When we give up porn, we are faced with this void in our lives. We are asked for the first time to answer the question: what do you want in life?
For many of us (as it has been for me), this is a terrifying question. Even if by some miracle you manage to answer the question, if you’re like me, you end up feeling so hopeless and powerless to accomplish it, you give up easily. You tell yourself “what’s the point?”
Alternatively, you look at the size of the goal and you feel that it is too small to count or big too big to reach.
I have thought about what to do about all my stalled life goals for such a long time. I thought it was about learning how to set better goals. I followed all the SMART goal frameworks. I would write out my goal everyday.
I would also read books on the law of attraction or belief and all that other kind of stuff. I would do vision boards. But I just felt too powerless to do anything.
After some initial enthusiasm, I would feel overwhelmed or feel stuck and give up quickly.
The missing piece, I’ve since come to learn is the idea of the self-image and the servo-mechanism.
What is the servo-mechanism?
Animals have an instinct in them. Even if they don’t learn explicitly, they know when it’s time to migrate when it’s winter and move again when it’s summer. Birds know when it’s time to fly. Fish swim thousands of miles to different areas in search for food.
All animals have this mechanism inside of them that guides them towards life. It guides them towards success.
Why not humans? Of course we also have this mechanism inside of us! We are not robots, but we certainly have a machine inside of us designed to take us towards greater life and success.
Our animal needs are mostly met (food, shelter, safety). Even our emotional needs may be met (family, etc.).
Inside our mind is a servo-mechanism, a tool, machine or instinct designed to get us to where we want to be. This is not in the realm of magic or make-believe or anything like that. We have this inside of us!
This servo-mechanism is designed to take us towards our goals. The mechanism figures out the path there. It figures out how to jump over obstacles. It is instinctual. It is ingrained within us.
We tap into this servo-mechanism by altering our self-image.
What is the self-image?
Our self-image is the idea we hold of ourselves in our mind. Perhaps right now, we have let others dictate our self-image. Friends, teachers, partners, the media, whatever has told us how to think and feel about ourselves.
Forever alone, loner, loser, etc are all labels that have told us what to think and feel about ourselves.
All we need to do therefore to make our servo-mechanism work is to start changing our self-image.
You can do this with your imagination or feeling what you want to feel about the person you want to become.
In the theater of your mind, you can see yourself as becoming the person you want to be. Tap into past experience where you were the person you wanted to be, or use your imagination to project outwards into the future.
This will activate the servo-mechanism to start shifting your life around to make this version of yourself come alive.
You don’t need to worry about the “how” of it. It will happen by itself.
Just relax every part of you, start tapping into this modified self-image, and keep using your memories or imagination to see and feel the person you’d like to become.
You don’t need faith for this to work. It is just built into you like it is built into animals. Endowed with higher powers of our mind, we have the ability and responsibility to do this.
So get to it! You will thank yourself.
This is probably the most powerful way I have seen of dealing with the void that PMO leaves behind. Even when it has no benefit, we feel incapable of moving because our self-image has been shattered.
I hope to write an updated ebook version of this soon and include this chapter within it to let others know of this.
Let me know if you’ve done something like this in the past and how it’s panned out.
I look forward to your emails and comments.
On a personal note. I haven’t posted on this site for a while because I’ve been busy with other work. I found that the coaching business on here was not enough to pay the bills, so I’m moving onto other work. Nevertheless, people will always be free to reach out to me for coaching. I’ve kept the pricing as is.