Guest Post by Eric Zuzack, a Porn & Sex Addiction Recovery Coach.
I was addicted to porn for decades. I went the standard route to quit porn for years (decades, really) by going to a traditional therapist, 12 step meetings, and medication. I tried everything to stop. Nothing seemed to work.
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Out of desperation, I kept searching and discovered that some people were kicking the porn habit by using the science of mindfulness. Mindfulness is a large umbrella term covering everything from meditation to martial arts. Also, under that umbrella is moving meditation.
I will discuss four ways I use the science of mindfulness, specifically moving meditation, to break the porn habit. If you are addicted to compulsive sex, compulsive masturbation, compulsive use of pornography, you are using your body in an unhealthy way. What is so great about moving meditation is you are using your body in a healthy way to soothe and calm your mind.
Traditional meditation is excellent, and I highly recommend it. However, if you are addicted to porn, then meditation alone will not cut it. That is why I recommend moving meditation. To break a habit, we’ve got to replace the habit, and we’re going to replace watching porn with moving meditation.
The four types of moving meditations I use are: walking, yoga, martial arts, and tapping.
1. Walking
I was just talking with one of my coaching clients, and he said that he went for a mindful meditative walk. I was so proud of him. Mindful walking is one of the best things you can do for your physical and mental health.
Let’s talk about what mindful walking is not. Mindful walking is not having a conversation on your cell phone while you’re walking. It’s not texting while you’re walking. It’s not scrolling through your Facebook feed while you’re walking. That is the opposite of mindful walking, because you are not aware of your surroundings.
What is a mindful walk? A mindful walk is going for a walk and just being conscious of your surroundings, aware of your breathing, and conscious of your mind. Perhaps you have an affirmation that you’re saying to yourself over and over. Maybe you have a mantra that you’re saying while going for your mindful walk. I like saying, “Every day and every way, I’m getting stronger and stronger.” Or, “My thought habits are moving to the higher planes and attracting only that which is good to me.”
Or perhaps you have a favorite Sanskrit mantra, like “Ahem Prima / I am of the Divine.” Or your mantra could be just saying one word over and over like “Love, love, love.”
Then, when your mind drifts onto something else, you bring it back to the mantra, “Love, love, love”, or you could just say a number “one, one, one.” Concentrate on your surroundings, focus on your breath, and say your mantra.
2. Yoga
Yoga has become wildly popular all around the world. There are thousands of free yoga videos on YouTube. However, one low-tech way I like to do yoga is by using yoga cards with different poses. I draw a card and then strike the pose. That’s a very simple way to do yoga.
Yoga has been around for thousands of years. It is a tried and true path to calm your mind and soul mindfully. One of my favorites is Child’s Pose. It helps relieve mental fatigue and encourages feelings of safety. When you feel like the earth is crumbling beneath your feet, then try the Warrior Pose for strength and stability.
3. Martial Arts
I’m a huge advocate of martial arts, but when most people think about martial arts, they think of Karate, Taekwondo, or mixed martial arts (MMA). Those are the hard arts. For moving meditation, I’m referring to the soft martial arts or the internal arts.
Qigong or Tai Chi are slow movements to move one’s Qi/Chi within the body. I started with Yang-style Tai Chi. However, traditional Tai-Chi involves learning a long series of individual mindful movements, often overwhelming for someone new to martial arts. Don’t get me wrong. I love Yang-style Tai Chi. It is fantastic, but it’s not for everyone.
I was often frustrated when doctors would recommend that a student come to our Tai Chi school, because without proper expectations these people failed due to the difficulty. However, the well-prepared doctor was typically right. Tai Chi is used as a great remedy for many different ailments, including compulsive porn habits.
So why introduce you to Tai Chi? Well, in the early seventies, a man named Justin Stone wanted to simplify Tai Chi so more people could use and enjoy it. So he developed Tai Chi Chih, pronounced Cha like in Chalk.
My wife and I learned it from watching others holding weekly practice in a nearby park. That won’t be the norm for most people, but I used my yang style background, and she used her dance background. We eventually watched the online videos to truly learn and fine-tune the movements.
If you consider doing Tai Chi, I highly recommend you check out Tai Chi Chih first. If you enjoy that type of movement, you can decide if you want something more complex like traditional Tai Chi.
4. Tapping
And last but not least, try tapping as mindful movement to distract yourself from porn. Tapping is the Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT. Like Qigong and Tai Chi, it is about energy in the body. EFT focuses your tapping on specific energy centers of your body to elicit change.
These are some of the same centers that use acupuncture. Tapping can help you release stored negative emotions. For example, let’s say your partner triggers you to anger, and you want to act out with porn to soothe yourself. Instead of acting out, you can tap yourself back into a calm state and even (eventually) release the original trauma.
So what is involved in a tapping session? To tap, you’ll need to identify your target and develop a set-up statement. For the above example, you could say, “Even though I am so angry about what my wife did to me, I still love and accept myself.” As you are saying statements like this, you are tapping on various energy centers of your body.
Another example could be triggered by a provocative ad that makes you want to use porn. Instead of doing that, you immediately start tapping on your pressure points with the set up statement: “Even though I want to act out to porn right now, I still love and accept myself.” The tapping will help you transform or transmute that negative energy. And there’s more to this process that will help you ratchet down that trigger.
The amazing thing about tapping is even though you may start tapping about the anger over the situation with your wife, it can start allowing older, similar anger situations to resurface. As things surface, then shift to tapping about that situation. This helps you to heal, getting past your traumas.
I love tapping so much that I became a certified tapping practitioner, and I like to use tapping with my coaching clients.
Just to recap, I’ve talked about the four types of moving meditations useful for quitting porn:
- Mindful walking.
- Yoga.
- Martial arts, specifically Tai Chi.
- Tapping or EFT
So start your morning off right. One of the great things about moving meditations is that you can usually do them anywhere. A daily practice of moving meditation like walking, yoga, Tai Chi, or tapping is one of the most effective ways to break the porn habit by associating good movements with a mind free from destructive thoughts. To break a habit, we’ve got to make a new habit. Start today. Start now!
Author Bio:
Eric Zuzack is the lead Porn & Sex Addiction Recovery Coach for PornAddictionTest.com. He helps men around the globe break the habit and transform their sex energy to repair relationships, increase sales, and aggressively pursue a great life. He is also the host of the five-star rated podcast Porn Talk.
