Welcome to the husband material podcast where we help Christian men quit pornography so you can change your brain, heal your heart and save your relationship. My name is drew boa and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Today we're talking about your inner child or as I like to say your inner children because there's more than one picture of your brain, like a dining room and in the middle there's a big table and sitting around it are all the different parts of you or the different versions of yourself at different ages. So for me, I have the six year old drew, the 13 year old drew and the 20 year old drew for example, and the 13 year old one. The one that I've hated the most over time is not surprisingly also the one who was latching on to pornography and masturbation. So for me to heal deeply, I needed to get to know that 13 year old kid and learn how to love him. We call this process reparenting yourself in the recovery world and it gives you a whole new level of healing when you're able to do this. My clients love this perspective because when a sexual temptation or urge or fantasy comes up, they can see through it to the little boy on the other side who was wounded, who was alone or who was drawn to it for some reason, and when you can get to know him, when you can listen to him, it becomes so much easier to quit porn. It's no longer fighting an uphill battle. It's embracing all the different parts of you and leading them in a new direction. So how do you repair your inner child? I know it sounds complicated and confusing, but it's really not. Basically, when you get triggered and a younger version of yourself is cropping up into the present moment and it wants to get its way, and maybe it wants to use pornography, you start a conversation and you ask yourself, what would a good parent do? How can I help this child? Here are four ways to re father yourself. Number one, notice a good dad doesn't ignore his kid. You notice their body language, you name their feelings and see if you're understanding them correctly. So you can do this with yourself. Notice the sensations in your body. I'm feeling tense, I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling numb and identify emotions. Um, maybe it's fear, maybe it's shame. And simply noticing and naming those things is a great way to begin the conversation with your younger self. Another effective way to reparent your younger self is to affirm, to celebrate the good things a good dad doesn't assume you know how awesome you are or what you're doing well. So you call out the things that are good and you name the things that are hard. For example, for my 13 year old self, I just needed affirmation that I was going through something really, really hard. And so after noticing my pain, I also needed to affirm, Hey, you're persevering through this. And it's so hard. That would have meant so much to me at that time. So notice, affirm and also challenge a good dad offers challenge in an age appropriate way based on his wisdom and his experience. He speaks into your life. So this is something you can do for your younger self. Speak into his life's. Tell him the things he needed to hear. For me, I asked myself what did I need to hear at 13 years old? What did I need to do and then I can challenge myself to do those things. You can also support, just spend quality time. A good dad spends quality time with you, not with any agenda. Just finding out what you love to do and doing it with you so you can do this for your inner child too. You set aside time for self care and self expression and doing something together, spend quality time and you won't feel the need to act out with pornography as much. Maybe some of these things seem like common sense to you, but are you really doing them when you get triggered and your younger self is clamoring for attention and trying to take control? Are you commonly noticing and affirming and supporting and challenging like a good dad would do when you're able to do this? Your journey towards sexual wholeness and your freedom from porn won't be a journey of fear of trying to get away from the bad sex and the bad porn. It'll be a journey of love of getting to know those younger parts of you, embracing them, just like a good dad would do out of these four different ways to repair it yourself. I wonder which one is most important for you, if you'd like a little bit more help in putting this into practice. I created a worksheet for you, which you can download at the link for this episode. In any case, always remember, you're not alone in re fathering yourself because you are God's beloved son. He's your father and he's teaching you how to do it in you. He is well, please.