments are effective is still pretty early in our national conversation. And I think we're missing something. So when it comes to like sexuality, we're pretty far behind in sexual health, just like we are with mental health. And often what I've seen is people often and definitely men rarely get sexual education, they start to struggle with a sexual problem. So we don't deal with it until they're actually getting drunk. Yeah, and that's kind of our medical models. We're not going to intervene and tell there's a problem. We're not going to do preventative care. We're not going to do education. We're not going to worry about stress management. Well, wait till there's an anxiety disorder or diabetes or a heart issue. And it's the same thing as sexual health. It's often men's first meaningful conversations about sexuality are after they've been struggling with pornography for a really long time. And that's unfortunate that that's often the pathway to learn about sexuality and develop better values and behaviors after we have a problem. Yeah, well, I'll tell you that for me, the issue with pornography in a lot of ways isn't just this image. And I want to get into this shame and guilt and all these things. But for me, one of the biggest issues is if a guy is going to marry my daughter and his whole viewpoint of sexuality and how you treat a woman is something he learned from, you know, and I guess in one sense, you should say a lot of things are pornographic. It's like that old thing about I don't know how to describe it, but I know it when I see it. You know, but if that's how he learned it from those things, I'm concerned about how he's going to treat my daughter, right? I mean, isn't that kind of like the baseline of where we're living in our culture today? And I think that's an important point that pornography is not sexual education. It does not model intimacy, consent, conversations, bodies, none of that. So that should not be the source of education around sexual behavior and relationships. But for not having those chats with our children or having those conversations like in this podcast, at a larger level, unfortunately, a lot of people believe that what I'm viewing in these films is an accurate representation of sexuality and relationships. And it is not. That is not the intention behind that. Well, you know, we know that these things like pornography and particularly now that it's online. It's not that there hasn't been, I think you can go back to the cave drawings. And you can see pornographic images. Yeah. Go back to the statues of Greece. Go back to the drawings in China. Right? And I mean, 4,000, 5,000 years ago. So we're dealing with some of the same stuff in that sense because it's built into a man kind. But it feels like it's just gotten so pervasive, you know, with the amplification of online. And when you deal with that, and I want to use another phrase, and I want to mention Dr. Cameron Staley, and you do a Ted talk and a Ted talk is Ted X talk. So I guess you could probably go on Ted or something like that. I just found out I put in your name and, you know, a search bar, Dr. Cameron Staley, S-T-A-L-E-Y, and up came that Ted talk. And it is, it's really powerful. It's obviously very well rehearsed. You know, up there without, right? Oh, that was like the scariest thing I've ever done. I can't have a script. You got to memorize it. It's going to be on Ted forever. I sweat through a couple of shirts before I gave that Ted talk. You know, your wife probably just laid hands on you and prayed over you. It was like, that would have been nice. You're going to go, you did that one thing where you go, put your hand in your heart and, and you know, and I want to get into what the definition of mindfulness is. But come to, come to where you are right now. What are you feeling? And so the first time you did it, you go, okay, what are you feeling right now? Because you just done a little introduction. And you said, well, I'll tell you what I'm feeling. I'm nervous. Great. It's a great line. Is pornography addictive? And I think that is the question we've been trying to answer for decades. Yeah. And I think it's actually not the most important question. Okay, good. So there's been a review, probably published in the last year, that looked at the last 25 years of research on sex addiction, porn addiction. And there's probably been three, four hundred studies in the last 25 years. And most of them have been trying to answer that question. Is pornography an addiction? Is there sex addiction? And you see a handful of studies and say, yeah, here's evidence for. And a bunch of studies say, no, here's evidence against. But then when you look at how many studies have examined what treatments are effective for reducing pornography or sexual addiction in general, there was less than 10. Wow. In 25 years. Wow. And so when you think about the most common language you use around porn is, oh, it's an addiction. And there's a lot of addiction-based treatments out there. There's a total of zero research studies investigating that approach being an effective treatment for reducing horn. Wow. That is shocking to me. That's like the studies that came out a number of years ago, there's an educational book. I forget the title of it right now, but and they went through all the different things of helping young men. And one of the things they said that they found it absolutely didn't work was the scared, straight programs. Yeah. And in fact, what they said was the bringing the ex-cons in and talking, don't don't end up in jail and don't it. There were such compelling men that the young men said, dude, I want to be like that. Oh, no. It's like a reverse thing. So if we're not dealing with it in one sense as an addiction, we still have to deal with it as a sexual health issue. Yes. And how do you do that effectively? Yeah, that's the good news is we're not waiting for, oh, what treatments are helpful for reducing this unwanted behavior? And we already have kind of answered that question. It's just not that well known. So of those handful of studies that looked at what treatments are actually helpful, when you look at ones that were just focused on pornography, there were only three studies. And they were all based on the same treatment. And that's called acceptance and commitment therapy. And that's been around for over 40 years. There's over 800 randomized clinical trials on act. And they found that for people that have been struggling with pornography for years and decades on average, after just 12 sessions of act, they were able to reduce their viewing by over 90%. Wow. And that's incredible. We're not waiting to figure out how do we help people. We kind of have that answer. The bigger challenges, we're still kind of lost in that, is this an addiction or not? And the good news is it's kind of irrelevant if pornography is an addiction or not, because we already have a treatment that's effective, regardless of is it addicting or not? And so for me, I do want to shift more into let's start to implement the principles and skills that are going to help kind of address the underlying reasons why people do struggle with pornography. Yeah, because for me, again, as I mentioned the issue with pornography, I wouldn't want the guy who's who's fully engaged in it, marrying my daughter. But the other thing is for men that I've talked to over the years, personal experience, it causes us to make decisions based on the belief of who we are, out of whatever that may be, shame, guilt, isolation, now we feel unqualified. So in essence, we end up not mentoring our sons or daughters, you know, as children, we end up, because we're like, dude, I'm unqualified because I've got this issue. So now they may not end up with the same issue, but they're being unmentored. Yeah. And then the other thing I see is guys just don't make good decisions. It's like a, you know, this thing we have now with COVID COVID fog, we're being on this long-term kind of issue with trying to make clear rational thinking. I find men, you know, they get isolated, right? They're thinking changes, right? And so that seems to be, to me, in one sense, and we know why pornography is there, because people make money. Yeah. I mean, let's just call what it is. That industry just choose people up, right? I mean, it's not a victimless crime. So what is ACT? So ACT is really addressing the underlying reasons why somebody might be struggling with a compulsive behavior. And it's even broader than that. So we pretty much over the years determined what underlies all mental health struggles, which is amazing that there's something that unifies this. And it's the same thing that underlies depression, anxiety, PTSD, eating disorders, you name it. And it's something we call experiential avoidance. So humans are so good at avoiding things they don't want in the environment, in the outside world. You can avoid, you know, walking along a cliff or people that you don't like, we can avoid all those things. And now humans start to avoid things internally. And that's experiential avoidance. We can start to try to avoid uncomfortable thoughts or emotions or sexual urges or discomfort. And humans are really practiced at trying to get away from discomfort all of the time. And we do a lot of things to accomplish that. We might eat food. That's my favorite go to that snack, even when I'm not hungry. Because I'm stressed. I'm overwhelmed. I go to the pantry and shut the door because I feel bad about it. But I'm going to be snacking on my Oreos. Or people go online and they they game or they scroll through social media or they shop or they drink or they use substances or they look at sexual images. All of those strategies are fairly interchangeable. And they're all in the service of disconnecting from ourselves and our relationships and our emotions in the world around us. And that's what you mentioned, Paul, that you've seen these men become disconnected and isolated. And that's problematic. And it's always because we're trying to move away from discomfort and viewing sexual images is just another way that we can do that. Wow. Okay. So now what that does is that begins to frame it for me so that I can actually deal with it, right? That's it. It's the frame. And so we've been talking about porn struggles as an addiction for a long time. That doesn't actually give us a meaningful path to move forward. But if we frame this is, oh, this is just an unhelpful coping strategy to manage distress. Oh, I get that. It's not that I'm a terrible person or choosing to rebel against God or I have this addiction. I don't want people to embody that identity. I want people to retain their identity as children of God or disciples of Christ or a husband or a parent, things that are value based. Like you mentioned, when we start to see ourselves as an addict, we start to behave in ways that are consistent with that identity. Wow. I don't want people to take that on. I want us to retain our true identity as children of a loving God. That, you know, you said something in that TED Talk. You said the belief of being an addict actually drives up the amount of view. Yeah. That was a stunning comment to me. It's like, because one of the things we do is, like you mentioned in that TED Talk, you talked about somebody preaching and saying, Hey, you're doing this, you're wrong. And this was lustful. And this is this. And you start feeling like, Oh, well crap, I'm an addict. Yep. And then you begin to feel like, well, I don't know what to do about it. And then it drives this shame syndrome, if you will. Yep. You know, just a quick definition on that. And I want you to help correct this. But my simple definition of guilt and shame is that guilt is is knowing you did something wrong. The reality of facing reality, I did something wrong. The shame part is I am the thing that's wrong. Yes. Right. I am the problem. Guilt, I have a problem. Shame. I am the problem. Yep. And for me, this experiential avoidance, dealing with stress, loneliness, different things. And we go to something like pornography. And we begin to not just feel guilt about doing it. We begin to feel shame. Yeah. And shame is a killer. Yes. Disturbing what's that? Yeah. Yeah. You know that. So guilt is when I made a mistake. Guilt is motivating to change a behavior where shame is I am the mistake. And shame is really a powerful universal emotion that is trying to protect us. And it says, wow. Let's withdraw from the world. Let's disconnect from people. You cannot be seen. Put your head down with draw disconnect. And I think about that is so different from the Savior's message of hope and redemption. And every time I visualize my Savior, his arms are stretched out. And he's like Cameron, get up, buddy. Like dust it off. Let's go. Let's learn about this. Let's move forward. And shame is the opposite where, oh, you know, Christ's love for me doesn't apply anymore. Yeah. And he doesn't want me anymore. And maybe I should just keep withdrawing. And so really shame is trying to protect us, but it is demotivating. Yeah. But it shows up when the only narrative we have around sexuality is it's sinful, it's bad, it's dangerous. And if we can't fight against the threat or run away from it, our only option is to collapse and kind of play possum. That's our last defense strategy. And we kind of implode where it's like, I can't actually fight against my sexuality or run away from it. It's just is there. And so when we start to see this and recognize that on that addiction label is actually scaring me and trying to make me fight against myself and sexuality is divine. That's not the problem. Fighting against it is quite problematic. When we let go of that struggle, people can overcome pornography within weeks. It doesn't have to be a year long lifelong battle. It's the frame we put it in that keeps us stuck. Wow. Man, that is so good. John 1010 says, a thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus said, but I've come to give you life and life more abundant. And for me, sometimes we look at that, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, talking about the enemy. And sometimes we look at it as a black and white issue, like it's a war battle with the swords and one guy's going to get killed. I look at more as it has distraction. Yeah. The little distraction, the little thing that kind of pulls you a half a bubble off can just sort of nullify everything you were really trying to do. Yeah. Because distraction breeds disqualification. If anybody was going to be disqualified, it would have been this guy in the Bible called Jonah. Right? I mean, Jonah had this relationship with God where they actually talked each other. Yeah. And God said, I think it'd be a great idea to go to Nineveh and talk to those people. It's a real city. Actually, really was there 150 years, the most wealthiest city in the face of the earth. And Jonah and God says to Jonah, you need to go there. It's like 150,000 pirates that live there, like right to bad guys, bandits and pirates. And Jonah says to God, yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. Like, I mean, think about it. Think about if you were God, do you, excuse me, hello, I'm God and you're out. If anybody would be disqualified, it'd be Jonah. And yet, when Jonah runs from God and becomes suicidal and jumps off a ship in the middle of a storm, God has already sent a fish to swallow him to save his life. Right? So that's the grace of God. So for every one of us that feels like in that sense, a suicidal motivation of man, I'm done with it all. I'm out of everything. I'm disqualified from being a husband. I'm just I'm bailing. God has sent a place of restoration. And that's who you are. Like, you're the whale. No, I know it's the grace of God, but you know what I'm saying? I love that guy's like you to bring us to this place of healing. How do I start into that? Yeah. I love that. And that's so well said. And I think what has kind of captured my heart around this struggle is I typically work with Christian individuals that are struggling with pornography. And initially, I thought, well, that seems strange. Like usually Christian people are taught that, you know, you should keep sexuality within the bounds of marriage. Why would people be looking at porn? That didn't make a lot of sense. And then I started to realize that some of the traits that these individuals possessed were things like they were quite sensitive and quite caring and had a really strong desire to be obedient. They could quote scriptures left and right. They were very faithful, but it was kind of beyond that. And there's another term in psychology called script velocity where it is kind of a religious OCD where there's a really intense focus on right and wrong and morality. And some of these verses in the scriptures are pretty tortures for some individuals. Or it's like it's not only don't commit adulterer, but don't even look at somebody else to lust after them or it's not that don't kill your neighbor. Don't even have angry feelings towards them or you'll be condemned. And I can read those and be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Like focus on your heart and your intentions. But for other folks, those messages hit and are really painful where it's like, oh, I've had sexual thoughts. Or I've had angry feelings. Oh no, like I am no longer worthy for the kingdom or Christ sacrifice doesn't apply to me. And so I've seen that some of these messages impact some faithful folks differently. And so part of this is recognizing, you know, what is it that's driving this behavior? And so for all of us, we're all going to engage activities to avoid discomfort. That's true for all of us. Okay. Sure. But then we have some people that have really strong kind of rigid moral views about themselves where I can't have any unclean thoughts. And if I have any, that's distressing. And we've learned that the more we try to resist thoughts and feelings and urges, we actually amplifies them and makes them much stronger. So it's kind of like trying to hold the beach bottom of the water. The more we do that, the more it pushes back. And so that amplification gets so strong and the hopelessness in the spare is so strong. People turn to behaviors to cope with that distress. And often that is engaging in viewing pornography and masturbating to soothe yourself from the struggle. And the other thing I've seen is a lot of people, when they have these sexual urges, it brings this uncertainty where it's like, I don't know how God views me in this moment. Oh, yeah. Am I committing sin? It's kind of ambiguous. I'm not sure. That's uncomfortable. If I view porn and masturbate, I know I committed sin and I feel better. And it's like, whoa, there's like this intolerance for uncertainty. And so a lot of what I do is to try to help people see themselves and this pattern a little bit more clearly. And the reality is for most of the folks I work with, and it's mostly men, and I have work with women as well, is the reason why people are struggling with pornography and trying to overcome it is because it's coming from a really meaningful place that I want to live with my life with integrity. And I want to follow God's commandments to such a degree that it's distressing. And I can't tolerate that. So I'm returning to that coping strategy to feel better. Yeah, you know, that's, I was talking to the friend of my microsis about this. And I feel like, you know, it's something with some men last night that were over my house and we're talking a lot of general conversation. We got into some specifics about the next generation. And my concern was we're risk avoidance as a culture where everything has to be safe. Yeah. No, I was, I said, don't do that. I said, dude, you know, kids don't get broken arms anymore. Well, when I was a kid, everybody had a broken leg. Yeah. Like half the kids in my class would have a cast at one point or another. Yes, the men, right? Because we were out doing stuff. And now it's, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's safety thing. And I understand kind of what drives that. But, but my, my deal is we're in such a performative matrix as a culture that is a Christian, I've taken the word excellent because I want to live with excellence. And I've transposed it into perfection. Yes. And the center of transposition, if you will, is that I've taken that thing. And I've said, I want to be excellent. But what I'm thinking is I want to be perfect. Perfection is a flight is a thing of the flesh. It's a, it's a basis out of lust. And excellence is based in love. Yeah. And I think what you're talking about for me is I hear you and watch your stuff and look at your papers and you've written a number of papers talking with Cameron Staley, Dr. Cameron Staley, S T A L E Y. If you put that in, you'll find his TED Talk and some other things and it'll be instructive and helpful for you. But as I, as I hear these things, I hear this you know, you're qualified because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And I don't have to try. You know, when Paul said to Timothy, work out your salvation, it wasn't like grunting every moment. It was basically do the stuff you know to do. Do the stuff you know to do right. And when you mess up, the Bible says over and over and over my grace is sufficient. Yep. And when you fall down, you know, you get back up. Yep. Right. And now I demystified the porn thing, the pornography deal. And I, I totally get it. Man, I had a guy. I remember he was telling me he said, you know, for him, pornography was the only place he felt good about himself. Yes. Because he had, he had found out that his, his mom was a prostitute. He hadn't known that. He'd grown up with a single dad. And his dad had told him, you know, she left. Turned out that his dad was a client of the prostitute and wasn't even actually his dad. But he didn't know that until he was 17 years old. So now when he did, when he told me all that, I go, okay, well then I get it. I get why you would go there. But then the thing is it screwed up a bunch of his relationships. And you've mentioned a couple things about intimacy, consent, all these deals. Tell me about mindfulness. How does ACT and mindfulness go together, Dr. Staley? How do we, Cameron? How do we move towards this place of really accessing the grace of God? Yeah, let's do it. And that's the core part of ACT is mindfulness. I just want to say one thing on you, yeah, add one thing on what you said about the risk of, what do you mean is fix it? No, I want to add to it. You are right on. And so one thing I've helped people when they take this perspective that, yeah, instead of battling this addiction, really viewing pornography is playing it safe. When you're viewing pornography, it requires no risk. There's no vulnerability. There's no true connection. For me, it's about the equivalent of eating a candy bar. It's kind of empty calories. It might taste good and feel good. It's not sustaining. It didn't take any preparation. There's really no risk. And so a lot of people do view porn first sense of connection and to have a sexual experience. But there's absolutely no risk. And so when they say, well, I'm a porn addict, that's why I can't date, or that's why I can't mentor other people, or why I can't connect with others. They say, whoa, whoa, you're actually playing it safe by calling yourself an addict. I actually want you to take more risks in your life and start to interact with people and have true connections. And that does require vulnerability. But viewing porn and calling yourself an addict is playing it safe. Wow. Wow. That's that. Wow. That really puts in a different place. Tell me, so finish up comments on ACT and mindfulness. Yeah, so the mindfulness part. So what we found, one of the most common traits we see with folks that struggle with compulsive behaviors is they score low on levels of mindfulness. So they are less aware of their emotions than the general population. And this is really key. So emotions, if you break down the word, it just means to put in motion. That is the purpose of emotion. They organize us for action. And so if you're not even aware of what you're feeling, they're organizing you for action often in directions you don't want to go. Because your brain is always working. Always synapses and all this stuff connect me with a trillion sort of connections of day. Yep. Stuff's always moving. It's always going. And if we don't come to a reality about it, we just kind of float through life, which is where I think most of us are. That's it. We're on autopilot. And most men live up here. I do. I love my thoughts. I love thinking. I love ideas. I don't like feeling stuff. But the emotions is what's driving this. And so what we found is if we can help people increase awareness of their emotions, it's typically an emotion that procedures urge to view porn. And that's what's missed with all I got an addiction. It's the porn. It's like actually there's emotions there that we don't want to attend to. We don't want to fill the calling myself an addict. Actually, I'm just giving myself an out. Exactly. I'm not responsible for this. Yeah, I'm not responsible. No, my fault. And my job is to actually make people more response able to increase their responsibility that you don't choose your thoughts, emotions, or urges, but your behaviors are 100% in your control. And to facilitate that, we need to have awareness of our thoughts, emotions, and urges. And so when you notice an urge, that allows you to disobey it. When you do not notice an urge, it's calm shots. So I think about like technology and my phone. I have urges to check my phone a lot, where it's like, oh, I wonder if I have a message. Maybe I should check my email. And when I'm not paying attention, I pull my phone out of my pocket. I'm scrolling. That also knows. I'm dating with your wife. Yeah. Yeah. It's just reflexive. But I've noticed that I can notice an urge. Oh, I have an urge to look at my phone. Interesting. I can therefore choose to look at my phone or put it down if you become mindful about it. If you're aware of it. Yeah. That is the key. And that is what unlocks agency, which is one of our most precious God-given guests. Agency. Is our ability to choose. And when we believe we're an addict, we're basically relinquishing our agency. And I would say, no, no, no, we need to choose this. We need to choose to live a godly life and a Christ-like life. And to do that, it requires awareness of what's our body doing? What are our thoughts at? Where are our urges? And when we have that awareness, we can then make decisions that are consistent with our values. So good. What is, how does one of the things that Jesus did on a regular basis, it says he got away and prayed. Yeah. Which is fascinating to me. Why do we have to pray and who's praying to? You know what I mean? It's like, why couldn't you just take 30 seconds and go, Father, you think what I'm thinking? Yeah. Basically, he's both thinking the same thing. And yet he got away and prayed. What's the power in that? And why is that important for us in mindfulness? That's it. And I think it's about slowing down. And I think about one of my favorite god-like traits is omnipresence. It's being present. And as humans, we are so time-bound. We're so in a rush and there's so much urgency. And we got to fix things yesterday and have things figured out for tomorrow. But I think about God and eternity is not rushed. It is not bound by that. And when we can connect with that place, we get this perspective of what's really important. And we let go of these, we got to fix these problems agenda. And we can truly see people. And they've actually messed with this in experiments around like the Good Samaritan where they've set up scenarios where it does not a college campus, where people were hurt or needed help. But this person just got a notification that they were late for an exam. And when they were late for an exam, they walked by everybody. When they had plenty of time, they actually stopped and helped people. They saw that. It's not that we're just trying to remember. I did read that. I read that. It was fascinating to me. So it's that time piece that's really quite relevant. When we slow down, we can listen to the spirit. We can receive revelation. We can connect with that grace, that love of God. When we're that urgency, we miss all of that. So a lot of this is is tuning in to ourselves and God. And that is what helps give us some clarity and perspective on where we want to go. You know, too many of us wake up in the morning as men and we wake up urgent from the moment we wake up. Yep. And there is, I understand you can pray different times and you can pray while you're driving your car. I tell you guys all the time, it still counts. Yeah. But there's something about that early in the morning moment. I have a friend, a couple of friends who when they wake up, they lay in their bed for 15 minutes. And thank God for their breath. And they begin to rehearse the things, the lessons of God. Just a few minutes read, then they get up and then they go about the devotions. And you hear about that. I remember Coach McCoyney a number of years ago, he got up and meeting and he said to all the men that were present, he said, how many of you would like an extra 180 hours every year? It was like, dude, that's like a week pass. And he said, get up a half hour earlier every day. And they're all like, but dude, that's it. That's the practice. My pastor Phil Pringle gets up at 5 a.m. every morning, in a matter of where he is, anywhere in the world's been practicing an effort 42 years or something. And it has changed the way he constructed his life, how he decisions he makes, he talks about it. And he talks about having helped other people do that. There is something about that. I believe what Dr. Taylor, what prayer does is strips away the inconsequential. Yeah. And it takes those things that are meaningless that we get so distracted with. And if you'll actually stay there, my deal is I always have something to write with. I've got a pen in my hand right now writing down those things you're talking about. So when I begin to pray and something comes up, I write it down. And I get rid of it. And then I'll stay there. And my thing is if we'll stay there in a time of prayer. I have another friend who ended up being CEO of a massive multinational corporation. And what he did every morning, he would go into his office at 7 a.m. and he had doubled up secretaries. He had somebody there at 6 in the morning at a central desk and then they'd read there till 4 or whatever. And then he had another one that stayed later on that same desk stuff gone. But he would take every morning at 9 a.m. his door would shut. And from 9 to 9 45, his desk was clear and he had a piece of paper and he would think. And he was asked God for wisdom. So Lord, what is it that I need to know that I don't know? Right? What do I don't know? You know, and you just dial that down. And so the word of God, you know, getting in the Bible, that does the same thing. Would you agree with that? Are there studies on that? Absolutely. And I would just echo everything you shared. And that is mindfulness. And often we have these beliefs, well, I'm not going to sit and meditate or I'm not going to count my breasts. It doesn't have to be a formal practice. It can be that. It's opening up and connecting. And I think you're right. The most of the folks I work with at Strowwood Porn, they are so driven and they're going so fast and they're so busy. That's part of the issue. And so when we talk about, you know, I just this week, I just want you to kind of notice your emotions. And they say, I'm not going to do that. Give me some amazing thing to do. And I think about Naaman in the Old Testament with leprosy and he appeals to the prophet and the servant says, you know, go dip in the water seven times, you'll be clean. And he's like, nah, too simple. And the servant's like, well, if he tells you to do some amazing thing, you do it. Go dip in the water. And he was like, I just invite you to slow down, check in with yourself. Notice what you're feeling. And it's like, I'm not going to do this too simple because our mind wants a more complicated answer. It's got to be an addiction. It's got to be all these amazing things that I got to work on. And it may be as simple as you need to slow down and listen. And as we do that, we let go of some of these things that maybe are not as big a deal. And we do refocus on building this life that really matters. And that's act. It's letting go of these unnecessary struggles and focusing on your values of connection and spirituality and your relationships and your ministering and your education and your physical health. Yeah. Often, we neglect all those as we're trying to fix problems. And sometimes those problems will go away when we live a better life. That's the shift. That is so good. And part of that, I find, you know, working out doing things like that makes my mind clearer. Yes. And you live longer. There was a study just came out in the UK about people who walk and not to stroll. I'm talking about walk four times a week, like seriously walk for 30 minutes. And I think the study was something like they live on average 14 or 15 years longer. And like to that right there is a gift to your grandkids. Yep. Right. Just getting out of walking. And I don't care where you are in the world. At some level, you can do that. And maybe you have to go to a club and get out of treadmill. Whatever the case is, but get your body active so that you're thinking so that all of these chemicals, you know, they're flying around up and down from dopamine and oxytocin. And all these things are flying all through your body. So they're actually becoming healthy. And then read something healthy. You know, grab a, grab a book that I don't, you know, here's the deal. Too often we go, Hey, grab a book that helps change your mind. You know, like I got a stack of books in front of me for my doctor program reading red skies. And so man, I just challenging. But at the same time, I read a novel, you know, and that just kind of helped me dial down. Yeah. You know, Teddy Roosevelt read a book a week while he was president. Isn't that amazing? Those goofy little little glasses that he wore. But I only see, read a book a week every night before he went to sleep. He would sit for a half hour in that book. Just those little practices, right? That's it. You used a phrase. And I want to hit this unwanted porn viewing, unwanted pornography viewing. Do you find that? Yeah, I think there's lots of ways to talk about it. Some people talk about as problematic pornography viewing or people just viewing sexual images. What I've seen is the most of folks I work with, they're viewing pornography and they don't want to. And we don't need to necessarily put a pathological label on it that it's an addiction or it's a compulsion. For me, it's an unwanted behavior. Okay. And that takes kind of a power out of it or the judgment. Wow. It's like, oh my gosh, I got some disorder. It's like, no, this is an unwanted coping strategy. You know, how else could we respond to these emotions or how it's would you like to use your time? And as we take the power out of it, it doesn't have the same pull. Yeah, it's an unwanted behavior. Unwanted porn. Yeah, it could be, it's to me, it's sort of like it's another wanted porn thing that's happening. And then what I would add to it for me is, and the enemies try and take me out and distract me from my mission. Yes. Right. Yeah. For me, focus isn't about greater intensity. And for most of us as men, we think, okay, I'm going to focus. I'm going to focus. And it comes back to that prayer thing. Vision is forced in the discipline to extract yourself from the unnecessary. Yeah. A focus isn't about greater intensity. It's about greater intentionality. Yep. And man, there are so many things in our lives that we just need to cut out. We just like, you know, yeah, don't do that. And do something healthy. We do so many unhealthy things. So it's it's like we're all talking about, man, I don't have enough time. I don't have time. But I binge watched Netflix last Saturday. Dude, you don't have enough time, but you just watched 14 episodes. How long that takes? Yep. Right. And that's a healthier outlook to recognize. There's lots of activities we can gauge in. And if we view those as, but they are, that's my time. How would I like to spend my time? Right. Viewing those episodes doesn't mean you're addicted to to the office or your favorite show. It's a leisure activity. It doesn't make it bad or sinful necessarily. But it may not be the best use of your time. And it may not lead you closer to your relationships or to God. And so with that mindset, it kind of takes the power out of pornography. And it's like, you know, I couldn't eat that candy bar, but it kind of is a waste of time. And it's not helping me connect with a higher source or my partner or helping me me forward in my life. How else would I like to use my body and my abilities and my talents? You talked about it in your TED Talk. I'm talking with Dr. Cameron Staley, STALE-Y, and you can look up his name under, and then you did TED Talk. And I keep coming back that I know your clinical psychologists who've worked up there in Idaho for a decade. You've written a number of research publications with other people and all of this pushing emotional and sexual health and really helping us understand. So thank you for actually, this is writing a paper and you've got a number of papers. This is like friend of mine says, he says, it's like giving blood. It's hard work. It's effort. So thank you for taking the pain, Dr. Staley, for helping us to be more mindful of who we are for finding our design as men in God's great creation. And you said something. You said, let's move from addiction, isolation, and fear to hope, connection, and understanding. Thank you for that. That's fantastic. And is there is there something that I haven't asked you? I mean, you're the experts. There's something I haven't asked you that we need to hit right now in this particular podcast. No, I think we covered so much of this. I want people to maybe take a moment, maybe a self-compassion moment or a kindness moment that if you've been struggling with pornography and trying to get this right, we lose sight of that. The reason why we're struggling is because we actually do care about doing what's right. And we do want to follow the commandments and live with integrity. And often, we think about, oh, because I throw a point, it means there's something really bad with or wrong or simple about me. But the fact that you're struggling is you're trying to get this right. And we've we've got approaches that are helpful. So I've tried to package acceptance of commitment therapy in really accessible ways. So I just launched the life after a pornography coach app that you can get on your smartphone that has all these act principles where you can learn these things. You can improve your awareness of emotions. There's a built-in community, where you can connect with other people that are working on this together. And it's not shame-based. It's not based on addiction. It's based on act, which is the only research support of the treatment that we have. And then I also put together an online program called Life after a pornography that's all self-directed. And it's basically 10 weeks of videos of me talking about act and these principles and giving you practical skills to implement in your own life. Because as you mentioned, it's the practices that matter. There's not a trick. They overcomes us. You actually have to eat better and sleep better and exercise better and be more aware. It's the practices that really matter. It's like, it's like, how did I gain 20 pounds? What does I ate? You ate. So very few guys can say, well, I got a medical problem. That's not 1%. But for the 99% of us, we didn't work out and we ate too much. That's it. And that's my fault. It's just being serious about it. So now you've also got some YouTube, the Life After series. Dr. Cameron Staley, Life After pornography, Introduction of Life After. And then you've got tools on your website. Man, this is great stuff. Thanks for thank you. I mean, really, for all of us as men, for doing what you've done to make this happen. And thank you for taking the time to be on Brave Men today. And an outreach ministry of Christian men's networking. You find tools for disciplining and mentoring men at cmn.men. It's Christian men's network cmn.men. You won't find it at cnn.com, but you'll find it at cmn.men. And Dr. Staley, it has been a pleasure meeting you, bro. And hearing your passion about helping people towards emotional health and to wholeness in life. And then we pray over you and your family blessings and favor. And I pray great increase. I pray that there'll be literally tens of thousands of men on this YouTube channel. And getting your tools and materials. Dr. Cameron Staley, S-T-A-L-E-Y. I just put that in the search bar, going YouTube, find it there, there's all kinds of tools. And let's get ourselves to the place we want to be, which is healthy and mindful. And living the design, God designed us to be, living as God's man, living as a follower of Christ in reality and truth and loving kindness. And I love this phrase. I wrote it down self-compassion. I love that whole thing, you know, because that's we have compassion for others. And then we kill ourselves. And that's my favorite teaching it. When I think about Christ blows it down so well, it's the great commandments, our love God, love our neighbor as ourself. And we forget that part that the better we take care of ourselves allows us to love our neighbors and love God. And sometimes we neglect that. And we are our worst critic and the most judgmental. And that keeps us stuck with these unwanted behaviors, but taking better care of ourselves really unlocks our potential to be an instrument in God's hands. Yeah, we are we're really critical ourselves. And we're also master negotiators with ourselves. It's like, yeah, you know, five cookies will be good. Well, I already did five. I'll do five more Oreos because then that's how it even 10. And I did five anyway. So five more is not going to make any difference. So, you know, it's we are master negotiators and mindfulness being aware in the reality. That's why the word of God is so important because the word of God unlocks reality in our hearts and minds and spirits. And Jesus talks so often about our hearts. Yeah. He talked about, you know, in the problems for out of your heart comes your life. Yeah. Those things you put in is what's going to come out. And so thank you, Dr. Sally, for blazing a path for us for us to become the man that God designed us to be and man we desire to speak. God bless you, bro. Well, thank you, Paul. It was an honor to be with you and thank you so much for that blessing. That was so touching. You just experienced brave man with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmd.man or write to him at Paul at cmd.man.