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A Word To The Wise
138. The Addiction People Are Too Scared To Talk About (Part 2) Ft. Jessica Jordan
On the show today is Jessica Jordan. Jessica is a former wildlife biologist turned expert in overcoming sex-related addictions. Following a traumatic incident that resulted in brain damage in 2016, Jessica developed PTSD and Hyper-sexuality Disorder, commonly known as sex addiction. Drawing from her own journey of healing, she now offers a comprehensive recovery program focused on trauma healing and porn addiction recovery.
In our discussion, we delve into Jessica's personal battle with sex addiction, her experiences dating someone with a similar struggle, and her unique approach to helping men break free from porn addiction. Additionally, we explore the impact of childhood trauma on addiction recovery and Jessica's innovative "3Ds to recovery" method.
We go deep into how sex and porn addiction affect relationships, self-esteem, and brain function. Exploring the roles of dopamine and oxytocin, we see how early experiences shape future behaviors. With Jessica's guidance, we tackle the tough path to recovery, drawing insights from experts like Dr. Gabor Maté, who emphasize the importance of addressing emotional wounds for true healing.
As we wrap up, we consider how societal and family influences can fuel hypersexual behavior, and we discuss the role of spirituality in recovery.
By shedding light on the widespread issue of porn and sex addiction, especially among men, our aim is to provide listeners with valuable insights, resources, and hope for their own journey towards recovery.
Where to find Jessica:
loc@courageousleap.com
selfcraftedking.com
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Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to the Wise podcast, a space where we curate conversations around mind, body, spirit and personal development. I'm your host, Shumi Moses. You're tuning into part two and the last part of the short miniseries I'm calling the addiction people are too scared to talk about. Again, a quick reminder that this episode is not for minors, so please make sure they're not around. On the show today is Jessica Jordan.
Speaker 1:Jessica is a former wildlife biologist turned expert in overcoming sex-related addictions. Following a traumatic incident that resulted in brain damage in 2016, Jessica developed PTSD and hypersexuality disorder, commonly known as sex addiction. Drawing from her own journey of healing, she now offers a comprehensive recovery program focused on trauma healing and porn addiction recovery. In our discussion, we dive into Jessica's personal battle with sex addiction, her experiences dating someone with a similar struggle and her unique approach to helping men break free from porn addiction. Additionally, we explore the impact of childhood trauma on addiction recovery and Jessica's innovative 3Ds to recovery method. One striking fact Jessica wanted to highlight is that one in six boys are sexually molested as children, a statistic that resonates with many of her clients who have also experienced abuse, often at the hands of women.
Speaker 1:So part of the reason I really wanted to have this conversation and why I turned it into a short miniseries, a two-part miniseries, is because I think, when it comes to sex and porn addiction, it's something that a lot of people don't want to talk about. It's very taboo, it's very hush-hush and a lot of people don't want to admit to themselves that they have it. So I wanted to create a safe space to actually have this conversation for the people who are struggling with it and also here on the World of the Wise. I like to have conversations that center around mind, body, spirit, and one of the things that really affects our mind, body and spirit is when we're addicted to something, and a lot of people have an addiction to pornography and sex. A lot of men especially, and women, are affected by it as well, but disproportionately it does affect men. So I did want to have this conversation so that if you are a man listening to this, it's a safe space, you have resources, you get more insights and you can use it in your life to help you overcome the addiction, if you have it. Or if you're a woman listening to this and you have dated a man who struggled with porn addiction or you are dating a man who is currently struggling with porn addiction. Hopefully this gives you a little bit more insight and also resources that you could potentially share with your partner.
Speaker 1:So, again, I think this is a very insightful conversation and I think it's an important conversation and more people need to discuss this type of addiction, because it's not something that people readily see. You can easily hide it. So I think, again, a lot of people want to break the chains of this addiction, but they just don't know how to. Now, in this two part series, we're not able to touch on every single thing. So this is just more educational, it's more informative and, again, hopefully there's some resources and some insights here that you can use to help move you forward and out of this addiction. If you have it or you know someone who has it, again you can relay this information to them or have them listen to this episode. And, with that being said, let's get into the conversation with Jessica. Jessica, welcome to A Word to the Wise. Thank you so much for being here today. How are you?
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jumi. It is an honor to be here. Thank you so much for just allowing me to speak about things that are deeply important to the depths of my soul.
Speaker 1:I cannot wait to get into this conversation because point addiction is something that we hear a lot about, but it usually mostly affects men. But what was interesting about your story and me wanting to talk to you is that you had an experience that made you develop an addiction to sex. Right, so you said that you ate a naturally occurring seafood, which led to brain damage, ptsd and hypersexuality disorders. So can you please talk about that experience and when you realize like oh my gosh, I have a sex addiction and this is the cause of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back in February 2016, I ate the wrong batch of smoked canned oysters that had a naturally occurring seafood neurotoxin and it is microscopic. It's so tiny that it can pass through the blood brain barrier, which not a lot of things can do that. That barrier exists to protect our brain, but some things pass through and essentially, this neurotoxin it's a neurotoxin and it gave me a 19 millimeter lesion on the left front lobe of my brain. It does certain things like unravel the myelin sheath and the nerves. It massively attacks the cardiovascular system, my entire autonomic nervous system. It was just like wreaking havoc at really high risk of cardiac arrest all the time.
Speaker 2:Extreme physical pain and not knowing if it was going to take my life or not, reinforcing preexisting subconscious beliefs around low self worth and adequacy, fear of rejection, things like that that were already there, that I didn't have the awareness that those things were there until the gift of brain damage and trauma and addiction entered my life so that I could kind of be like woken up to the truth of who I am. And you know, for me it was sex addiction which was just with that. When it comes to that type of addiction, it's oftentimes an extreme form of external validation seeking. When someone has such an extremely subconscious low self worth, the subconscious mind says how do I go and not get rejected? And so the subconscious mind will create a really strong and powerful, essentially sexual urges. And then you're compelled to go out and act on those and the subconscious mind says I must be worth something. I wasn't rejected, I was accepted by someone, and so it's. It's really became an extreme form of external validation seeking, and that is extremely common, with oftentimes without the awareness of that happening and that there's a whole rabbit hole. We could go down the whole like with that but essentially this neurotoxin, I didn't know if I was gonna take my life or not, and after I was doing all of the physical stuff to heal, it was helping, but I hit a plateau, and that plateau eventually, after several years of trying to heal, I learned that the biggest missing factor Was healing from trauma.
Speaker 2:Healing from trauma Allowed my body to then physically heal and so I had the very, very obvious PTSD as an adult and I was reading a book Called the body keeps the score. The body keeps the score is a like an amazing book around Learning about trauma adult trauma, childhood trauma, you name it and I almost skipped over the chapter or the the section of the book around Childhood trauma because I was like, oh, that doesn't relate to me. I just this is this very obvious adult thing. But I decided to go ahead and read it anyway and this was one of the most eye-opening moments of my entire life, as I was reading what childhood trauma is. This was I was in my 30s I'm 39 years old now and I was reading this probably held back in 2018 or so I Realized I actually had a lot of childhood trauma and I had gone my entire life without realizing it and in that moment I felt so totally just broken, unfixable, destroyed, outcast.
Speaker 2:And it was On top of all the trauma that I was already experiencing. And this was a a self-awareness moment that I felt like destroyed me. The self-awareness almost made me go deeper, because I felt broken and unfixable, because at that time, there were some key, important things that I was missing but I did not know about. I didn't know that you could heal from trauma and I didn't know that trauma is all around us. It is so common and most people, most adults who have childhood trauma, are unaware that they have childhood trauma because we think of it as something like this is you were beaten or sexually abused or something really severely and obvious happened to you. But that's not how most childhood trauma is, and so I am getting a little bit deep down a rabbit hole with the question. This is good.
Speaker 1:No, this is good, and I think you're touching on a lot of things that I'm I want to dive deeper into. Right, because trauma is a big Component to a lot of people having addictions, and Dr Gabor Monta says that there's a big T and there's little T, right? So big T trauma is what you were just referencing, which is when people feel like they're physically abused, like something, an event happens that is obviously so dramatic that People will consider that trauma. But the little T is stuff like he gave an example in his book the myth of normal, where he talked about, for example, a child not having their needs met is a form of Little trauma and that also affects us on a subconscious level. So you are touching on a lot of things that I want to dig deeper into, but I just want to make sure I fully understand, right?
Speaker 1:So after you had you ate this toxin, right? This, the seafood that had this toxin that affected you on a neuro level is Is everyone who eats Seafood and that has toxin in it susceptible to getting a sex addiction? Or Could it have been anything? And how does, and how exactly does, a neurotoxin trigger an addiction?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. So the name of this particular neurotoxin is called Sigua Terra neurotoxin. A lot of people who are fishermen and like the Pacific are aware of it and essentially, you know, I have a friend who had a black toxic mold exposure and she developed hypersexuality Disorder as well, and it's another type of microscopic neurotoxin. But it's not necessarily just a microscopic neurotoxin. That is the the key factor here. What it's doing is Anything in our life that triggers a tremendous and I mean a tremendous stress response. That's a stress response. The common factor is the stress response, no matter what caused it, no matter who you are, no matter what your background was. And for some people it might trigger a sex addiction. For some people that might trigger alcoholism or a gaming addiction or social media addiction. These are Acting as escapism's escapism outlets.
Speaker 2:When you know anything that's addictive, it's not Pursuing the pleasure. It's really escaping the pain, the pain of the realities of life. When you haven't yet learned how to self-regulate, how to cope in a healthy way, how to heal on a deep level. And when we heal on a deep level, we no longer feel the need to escape from the reality of life. Yes, we change our life so that it's better and hardships will continue to come, no matter who we are. That it's. What choices do we make when the hardships come knocking at our door, down to our getting rid of our self-sabotaging thoughts that trigger an internal stress response. What choices are we making? What thoughts are we having? What are the what? What is our subconscious programming around emotional responses to certain things that trigger us? How are we responding? And so the Unifying factor for any addiction is a stress response that's happening in the body.
Speaker 1:It does it does. So that's really good, right, and I think part of your work and the things that you touch on is the fact that A lot of times people develop addictions because they don't feel safe on the inside, right. So I want to talk about all of that. But you know, with your experience, that led you to getting different certifications to start coaching people who Also have a similar sex addiction, particularly porn addiction. So can you talk a little bit about why? I mean, I guess I can say it's obvious why you probably developed a passion for this.
Speaker 1:But I would like to hear from you what, as you were going through your healing journey, when did you realize, like you know what? This is a big problem, right, and not everyone has. Most people who have a porn addiction. It does not come from, you know, having a neuro toxin affecting them, but it obviously comes from a point of Not feeling safe within them, some sort of trauma. So when did you realize, like, okay, there's a connection here and, as I'm healing, I think I can actually Be a coach and help people heal from porn addiction.
Speaker 2:Yes, so thank you for this question. Essentially, when I was going through my healing journey and when I was in the throws and like the apex of the most challenging part of my PTSD and the brain damage and all that stuff that was happening during that time, I Didn't even categorize myself as being addicted to sex. I still had blinders on to that and we can kind of get into that part as as well, if you want to. As far as some of this between sex addiction and porn addiction, I Was dating a man for three years who was severely addicted to pornography and alcohol and poppers and something and would casually do cocaine and there was a lot of stuff going on. And when you got to really know his story, he actually had a tremendous trauma in his own life with his family, and just some of the stories would break my heart and and so I got to learn that pornography addiction was even a thing once he entered my life and Looking back there were.
Speaker 2:I now can see that there were several guys that I was with in the past who I dated, who were addicted to pornography, but I had no idea at all. I just didn't know it was a thing and so I saw the tremendous pain and suffering that he was in on a deep and incredible level. And so there was this interesting thing that had to happen where I was feeling deeply rejected and hurt and confused of why this man who I was dating would prefer the pornographic experience over me the only time he would really prefer. Prefer it for me would be like, say, if I had made a video for him where I was just speaking to him, and then he would, you know, do that in his own time. But if it's face to face, then there would be too much social pressure, social anxiety, a performance anxiety, and so that's a one big reason why porn induced erectile dysfunction is Really big with porn watchers. That's one of the reasons.
Speaker 2:And then to the brain develops. When with heavy porn watchers, the brain develops neuro pathways to say, I Only get sexually aroused and have the sexual experience when I am alone and with a digital screen in front of me, and so Then, when they get face-to-face with a real person, their subconscious mind isn't even allowing them to get aroused, or if it is, it's to a much lower degree, and their mind has to imagine pornographic acts the whole time in order to stay aroused, and they're essentially Not connecting with you as an individual. They're connecting with pornography in their mind, kind of using your body as a glorified masturbation tool at that point. And so the partner that I was with at the time, he would actually reject my sexual advances like 99% of the time Because he there was too much social performance anxiety, social anxiety around it and he just wouldn't be aroused. And so Me, I was feeling deeply hurt, deeply rejected, deeply confused, and that significantly lowered my subconscious self-worth.
Speaker 2:And we were on and off several times. You know we weren't dating the whole time, would be on and off. Sometimes he lived with me, sometimes not. Sometimes, you know, he would break up with me like multiple times, and I think he would do that specifically because he realized he wasn't providing Anything for me that I was looking for on it an emotional level, the connection level, a Commitment level, the sexual level, like and I think that Me being in his life in that way wanting these things, put a tremendous amount of pressure on him that was overwhelming to him and then made him feel inadequate even more and so one of the diet to do was, instead of feeling.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things that I did in the past and I think many women fall I don't want to say victim to it, fall, I don't even know the words to put on it but it's Defining your self-worth. What I did, what my self-worth on a subconscious level, was based off of my sexual experiences with men. You know, a lot of times with porn addiction, someone's not necessarily seeking that external validation, it's just there's a stressor in my life. I want to escape and have a temporary Relief from whatever is stressing me out. Pornography is an outlet for that and so and but Kind of, to put it into simple terms, the oftentimes with a sex addiction, it's there can be overlaps what I'm going to say with the sex addiction, all of it can have overlaps with porn addiction, but it doesn't always exist in an individual with porn addiction.
Speaker 2:And so, okay, I'll kind of Start back when I was my earliest memory of feeling that External validation through the sexual experience and it's really. It boosts the ego Through this external validation and it's an extremely high dopamine experience. It's riding that dopamine high of the external validation. And I remember when I was maybe, oh, I want to say 14 years old, and I was walking across town, walking over the bridge, walking over the Fox River Bridge and In McHenry, illinois, with my cousin, my cousin Selena, and it was a summertime, we had short shorts on and tank tops and this red truck drove by and they whistled out of the truck and gave a gesture and In and I knew it was the first time I'd ever experienced attention from a male or a man. That made me feel valuable, but the value was based purely on Sexuality. I hadn't even hit three.
Speaker 2:Yet I was a late bloomer Reaper. Was that hitting on the child? I Was like 75 pounds. My cousin had hit puberty sooner and she was, you know, looked more womanly than I did, so probably at her. But I remember getting this Extremely strong rush of excitement in my body and that was a dopamine high. That was my first hit of the drug. That was my first hit of the drug in that.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And my subconscious mind remembered that and then took it to a deeper level and said let's explore that to a deeper level, which is exactly what it did when I got brain damage in the PTSD, and I think a part of that is One of the neurochemicals required for healing Physically and emotionally, and especially from trauma is oxytocin. What can elevate the hox of the oxytocin levels, naturally, more than anything else, a sexual experience.
Speaker 2:So I think it could have been some of the subconscious minds innate wisdom, but doing it in kind of a messed up way of hey, go get the sexual experience, elevate your oxytocin. Oxytocin is a required neurochemical to heal from trauma. You have trauma. Go get that sexual experience, go get connection with another individual and go get not rejected. But it turned into a sex addiction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about too and I think we touched on this earlier and you touch on this in your work Is that you know, trauma is one way of looking at it but, like you said, it's also kind of feeling internal stress and not feeling safe or validated within you, and I think that's a lot of what comes with the healing right. But you know, when someone has an addiction like you said, you didn't realize that you had a sex addiction for a while what are the signs that Can let someone know like hey, this is an addiction here, this is becoming a problem if a Stress response is what happens right before the urge for the sexual experience, paying attention to the emotions that are present right before the the sexual urge comes on.
Speaker 2:So that's one part of it. And If someone's unsure, give yourself a test, put it to the test and say I'm not going to engage in this activity for the next 30 days. And if you can't do it, then you're probably on some spectrum of addiction. And If you notice insomnia coming up, your ability coming up, maybe just more emotional towards things, if you notice yourself wanting to eat more junk food or do mindless scrolling or any of those types of behaviors, more video games, these can all serve as other escapism behaviors. So if you, if you're using it as an escapism and then you take it away, you're probably gonna be more. The subconscious mind is sneaky, it goes oh, if you're not gonna give it to us this way, well, we just need our same neurochemical fix. Why don't you go play video games for five hours? Why don't you go eat some junk food? Why don't you go scroll some social media mindlessly, without intention, and just so? These other Addictive behaviors can begin to show up To a stronger degree and a lot of people don't realize that they're addicted Because and doctor Anna Lemke describes this amazingly she's an addiction recovery expert.
Speaker 2:She's been doing it for yeah, I think at least 20 years. She has an amazing book called dopamine nation. She goes. A lot of people don't realize they're addicted. They're like oh well, I only smoke weed three times a week, I only played video games twice a week, I only eat fast food twice a week, I only and they're just listing all of these. They're just at that constant dopamine high of something. And then in between all of those Activities are just pulling out your phone and doing some mindless scrolling. I have five minutes here, five minutes there and the baseline level of dopamine has been really raised up. And when not engaged in one of those higher dopamine activities, life feels bull and dull and boring. Adhd symptoms come on. There's that wandering mind syndrome, and I call it, and it can be harder to engage in conversation, it can be harder to focus, it can be harder to have discipline, motivation, more difficulty accomplishing goals, things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we live in a society that Thrives on us being addicted to things, and that's a whole other rabbit hole that we can get into. But I want to zero in on your work with men, with porn addiction, right, because I think a lot of what you're talking about can be applied to not just porn addiction or sex addiction. And but I want to zero in on your work particularly with men. Do you have any stats on the number of men who are struggling with porn addiction and what that age group is like?
Speaker 2:So there's not, in general, a ton of stats on this, particularly because even when someone is addicted, they're usually not aware, and when someone is aware, it takes a tremendous amount of bravery To admit it to someone else, even on an anonymous survey.
Speaker 2:It can be difficult to to really say the truth of the situation, and so the only stat that I've I've read in recent times and I don't even remember the source of this, and I I do not like saying stats without providing the source, but in North America there has been 20 million men who have admitted to being addicted to pornography, and that's Taking. It has the self-awareness to know it's there in the bravery to admit to it. So the number is far more than 29 million, and women get addicted as well, but I do work with just men, um, and so we don't really know the true numbers, but I I there's so many. I only work with adult men, but there are teenagers. So many, like 13 year olds, are addicted. Average age of exposure is 11 years old, and that number is Getting younger and younger with time through smartphone.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:What kids do now on the playground is they all have their smartphones and in you know fifth grade they're all pulling out pornography and they're standing in a circle Seeing who can pull up the most extreme pornography and they're all showing it to each other and laughing and making you know extreme faces. But it's doing something to their subconscious mind and now, when they're home alone in their room, they're exploring and going deep down the rabbit hole of pornography and a lot of kids, by the time they're 12 years old, are already addicted. You wouldn't believe the number of minors who reach out to me for help and I say I can't help you unless you're a parent, you have to have a legal guardian here with you and that. So I've only worked with adult men. I don't even know the legalities about working with minors on that, um, so I haven't even gone down that route.
Speaker 1:It's very scary the world we live in and I 100 percent believe that with the, with smartphones even before smartphones, um, you know, before smartphones became pretty rampant, I think you know exposure was still happening, but now it's probably, you know, increased exponentially. So, with the men that you work with, right, because obviously sometimes, for example, if, if we were to use food as an example, when you eat something that tastes really good, you're not automatically thinking I'm gonna continue to, you just eat till oblivion, right, it eventually becomes something you turn to for comfort when you're stressed or there's some sort of trauma, etc. So, with the men that you work with, is there like a pattern of the type of trauma that they're they typically deal with that Lead them to seeking out pornography as a way to cope with whatever trauma that they're dealing with?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't necessarily say there's a unifying, specific type of trauma. One of the things that is very common, I would say, with most of my clients, but not all, is that At least one of their parents was not emotionally available to them as a as a kid okay and I love dr Gabor mate's work. He's one of my heroes, and so it sounds like you're really familiar with him too, and what that teaches to the subconscious mind of a child.
Speaker 2:There's the only one way that that can be interpreted, and that's I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable, I'm not good enough, I'm inadequate. If I was lovable, worthy, adequate, then I would be receiving the love, the attention, the emotional availability from both of my parents. And if that's not happening, then the subconscious mind doesn't feel loved and that's trauma right there.
Speaker 2:Yes there's that feeling of insecurity in the subconscious mind, and the subconscious mind, it's number one role is to keep us safe. And if it doesn't feel safe, then it says we need to escape this feeling of feeling unsafe. And everything that's addictive provides the neurochemicals to provide a false sense of security, a false sense of being safe. And so the subconscious mind then learns I'm only safe when I engage in this addictive behavior or substance.
Speaker 1:Yes, and even in society there are lots of talks about how men are not really encouraged to be vulnerable and men tend to seem like the group or demographic that people kind of oh well, they'll figure it out right. So I wonder as well if some of that is going on when it comes to that Desire to run to porn or whatever their vice is. But obviously we're talking, we're focusing mostly on porn addiction, because it's like you know, there's no outlet to really Fully express Themselves, and is that when you work with them? Is that something that you guys talk about? Yes, I am so glad you brought this up.
Speaker 2:Every single Monday night and I'll probably be adding more I host something called bravery boot camp and it is a platform where all of my clients can come on and be vulnerable and share their truth and tell their story and ask their questions and share their wins and feel not alone. And it is incredible my clients are my heroes. They are so brave, they are so vulnerable in a way that makes them stronger, because With vulnerability, we have a choice. We can either escape and run and hide and cower, or you can be brave and brave into it and lean into it and speak your truth or make the decision. That is the difficult decision that requires bravery, and so that's why my my?
Speaker 2:heroes. They're leaning into Vulnerability through being brave instead of hiding, and yes it's incredible.
Speaker 2:It is such an important, important part for healing the neurology, for for feeling safe, because a part of this healing journey is Knowing that you can express and reveal all parts of who you are and your identity and your story and where you are now and where you want to be and not be rejected as a human being, but being met with kindness, compassion, empathy and just with open arms.
Speaker 2:And when a human being has that experience, healing takes place. Every time, self empowerment takes place, and so that is a huge part of what I, what I do, some of the work that I do with my clients, is allowing them to have that opportunity, because it is so challenging in our society for men to go out and create those experiences on their own because of the cultural Talk around it. You know, there's that false sense of what it is to be strong. What it is to be strong is to be vulnerable. That takes strength. Allowing another person to witness your tears and your emotions in that moment of vulnerability. That is Tremendous as far as the courage and the strength that it requires of a person and a lot of people, a lot of men especially, think I'm strong because I'm not showing my expression, because I'm not showing my emotion or tears Well. In fact, it takes so much more courage and strength to show it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wonder. I'm just really curious. You know you being a woman we were two women here talking about. You know addiction, but porn addiction as it pertains to men, but we're not men. Do you ever get clients or people who tell you like well, how can you really help men through porn addiction when you are not a man, like maybe you've had a experience with sex addiction but you don't have the experience of a man? Do you ever get that pushback? And what do you say when people, if people say that to you?
Speaker 2:So I don't get that and here's why, especially for my clients, I have them watch a series of videos before I will ever even talk to them, before they can, all you know, hop on a free call with one of my coaches and this and that and have a free introduction to my course. And it's mandatory for for them to go through that process and what they learn has them. They know that they can trust me with their healing journey. They just kind of have that light bulb moment of feeling. They feel seen and heard and not judged. Seen and heard and not judged, oftentimes for the first time ever. And that is tremendous To when you are living by the emotions of shame.
Speaker 2:Shame makes a person want to run away, hide and be invisible, and with pornography addiction, the number one emotion that men tend to live by is the emotion of shame. And the way that we heal from that is by revealing who you are and being met with that kindness, compassion, understanding, empathy. And as I share some of the basic fundamentals, I'll share my story, some of the basic fundamentals. I have a video called. Porn is not the problem and it goes more into that trauma conversation. All of a sudden they feel seen, heard and understood and not judged for it, when the biggest fear has been, if I'm seen and heard, I'll be judged and rejected and ostracized, and so there's that part of it.
Speaker 2:But now they're also learning things about themselves that they didn't know before. Before and now they're saying, oh, you know more about me than I know about me. I think that I could probably trust you with helping me through this and that's been really amazing and honestly, that was one of my fears years ago was that I would get a lot of that backlash, and I got some of it at first, but then I learned how to present myself and I learned how to communicate, and I learned so much more knowledge about this over the years that I can't even remember the last time someone came at me with that Like, oh, you're a woman, how could you help me with this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I think your work speaks for itself. I mean, I went through your page and there are so many resources and so many short videos of you kind of talking about what you do, the process and how you can really help your clients or anybody seeking help for porn addiction. So so I want to ask you what are the three D's to addiction recovery?
Speaker 2:Yes. So detect, define, download. This was something that I I came up with. It was a process that was already in action. It was a process I did with myself. It was a process I taught my clients and over the years I figured out this fun, easy to remember name. So detect, define, download. We don't need 12 steps, we only need three and essentially it's so the detect part. I'm rolling up my sleeves for this one.
Speaker 1:It's good. Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2:So detect. This is all around self-awareness, and it's being your own detective of who you are, these parts of who you are that have been hidden in the shadows either hidden in the shadows that you knew about yourself but didn't want to talk to other people, but even more so, that have been hidden from yourself, a part of who you are, a part of your identity, on a subconscious level. These are patterns that we show up in. There's thought patterns, behavioral patterns, all these different things, emotional response patterns, and so I walk my clients through how to be more aware, self-aware than they have ever been. Even the men who have been doing the self-discovery work for years come here and learn how to take it to a much deeper level. Every single little pattern that shows up in life like a self-sabotaging thought that contributes to lower the subconscious self-worth, that lowers the self-compassion. We have to become aware of all of those thoughts, and so let's detect what those are Every little choice and decision and micro-decision, large ones, small ones to see. Okay, these patterns, when they show up, they lower my potential as an individual, they increase the stress response, they hold me back from the things that matter to me, and so it's. Let's become so acutely aware of what these are so that the moment they show up we have awareness that it's happening. And the reason why we need that awareness when it shows up in the moment is so we can do something called a pattern interrupt. You interrupt the old pattern of the past and I teach my clients how to replace it with a new, healthy pattern. Detect what it is or what it has been.
Speaker 2:And now this is where we kind of get to the second D is define. Define what you would rather have that pattern be. Instead, define what you want it to look like when you have a job interview. Maybe your pattern of the past would be I'm not good enough, I'm going to mess up, I'm going to say the wrong thing. They're not going to pick me, I'll wear the wrong thing, I'm going to be late. If those are the old patterns, what would you rather have your new pattern be? I'm going to crush it. I can't wait for this job interview Having.
Speaker 2:So it's pre-defining what you would want your subconscious autopilot to be, so that the new pattern is this is showing up without me having to put effort in it showing up just because it's who I am. And so every pattern we start with the detect and then we define what it would rather be instead. So a lot of my clients they defined, they detected and defined a long time ago that they want to get rid of porn addiction, but they're still showing up in that way. So that brings us to the third D is download. You got to download it into your subconscious mind so that it is your new subconscious autopilot. You show up, without even having to think about it, your new thoughts, your new choices, your new emotional responses to certain things. They're showing up in the way that you defined, that you want them to be, and this makes up our identity, all these subconscious patterns. And so detect, define, download and we go deep into these, and those are good Thank you.
Speaker 1:Those are, those are good Detect, define, download. As you were talking, I was thinking about the conversation that I had with the psychologist and somatic therapist, dr Luke Snusky, and he helps men as well with porn addiction recovery and we were talking about somatic therapy and, how you know, talk therapy can only take you so far. At some point you have to drop into your body and kind of figure out what's going on, like realize that you're having a stress response and also take, also think as well, like okay, I'm being triggered, I feel stress within my body and it's making me want to run to porn. So he talked about sitting with that discomfort and letting it and writing it out and not acting on it, which kind of sounds like the defined part where it's like okay, what do I want that new habit to be, or what would I rather do then turn to porn.
Speaker 1:So if you were to give like a example or an analogy, you know, if someone who has detected that they have a stress response and they want to go to porn, what, how could they, what would be the action or what would be the download or thought patterns that they would have to kind of embody to move through that space of turning to porn? Would they have to add a new action, would they? Should they replace going to porn to going for a run? You know what I mean? Or should they write it out, or I guess it's probably unique to everyone. But could you, kind of like with the three D's, give an example of you know how somebody could really use and implement that tool?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and you kind of already answered it in yourself, you're like it's like everyone and it totally isn't even yeah.
Speaker 2:One individual that could look different depending on the day, depending on the circumstance. And so say you've detected being addicted to pornography. You've defined, you, no longer want to watch pornography. The urge comes up to watch pornography. You notice that you have that awareness. That's the time you do what's called a pattern interrupt. You interrupt that pattern that has been showing up continuously.
Speaker 2:And so this is where getting to know yourself, getting to be more in touch with yourself, leaning into your intuition and experimenting, and so say like, hmm, I've been sitting at a computer all day, maybe a run would benefit my mind and body, doing something, something, anything physical, because I haven't been physical all day. Maybe I have a physical job, maybe I'm, I have a job where I'm doing labor and bricklaying, or, you know, putting on a new roof, something where it's wow, my body's exhausted. I'm not going to go for a run, I just and saying, hmm, maybe a meditation, maybe a warm bath or shower, maybe something more on the relaxing side to balance out your day. Yes, things like that. And so I teach my clients the pattern interrupts that are beneficial and then the ones that are harmful, and how to learn which ones to use when the moment arises.
Speaker 1:Essentially, yeah, and I think with what you just said, with 3Ds it looks like something anyone who's struggling with addiction different types of addiction could probably use. Right, it's not just for porn addiction, correct, correct?
Speaker 2:Anyone who and if anyone wants there's, you know, on my website I go deeper into this with visuals and a longer explanation of the 3Ds. And you want to? Any addiction and even if someone doesn't have an addiction, you can use the 3Ds. For maybe you are just someone who has a lot of self-sabotaging, negative self-talk, right, the 3Ds will work for that. Any bad habit that you want to break, anything it's there's so much you can apply it towards, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, Do you buy into? I know that you use neuroscience and and psychology to help your clients kind of get through their addiction. People say addiction is a disease. Right, Do you buy into that? Because it sounds daunting then how do you heal Cause? People say you can go into remission with a disease, but it's always still kind of like lurking in the shadows. So one, do you buy into the notion that addiction is a disease and can someone fully recover to a point where they can live the rest of their life without having to struggle with that addiction? Yeah, I do not believe it's a disease.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the worst sayings out there is that once an addict, always an addict. That is so, not true. Anyone who says that I is lacking understanding of the healing journey and the depths of the healing that any human being can take on. And when you no longer need a program, when you no longer need a program, when you no longer need to use all of these strategies on that regular basis, like you're just, you're an individual in the world who is no longer worried about relapse, and like I have zero, there's, there's no worry in my mind, and it's been that way for years. And I know others who are in that same spot. And it's, it's incredible. What we can do, Like the only way to really make it happen, is to go to those incredibly deep healing layers within ourselves.
Speaker 2:And what Dr Gabor Matte says and I completely agree with him you know he's a world's leading expert on trauma, childhood trauma, ADHD, addiction is so horn is not the problem, Addiction is not the problem. It's unresolved childhood trauma. Addiction is merely a symptom of unresolved childhood trauma. So at the core of my course, it's a trauma healing course really. And when we are able to heal from trauma, then addiction is no longer a problem. It just the subconscious mind has no use for it has no use.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree and I think that you know, I believe words are powerful and a lot of times when I hear experts say and other people say, like you know, trauma is, um, I mean sorry, addiction is a disease and you know, once an addict, always an addict, I feel like that's a self-fulfilling prophecy and actually counterintuitive to actually radically healing and moving through it, because you're basically those words mean like we're, we're putting a band-aid over this but it's never going to fully heal, right? And I think I, like what you said at the core of your work, really and truly is like healing. So I I 100% agree with that.
Speaker 1:Another thing people say, you know, when it comes to the whole notion of like porn addiction and you know sexuality and all of that stuff, you know people always say, well, men will be men. You know men are visual creatures and it's it makes sense that they're, you know, really into sex and really into porn. So do some men that you work with have experiences where like, oh, I was just encouraged to be hyper sexual, I was encouraged to watch porn and I just thought this was normal because I'm a man? Do you work with clients who have that story and how do you get them through on learning that?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I definitely have clients where they had older brothers or cousins or relatives who showed them pornography when they were, you know, pre-pubescent or right as they were hitting puberty, and said hey, you're gonna like this, you're gonna have fun with this, and encouraged it. And then they just kind of went along with it and it became something like oh, that feels good the first time, let's keep doing that, and then it turns into an addiction, and so there's. That absolutely does happen. You know, the way that it's undone is that it's through the, the 3Ds, it's all because, it's really all the 3Ds.
Speaker 1:It's all the 3Ds Detect define download. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just, and so they identify, they they're detecting the things that are important to them and then they're defining based on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think part of that detection is also detecting some of the stories that they've told themselves in regards to to worth and what people societal expect, expectations and what they think they're supposed to like, etc. So I think all of that is is pretty spot on. And so did you develop the 3Ds with kind of pairing like neuroscience and psychology? Like how did you? I know that obviously you have a background in biology and with your experience you kind of dug deeper into the neuro neurobiology, the neuro part of it. So I just want to hear a little bit more about what you learned as you dug deeper into neuroscience and how you were able to combine it with psychology.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you, and I think you kind of maybe tried to ask. You did ask me this earlier and I went down a different route.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I think. I don't think. I explicitly asked you to be fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it all started with when I was trying to find doctors who would help me with my brain damage and my cigotera neurotoxin illness and no one was giving me any answers and basically just kind of tossing up their hands and saying, well, that's, you, just have to live with it, just tolerate it. And I would not accept that because my life quality had gotten so low it didn't feel worth sticking around on this planet Like it was just so extreme physical pain, extreme emotional pain, extreme feelings of I'm a burden, low self worth.
Speaker 2:The physical pain was like I couldn't even have a conversation. A lot of the times I have to go hide in like a dark, quiet room, and so what I did do, though, is I would dive deep into the scientific literature. One of the things. So I'm a former wildlife biologist and I had training and reading. You know the scientific literature and this and that, and so I transferred that skill and just switched and looked at neurobiology, and I was reading all these published scientific papers and about the nervous system and the brain and the limbic system and so many parts of of our nervous system and how it ties into our emotions and how our emotions can change.
Speaker 2:You know our parasympathetic versus the sympathetic nervous system, and the healing for the physical body has to take place when our emotions and our neurochemicals are in the parasympathetic. So we have lower stress hormones, elevated serotonin, elevated oxytocin, and so I learned all of these different things that I needed to do in order to make those neurochemical switches for healing. And as I was reading about trauma and brain damage and all this different stuff, there would be all these addiction articles, and addiction would be integrated and kind of laced into these, these papers, and I'm like I'm not here for addiction, I'm here for trauma healing and healing my brain and nervous system. And I was in dire straits with so much stuff or sometimes, like my memory was so bad that if, if it was, you know, five years ago and you and I were having this conversation come tomorrow, I wouldn't even remember that we were talking.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So it was really scary. It was really scary and I just kind of formulated my own protocol to heal from trauma. I kind of learned that through all this research I kind of put the pieces together oh, my physical body is only going to continue the healing process under these set of neurochemical and emotional conditions and I really have to do trauma healing in order to create what my physical body needs, like the myth of normal and Dr Gohormati's book. And so this was before that book was even out and I just kind of had learned that through what I was researching and working with the limbic system part of the brain, there is a program called DNRS by Annie Hopper which helped me to identify limiting beliefs and pattern, interrupt away from them and work on reducing the hyper vigilance of the limbic system part of my brain which is like the command center for the stress response. And eventually, like my sole purpose was like heal from Sigwitera, neurotoxin illness heal from adult PTSD.
Speaker 2:And then during that I learned, oh, I have childhood trauma that I have to heal from. As part of this healing journey to heal from the Sigwitera neurotoxin illness and as I was going through all of that, it eventually it hit me one day that like, oh my gosh, I. This is a perfect formula for anyone with any addiction to overcome any addiction to the core of who they are, to the depths of their soul. And with having been in love with a man who was addicted to pornography, my subconscious mind presented the question who needs this the most? Men suffering from pornography addiction? It was all just sort of happened.
Speaker 1:I think that's really really good Like. It just seems like you know our life. We always think about purpose. Actually had a conversation with another guest Recently when we're talking about purpose and he mentioned the three P's, priority principles and passion right, and I think you know, based on what you went through, I think you developed a passion for healing and moving through addiction and then that also unraveled different things in regard in regards to trauma and all of that stuff which became like probably a life principle for you is just like healing and moving through in trauma and then it eventually became a priority and you found purpose in this work.
Speaker 1:So that's really interesting to hear. And another thing I saw on your website is that you know a lot of men that have gone through your program and they've given their testimony. There's there's like a pattern of a lot of them getting closer to God or becoming more spiritual. Can you just talk about that a little bit more? And why do you think walking down that path of healing and addiction recovery brings people closer to a spiritual practice? Or, you know, getting closer to God?
Speaker 2:This is a powerful question, and so you know my course is designed for anyone who wants to over, any man who wants to overcome porn addiction, even atheists. I have it set up in a way so that they feel welcome. When I got brain damage, I was an atheist. My healing journey Interesting.
Speaker 1:Oh we need to get into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah my healing journey sent me also on a spiritual awakening. It's it and I don't put that on anyone. It is zero part of my agenda for anyone else to believe what I believe. It is so personal that it doesn't matter to me if other people believe it. It is like it's mine. And if other people you know most of my, my clients, I would say probably at least 95 percent of my clients are men of faith, of different religions. A lot of them are Christians, lds, jewish, I mean they're Muslims, and then I do have a few atheist clients as well and I love and welcome them all.
Speaker 2:And I do teach a little bit about the, the neuroscience of spirituality. There is a book. There is a book by Lisa Miller. I think it's called the Awakened Brain. I believe so, by Lisa Miller, and she did a really robust study on the science of spirituality and I was interested in it because I had already dove into my spiritual awakening.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't want to say I dove into my spiritual awakening. That makes it sound like I was seeking it out and it was just a something that beautifully showed up in my healing journey, and so I allow my clients, if they want to, to speak about that, but in a way where it's not there's no agenda for another person to believe what they believe it's. How is it helping you in your own personal journey? And so I almost never talk about my own spiritual experiences with my clients. I will, if they ask if it's one on one, but if it's in a whole room, I'm like I just I only want to share it if everyone in the room wants to hear it and that's there's. I don't know if there's any other thing in my life where that's the case.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear if you don't mind sharing right? Because I think, on a word to the wise, I part of why I love having these types of conversations is just really I think you know there's a mind, body, spirit connection. I'm a huge believer in that and we are not just our bodies, we're so much more than that and the spirit part of it kind of talks dives into the metaphysical components of being a human being and keeping us grounded in addition to our mind and our body. So I would love to hear if you don't mind sharing your spiritual awakening. Being an atheist prior to you know having your addiction triggered to healing and then having a spiritual awakening and you know, getting closer to a higher power.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and then found, found science and then turned atheist, even though a lot of people find science and they find that it deepens their spirituality. And essentially getting into meditation, where I was doing a lot of Dr Joe Dispenza meditations and I had some pretty profound experiences, especially when I went to one of his seven day advanced meditation retreats Experiences where I don't even know how to put words on it or explain it or describe it, but just kind of that feeling connected to it, kind of that feeling connected to everyone and everything, and like just having that feeling that there is, there's something at play here that's larger than me, that's larger than all of us and is all of us in a way. It's really hard to put to words and there were just certain experiences that I began to have in my life, that I still continue to have, that it can't be coincidence, like there is something big and powerful and special and important here and I think that, whatever that is, I believe it's the same core essence that every religion around the world experiences. There's just as human beings there are enough of us around the world for, as far as we know, that humans have been here that we've just had certain experiences that say, wow, this is bigger than me, and we try to make sense of it. That is the best that we can. And so these experiences that just keep happening to me, like I'll give an example, if that's okay, yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 2:So, oh, maybe two years ago or so, I had just enrolled a client into my program and it was so exciting and at the end of our call he asked if he could pray for me and my atheist version of the past would have been like it would have been. I would have just said yes, out of common courtesy, even though I would have hated it. But this was a new experience because I felt open to it. I felt open to the experience and I realized I would have felt open to the experience no matter what religious faith he was in.
Speaker 2:He happened to be a Christian man and his gift was the gift of prayer and it was his favorite. He loved praying, he loved it, and there were certain things that he said, certain with his words that it was like how the heck do you know this about me? I have anyone this and beforehand he goes. I just he's like, I just want you to know that I just let the divine, like, speak through me and I don't know what I'm going to say, but stuff just comes out and I just didn't think much of it.
Speaker 2:And then, when he was speaking, I was floored. I was floored by what he was saying. It was like he knew things about me that he shouldn't have known. But the words were like oh my gosh, how are you saying this right now? How do you know me to this level? And that was a spiritual experience for me. And other things began happening where I would approach the divine, would a person in my life who I care about would enter my mind and I would have a certain emotional response about them, and then I would hear from them like immediately after, and they would get, they would share something with me, and what they shared with me matched the emotional response that I was experiencing and thinking about them as and I'm like what the heck is going on.
Speaker 1:That is crazy.
Speaker 2:And I just have to think, like you know what, if this is happening at a frequency beyond coincidence and there's nothing, there's nothing special about me that this is happening, Every single human being can do this or something. I don't know what to call it. We all have some unique ability or we can all do this. I don't know. It's almost feels like it feels like empathy from afar. It feels like empathy from afar and it makes me feel like we're all connected in the same exact way, on the same level, and when we are tapped into our spiritual side and have that more openness and we pay attention, that we begin to notice these things, I think there may be happening to everyone to some level. Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing such a powerful story. I think what you were describing a little bit sounded like clear sentience, which I hope I'm not getting this wrong but it's when you have psychic knowing and you feel it in your body. I believe that's what it is, but, like you said, it sounds like empathy from afar as well. So thank you for sharing that. I think that was a great way to kind of round up our conversation, and I always ask my guests for final words of wisdom to the listeners. We've had such a powerful conversation, so it could be related to what we've been talking about or it could be completely. It could be something completely different, that you kind of keeping your back pocket as you go through life. Yeah, you know the first thing that's coming to mind.
Speaker 2:It's a conversation I had with my clients in bravery boot camp recently, and the conversation was about honor and it's honor yourself, but that's easy to say, but there's all of these things that come around with it. Like, what does it even mean to honor yourself? Most people don't know what it means to honor themselves. Most people don't know themselves deep enough to honor themselves. Most people aren't making choices that have to do with self respect and honors, that self respect is part of the honor conversation and that when you honor yourself, it's not selfish, because the more you honor yourself, the healthier you will be as an individual. The healthier you are, the less stress you have, the more resilient you are to handle stress, and when we're living in those conditions, our ability to give back to others is so much more. The way that I honor you is by honoring me, essentially, and so honor yourself know what it means to honor yourself.
Speaker 2:Know what that means. If you were to take a pen and paper and write out what it means to honor yourself, write out what it means when you're not honoring yourself, would you know what that looks like? Would you know what that looks like? And when you know what it looks like, are you acting on it?
Speaker 1:That's good. Thank you so much, Jessica. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about your work or work with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's essentially selfcraftedkingcom. Selfcraftedkingcom as of right now. I'm probably one of the only people who says this. My front page says don't follow me on social media. Everything you need is right here and you can either sign up for my email list or you can start my program for free. You can watch some of the videos, you can hop on a free call with one of my amazing coaches Once you do an hour worth of the intro to my course and it may change in the future where I have some social media stuff. Everyone's telling me I got to do it.
Speaker 1:Why aren't you on social media?
Speaker 2:So it's highly addictive. There's that one and being on social media it's almost. A lot of people use it as a form of external validation seeking.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I don't want to fall back into that. I'm okay with like I'm not really worried about that it takes up. Here's why I mean there's a lot of reasons. How do I go into this? The times when I've experimented with it in the past, almost everything coming back at me was inappropriate sexual, flirtatious behavior for men who have no desire to heal or recover. They just see a woman talking about sex and they want to flirt with me.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's one reason and I'm not signed up for that. And if, really, everything that you need from me is on my selfcraftedkingcom website, I have a bunch of free content on there to get you going, to get you to know everything that you need to learn. If you know you want to work with me or not? Yeah, and a lot of my clients who are the most serious about recovery, they're not spending any time on social media. Social media is a domino effect to relapse, very much so they're falling. Even when they delete all the Instagram models, things like that, it still shows up in the algorithm, no matter how much you try to delete it. And so a lot of the people who are the most serious about recovery they already know to stay away from social media. And so that's in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:That's good, yeah, I mean, I think I need to use social media a lot less, and I try to do that because, you're right, there's just so much on there, hyper stimulating and very addictive. So you are ahead of the curve. Thank you, jessica, for stopping by. A word to the wise I'm going to put your website in the show notes, but this is a great conversation, thank you so much. Thank you so much, jumi.
Speaker 2:This has been an honor. This was a way to honor myself and thank you A big shout out to Jessica Jordan for stopping by the show.
Speaker 1:If you are interested in learning more about Jessica or you want to send her an email and you want to work with her, please check out the show notes for a link to her email and her website. And, most importantly, if you enjoy this episode, if you found it useful, insightful, if you were able to gain some resources, if you're struggling with this and this episode, or this two part series, has helped you reach out, let me know. You know because I'm doing this, because I'm hoping that it reaches the right people who need this information, and if you are one of those people, let me know how you resonated with this episode. Thank you so much. You can follow or to the wise on Instagram and TikTok at award to the wise pot. We're also on YouTube at award to the wise podcast. Please be sure to subscribe. If you are enjoying the show. Please rate, leave a review, share and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Till next time, peace and love, always, always, always.