Feeling Numb Without the Addiction

When people quit their porn addictions, we often find ourselves confronting this numbness in our life.

We stare endlessly at the ceiling, looking at our phones, switching from memes, silly YouTube videos, watching and reading the news–story after story, picture after picture, meme after meme, Netflix episode after episode. Even if we aren’t enjoying it.

It’s just a compulsion at that point. Does this sound familiar? This is exactly what we used to do with our porn addiction.

Sadly, we take on the same addictive behaviors and apply it to mindless media usage. And when the build-up doesn’t take us over the edge, we have “just one peek” at porn (or suggestive social media, or music videos, etc).

We’re then back to where we started. I see this happening far too often.

One of the sad things of modern society is that we have lost our ability to feel. We don’t really feel anything anymore. We rely on movies, TV, porn, and other media to make us feel anything.

This emotional numbness is scary. Consider sitting alone and doing nothing at all. Including not looking at a screen. The numbness is too overwhelming. Maybe our mind goes to negative thoughts, or maybe they start thinking about some of the older pornographic fantasies. We then reach for our phone and we’re mindlessly consuming media again.

Anything to get away from the feeling of numbness.

One of the most important themes I see repeated from all my coaching sessions is this very strong sense of unworthiness, self-hatred, self-punishment. When we look deep inside, we see a screwed up broken individual. And from all the media we have consumed, we have given up on the world as well. All this is crystallized into a feeling of numbness.

It all feels futile. Better to go back to the sexually charged music videos, TV shows, and back to porn. Anything to get away from this feeling of numbness.

You must stop this.

You are worthy of love, respect, and forgiveness. You and I have been brainwashed by a lifetime of media addiction to believe that we aren’t. No child is born feeling this way. It has come through a lifetime of parents, teachers, loved ones, society, and nowadays our own self-destructive addictive tendencies.

There is a way out. We must heal ourselves if we are to build our lives again. To feel hopeful and take action again in our lives.

There are some practices I’d highly recommend.

Affirmations

I often give affirmations at the end of a coaching session. This is important. We have been brainwashed over a lifetime with porn, news, and other media to feel empty inside. We are programmed to not feel anything without this stimulus.

First see through the lies. All this hopelessness, numbness, etc has been programmed into us BECAUSE we are addicts. And quitting helps us be free.

Next, you reverse the brainwashing with affirmations. I have strong spiritual beliefs, so these are some of the affirmations I say:

• I am worthy of love. I have always been loved and always be loved. God loves me. And I love all that he has given me.
• I forgive myself. I am letting go. I am becoming whole and complete. I am allowing myself to feel love, peace, and happiness. I am love, peace, and happiness.
• I am here to shine my light for others. I matter, God has made me this way.

Look into what you’re feeling, even through the numbness, and find the words that feel good to you. Start reversing the brainwashing. I sometimes cry saying these affirmations out loud.

No one has said these things to me before. No one has told me that I am worthy, good enough, worth loving, deserving of love, and here to shine my light.

I often do it with music and it feels me with such profound love and happiness and peace.

Gratitude

Please practice gratitude. If you look, you will find countless things to be happy about. And if I cannot feel anything, I watch this video:

Watch it. You will thank me. Genuinely look at the smallest things to be grateful for. Not just an intellectual thought…but genuinely try to feel happy. This is a powerful practice to break the numbness in your life.

If you do no journaling, just spend 2 minutes a day writing out exactly what you’re grateful for. Even if it just one thing.

Meditation

Meditation is a powerful technique that helps us realize that we are not the thoughts, the feelings that we’re feeling.

Headspace has some fantastic free meditations on YouTube which you can try. But of course you can use any app you want.

These practices will help you recover yourself. It will help you feel again.

Remember, this is a practice. There is no end goal here. As you start doing this, you will start to feel lighter and lighter. Things will start opening up for you.

If you have other ideas, I’ve love to hear them! Please shoot me a message back, or open this post and leave a comment below!