Episode 186: Working Backwards

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 186, Working Backwards.

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer. 

Hey everyone, I want to talk about a cool little skill here that is going to help us a lot when it comes to self-sabotage. You know, we can really look at it and gather some data. A lot of times when we’re looking at buffering activities, so we slipped up with porn, we buffered with porn. When I say that, just in case you all don’t know what that means, we used the porn to escape some emotion or we used whatever it was, right? Over eating, over drinking to escape something that’s going on in our lives. 

So working backwards is just the process of figuring out what it is that you’re buffering from. But we want to go a little further than we maybe typically go. Sometimes what happens is, okay, say I view porn and then I want to look and see what was I buffering from? Well, I was feeling bored in the moment. So, great, that’s what we were feeling in the moment, but let’s go back even further. 

Let’s go back, what was happening right before this? And what was happening right before that, and before that, and before that? And what were my thoughts and my feelings in all these different moments throughout the day leading up to this. Instead of just looking at that one moment when we self-sabotaged, let’s go back and back and back and really kind of flesh out and see what we can find here. 

So here’s an example just from last night. Last night it was late. It was 10:30. I was grumpy, kind of exhausted. And what I had done is I was chewing gum, right? Chewing gum helps me when I’m kind of agitated because I can feel my jaw just gets, you know, it kind of wants to grind. And so I just chew gum. 

And I was chewing gum and then I threw the gum away and I was so thirsty. I just wanted to chug a whole 40 ounce tumbler of water. I was so thirsty. And I filled up my tumbler, and started to drink it. And it was so, you know that feeling after you drink something and you have mint in your mouth and it was just super cold and really uncomfortable and I couldn’t chug it like I wanted to. 

I couldn’t chug it. I couldn’t just keep drinking and drinking. It was too icy and it hurt because of the gum I had been chewing beforehand. And I was so grumpy and I was like, I just want to drink my water. I just want to chug this water. And so what I did is I just grabbed like a handful of brownies that my daughter and I had made earlier that day and I just threw it in my mouth and I was like, this is going to get rid of the mint. I need to eat these brownies and it’ll get rid of the minty flavor and then I can chug my water. 

Well, it didn’t get rid of the minty flavor. And all it did was it made my stomach feel sick and it gave me this blood sugar rush right before bed that I was hoping to avoid, that I don’t typically like doing before bed because it makes me stay up a little bit later and I’m not able to relax when I just throw sugar in my system right before bed. 

So working backwards. All right, let’s see. Why did we do this? Well, first obvious reason, okay, I wanted to drink water without that minty overwhelm. So that’s why I threw the brownies in my mouth. I was just frustrated. They were there. Also brownies are delicious. I wanted that sugar. So just kind of out of frustration, all right, give me those, throw those in our mouth so that we don’t have this minty taste so I can drink my water. 

Okay. All right. Let’s go backwards even more. What else? What else was causing this frustration? Why else was I frustrated? Okay, well, before this, I had been just cleaning for hours. I was kind of in a rage clean and just grumpy. Grumpy because the housework. Oh my gosh, it’s so much, especially in the summer. 

So I’d spent, you know, a couple of hours before this, just cleaning and I was grumpy. I didn’t want to be cleaning. I’d prefer to be resting. It’s the end of the day. Okay, so I was frustrated because I was cleaning. All right. Let’s keep going back. 

What else? What else am I learning about this? Well, before I started the rage clean, it was also just a day full of a lot of childcare and house care tasks. And I felt really unsupported and it wasn’t my husband’s fault. He’s really great. He actually usually typically does more housework than I do. And so, okay. What is this? 

So we’re going backwards. Okay, so why am I feeling so overwhelmed with everything when I don’t typically feel overwhelmed with this, when I do have a partner who is supportive. So going further back in my day, okay, I’m thinking about how I was. Oh yeah, I was looking for more support. I was creating a job description to hire someone to get a little bit more support around here. 

Okay, and then the feeling around that was a little bit just frustrated and grumpy and exhausted. Oh, okay. What’s really going on here? I didn’t shove the brownies in my mouth because I needed the minty taste out of my mouth. I could have done that other ways, even just with warm water. Like swishing around with warm water would have done the trick. Even put a little salt in the water, swish it around, that would have done the trick. 

It was just like an exhausted, grumpy moment when we look back and back and back and back and kind of ask yourself, but why, why, but why, what else? What else? What else? Oh, there’s a lack of support. There’s a lack of support. But let’s go back even further. Why? Why? I have the means to hire more support. Why haven’t I yet? 

And then I remember a moment that I had had even earlier, earlier, like that morning. Early that morning before I started my work day here in Overcome Pornography For Good. And the thought was I should be able to do this myself. Like this isn’t too much. I should be able to keep the house clean. I should be able to make sure the kids get where they need to be. 

And then I remember having my list of things and thinking to myself like, yeah, this is a lot. But also people do this normally and there’s something wrong with me if I’m not able to do all of these things. It was a list of house chores, birthday stuff coming up, events to plan and look at, family support that’s needed, kid stuff. 

Yeah, it’s overwhelming. But the big thought, like when, when I felt the overwhelm, the big thought was, oh, I should be able to do this. I should be able to do this by myself. Oh, and then that’s like when it just hit and sunk in. That was the moment where I started the self-sabotage. That was the moment that created and built and built and built and built up until this moment, was this thought “I should be able to do this myself.” 

And it’s kind of like a sneaky, shame-y thought, right? Looking at that whole list of things that I’m doing. And instead of when I feel a little overwhelmed and like I could use some support instead of listening to that, and trying to find some of that support, my first thought is I should be able to do this myself. Other women do all of this by themselves. Almost like there’s something wrong with me if I can’t do this alone. 

And so now that I have that clarity from that place, I can sink into that. Oh, I do need support and it’s okay that I can’t do this by myself. And let’s really question that. Maybe I shouldn’t be able to do all of this by myself. 

Now, if I don’t go far back enough, what can end up happening is I can just continue to stay in that rage cleaning. So I’m just overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed, I should be able to do this, but I can’t. I just need to work really hard to get all these things off of my to-do list so that I can just be done and not be overwhelmed anymore. That doesn’t actually solve it and it’ll probably create more self-sabotage behavior in the future. 

So you can, of course, do the same thing with any self-sabotage behavior, including pornography. So asking yourself, okay, you know, what happened before this? And even before that? And even before that? And even before that? And going backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards until you feel your body relax. 

Okay, if you don’t feel, if you still feel tightness because you’re not sure what happened, keep going until you can feel that. Oh yeah, that’s why. That’s why. 

So what happened before this event? I was feeling bored. Okay. What happened before that? Well, I was like, honestly, just a little bit restless because of this thing that happened at work. And I just am feeling really behind and I don’t know how to get caught up and it’s feeling really overwhelming. 

Okay, so what happened before that? Well, this person said this thing to me at work. They said that the project should have been done by now and it’s not, and we need to really hustle and get working and get on it. And I just honestly felt like a huge sense of overwhelm. 

Okay. And then, right, so you keep going backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards. And then figure out what is the root really of what was going on with this self-sabotage. 

And then another big key that’s going to be helpful here is go back until you find a thought, not until you just find a circumstance, but until you find a thought. So what’s the thought that’s driving the overwhelm? So for me, that thought was, I should be able to do this myself. 

Maybe the thought for you is, you know, here’s an example just with this one that we used this, this example we’re using maybe around a big work project, it’s just too much. I just don’t know how to do it. Or I’m not good enough. Or people don’t understand. Whatever that thought is. 

And then let’s work on challenging that thought, working from a new thought. Instead of trying to change the circumstance first, try to change the thought first and you’ll find that you have a lot more momentum. 

All right, you guys, hopefully this is helpful for you. Have a great week. We’ll talk to you next week, bye bye. 

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.