32: Using Mindfulness to Overcome Addiction

No More Desire ™ Porn Addiction Recovery

You’ve probably heard that mindfulness helps with addiction - being present, enjoying the moment, getting in tune with your senses.

But you’ve probably found it difficult to implement mindfulness in your daily life, and fail to see how using mindfulness to overcome addiction really works. I get that.

Today, I’m going to talk about discoveries that I’ve made about mindfulness for recovery, as well as some universal practices that I’ve seen work for others.

Before we get started, it’s important to understand that the way I teach porn addiction recovery has little to nothing to do with stopping the behavior itself. To quit porn, we focus not so much on stopping the addictive behavior as much as being good at a sport is about being fast. Being fast is certainly helpful, but if you don’t have the techniques, the practice, the mindset, it’s not going to get you very far.

Recovery is not about sobriety. It’s not about the number of days not acting out. It’s a way of life. It’s about your mental state, spiritual state, and physical state. Most of all it’s about your relationship with God, your Savior, and those around you - is your focus on self? Or is it on God and others?

Mindfulness is part of this. It is a mindset, a way of life. Most of all it is an awareness.

There are differing mindfulness practices for addiction recovery, but here’s how I see it - the best way I can sum it up:

Mindfulness is about being deeply accepting of your emotions, and remaining in the present moment.

That’s it.

How does this help with recovery? What I teach my clients is that addiction is a mindset of resistance and control… And recovery is a mindset of surrender and acceptance. Sounds counterintuitive, right? But this goes back to Buddhist teachings, Taoist teachings, it’s at the core of 12-step.

In order to recover, I need to stop resisting those difficult emotions that I’d rather not feel. I need to begin accepting myself as imperfect, accepting others as imperfect, and accept that life is never going to be the easy, effortless thing that my addict brain wishes it was. It’s always going to entail suffering - that’s what the Buddha taught “life is suffering”. But then, he also said that we transcend that suffering by releasing our resistance to it.

It doesn’t mean I won’t suffer, rather that suffering will no longer control me when I discontinue my attempts to escape from it. It will be far less intense when I embrace it, surrender to it.

Learn more in the episode.

DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK to help you break free from porn
Defining Addiction and Recovery PDF

Porn Recovery Coaching for Christians

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I Had a Relapse with Porn | What Do I Do Now?

My Conversion and Porn Addiction Recovery Story
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