Self Sabotage

You have it in you to create whatever life you want.

We want you to get that.

Because often, despite others believing that about us, we don’t believe that about ourselves. We’re afraid to risk, because what if, at the end of it all, we just prove how incapable we really were?

You 100% have the power to break away from porn and masturbation. And you have the power to create whatever great life you want after that.

You have that power, and what it will take is facing what you’ve used pornography and masturbation to run away from.

Here’s something from one of our staff, Sammy Uyama:

I used porn to escape my potential, to escape my greatness. It was a free pass to mediocrity, permission to be average. Every time I had a relapse I gave myself proof of my smallness. I didn’t have to become great, because I had proven that I wasn’t. On some deep level, that kept me coming back to porn again and again.

I said I wanted to be extraordinary, but really, the idea of becoming that scared me. As long as I had porn, I could say, “If only I could quit porn, then I would achieve amazing things.” Porn was my safety net. Because on the other side of that lay risk. The risk of discovering that, at the end of it all, I really was inadequate. Without porn, I would have nothing else stopping me. If I ended up failing then it would prove that I really was weak.

Quitting porn took me being willing to take on my whole life. To put my whole heart into becoming who I wanted to be physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, financially, academically. And with that, the possibility that I might fail. That I would try everything and, in the end, it would not work out.

I did fail. I didn’t get into the college that I wanted. I started a business and lost money. But I also found myself succeeding in ways I never imagined. I wrote books that people actually pay to read, I married an amazing woman.

Regardless of the successes or failures, I found myself more alive then I had ever experienced before. Inside that aliveness, there wasn’t any room for porn.

What have you used pornography and masturbation to avoid responsibility for?

We’d like to leave you with this poem. You may have heard it before, but read with new ears given what we discussed in today’s lesson:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson