Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, my name is Drew Boa. I'm the founder of Husband Material, where I help men outgrow porn. Today's episode is all about how to process your past, specifically by looking at your external family system, like your mom, your dad, your siblings and your internal family system the many different emotions, thoughts and feelings that are within you and by processing these things you can get so much clarity about how your sexuality developed and what healing could look like. This teaching was originally recorded last summer at the HMA in a day workshop and it gives you a preview of the HMA husband material academy video course. Right, the doors to HMA are open. We only open up the program twice a year, once in January and once in July. If you're interested in learning more or in joining HMA, go to joinhmacom, and if you're listening to this as a podcast, you may want to go down to the link in the description to watch the video, because some of what I'm teaching here is going to be very visual. Again, this is a preview of the Husband Material Academy video course. Hope you enjoy it. Processing the past so now that you've hopefully come to a place, through session one and two, where you're seeing your sexual thoughts and feelings and your emotional struggles as trailheads into deeper healing? How do you get to know and understand the past that led you here? Let me say it a different way how can you fully understand this boy who was exploited by porn and who became attached to different sexual behaviors? You know? How do you make sense of what happened to you when you were a kid and what didn't happen, maybe what should have happened, and not only understanding that, but redeveloping what you didn't get so that you can be a sexually, emotionally, spiritually mature man of God. That's what we're going into today. A sexually, emotionally, spiritually mature man of God. That's what we're going into today.

Speaker 1: 2:26

We're talking about sexual development. Many of us don't even know what the stages of sexual development are, because so many of us grew up in a home and a culture where sex just wasn't talked about. We didn't feel like it was safe. We didn't have models of you know, all right, what is my penis? What is it for? How do you approach relationships with other boys, with other girls? So many of us lacked guidance and support in this area and, as a result, our sexual development got stuck. Here's a little question for you when do you think sexual development begins? Puberty, childhood. I think it actually begins even before birth. Sexual development is already starting to be shaped by experiences in the womb and in fact, I would argue that it's already being shaped by the stories of your parents and your grandparents. That's already setting the stage for your sexual development by creating the soil that you grew up in.

Speaker 1: 3:41

Our sexuality develops in our family, as weird as that may sound. So let me just ask you what are some words you would use to describe your family Put it in the chat your family of origin when you were growing up? Rigid, emotionally constipated, broken, dysfunctional, detached, troubled, abusive, manipulative, fake, judgmental, closed off, sexualized, loving I see loving in there Shut down, disengaged, chaotic, stuffed emotions, sarcastic, punishing, shame-filled, unstable, looking good on the outside, sick on the inside they tried their best Unsafe, toxic, lonely, loving, compassionate, unhealthy I want to encourage you, as you're naming some of these things, to use the word and so my family was unhealthy and loving. They provided for me physically and they neglected me emotionally and sexually, Rather than using the word, but that just throws a big but all over everything and invalidates whatever you just said. So we want to hold both sides of the good and the bad and the ugly Using the word, and there is a very predictable family background that creates the conditions for porn and fantasy and masturbation to become a secret life. And that system externally in our creates an internal system.

Speaker 1: 5:49

So in this session, processing the Past, we're going to talk about our external family systems and we're going to talk about our internal family systems, because that is the soil where our sexuality develops and this will be very interactive. I want to encourage you to get out a piece of paper and a pen, if you have one. If you don't, that's okay, you can just type on your computer and we're going to look at the systems that set us up to struggle sexually. We've got some work to do. We've got some good processing to do. There are three big categories in HMA, unit 5 that can help us make sense of our story and our sexuality that I want to highlight here. Our story and our sexuality that I want to highlight here. One is abandonment, two is enmeshment and three is abuse.

Speaker 1: 7:00

So abandonment is what happens when your family is not connected or close, when everybody feels far away, when it should feel like a supportive, nurturing place where you can come for a refuge, you can be known and loved and seen at an emotional heart level. Many of us grew up in families that were disconnected, where we were abandoned Could be abandoned physically family members who just weren't there or who were working all the time or just totally disengaged off in their own world. Could be abandoned emotionally where you talked all the time but it never got deep. Could be abandoned sexually where that just wasn't even talked about at all. You could be abandoned sexually where that just wasn't even talked about at all. You could be abandoned academically. You could be abandoned athletically. There's so many areas of abandonment and neglect that we often don't realize because we just thought it was normal. It was just normal to come home from school and be by myself for hours every single day. It was just normal to never ask anyone, ask how I'm really doing. Abandonment is huge and whatever connection we lacked, oftentimes we seek out, symbolically and sexually, the connection that we didn't get. How have you experienced abandonment?

Speaker 1: 8:32

If abandonment refers to relationships that are not close enough, enmeshment refers to relationships that are too close, that are icky, gross Relationships, that are taking something from you when they're really supposed to be giving something to you. Many of us are also not aware of enmeshment because we just thought it was normal. But enmeshment often happens with a parent who is using a child to meet their needs rather than meeting the child's needs. This often happens if dad is totally disconnected from mom. Well, it's often the case that mom will turn to her son for the relationship that she should be having with her husband, where she needs the boy.

Speaker 1: 9:28

This is often a setup for pornography, because it's easy for boys who grow up enmeshed to want a place to separate and get away and for a relationship with a woman or another person. It just feels like too much, it's overwhelming needy. There's so much pressure that they're looking for a relationship that doesn't ask anything in return. So porn can provide a sense of connection and porn can also provide a sense of separation, and porn can also provide a sense of separation. This can be referred to as covert incest or emotional incest, where maybe you felt like you had to be the person that your family needed. Kids are not supposed to be needed. They're supposed to be wanted, delighted in, loved, cherished, but not needed Not needed in a sense of needing to be used.

Speaker 1: 10:29

If you grew up as a trophy son, perhaps do you realize that you were objectified. A trophy is an object, not a person. Could it be that what you interpreted as love was actually you being used to support your mom or your dad, or the family image? What parents need to do is love their kids and then ask for nothing in return, expect nothing in return, and that's oftentimes what porn symbolically provides Giving you something that you want and need and then saying and there are no strings attached, you can turn off the screen whenever you want. So there's a version of freedom in there, there's a version of connection, there's a version of freedom that's provided by the sexual stimulation that we've often turned to.

Speaker 1: 11:30

And, lastly, the one that takes men an average of over 20 years to realize is abuse. As we've said in session. Two, being introduced to porn as an early age is childhood sexual abuse, and also, the vast majority of us were emotionally abused, yelled at, called names, shamed, intimidated, bullied, and that's abuse. Some of us were physically abused as well Spanked, beaten, whipped. Many of us were bullied, and porn is an abuser, one that we keep coming back to. So, in order to really process how you got to where you are sexually, these categories are incredibly important.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Jay Stringer goes into them more deeply in Unwanted as well. You find it more in HMA, abandonment, enmeshment and abuse. If you have a story of abandonment, the need you feel is for connection. If you have a story of enmeshment, the need you feel is for freedom. If you have a story of abuse, the need you feel is for redemption, and that's why many of us replay our abuse sexually, because there's something unfinished there, there's something incomplete there and it needs redemption. We're going to talk more about redemption in session four.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Oftentimes, if you're reenacting your trauma, it's this part of you that wants redemption. It's going back there because there needs to be something done to change what happened, to redeem what happened, and when you can experience that in real life, wow. And when you can experience that in real life, wow. Born loses its power. So these are some of the major themes to explore.

Speaker 1: 13:22

I want to invite you to do something a little bit different now, and if you can't do this, that's okay. I want you to draw a picture of yourself growing up in your family. I'm going to show you an example. For me, this is little Drew, age three, sitting in front of a TV screen watching the Lion King for hours, while my mom is working in the other room. My hockey stick is lying on the floor, because my dad is also not there at all, but if he was there I would want to play hockey with him here I am. My only connection, my only companion, is the TV screen. I was raised by screens. My most secure attachment was with screens. My imagination was captured by screens Movies, tv shows, video games, later porn. And in this picture I see abandonment. I see myself growing up thinking that neglecting my needs was normal, not really worthy of someone's face or heart. I'm just fine by myself. And at the same time I see something beautiful here, because this little Drew is being inspired by what he sees on the screen, by these stories of heroes, stories of rescue, dreaming about being a hero or whatever my own life might turn into. So this is my picture that I drew.

Speaker 1: 15:36

You don't have to be a good artist. I want you to take some time to just draw and and draw what it felt like. Maybe certain characters in your story feel really big. Draw them big. Maybe somebody feels dangerous. Maybe you want to use a color like red to indicate that danger. Or maybe somebody feels cold and distant. You want to use a color like red to indicate that danger. Or maybe somebody feels cold and distant. You want to use blue.

Speaker 1: 16:14

I'm going to show you one more example of a drawing that you can do. If you want to do something a little bit more diagrammy, here's another one that I drew. This is just an example. You see, mom is too close. There's a big red red jagged line here, feeling like feeling invaded upon by mom. Dad is distant, god is distant With a brother. In this story there's a distance, but there's also something hurtful too with the red.

Speaker 1: 17:01

For many of us, a grandparent was a safe person, and so I put grandma over here. You might want to indicate that perhaps For some of us, a dog, a dog or a pet was a loving, connected, consistent presence that we didn't find in other people. You could have some neutral relationships or pure relationships, so I want to invite you to draw something like this relationships or peer relationships. So I want to invite you to draw something like this, either like this one or the other one that I drew, and take some time to get into that little boy's world. Let him show you what he went through.

Speaker 1: 17:54

You may be tempted to compare your story to others. Don't do that. What you went through is valid. Everyone thinks somebody else had it worse. What makes an event traumatic is not how severe it was, but how fully it was processed or not, and so even pain that you might think of as small if it was left unhealed, it got infected and it could still need a surgery years later, just as much as an open, gaping gash. So I just want to validate your story, whatever it is, and acknowledge that whatever your sexual struggle is didn't start with you.

Speaker 1: 18:56

I'll give you a few more minutes to draw if you're drawing, and if you're not drawing, you can just ask okay, who felt close to me when I was a kid? Who felt distant? Relationship was confusing or disturbing? Where did I experience enmeshment, abandonment, abuse? Oftentimes, when you do this, it becomes a lot clearer why certain things appeal to you sexually, why certain types of people may have caught your attention. This is your external family system. I wish we were all in person together so we could have the crayons and the papers out.

Speaker 1: 19:56

What we're going to do I think, which is a little easier than drawing a picture, is now that you've done some processing with your external family. We're going to talk about your internal family. Your internal family includes things like emotions, thoughts, sexual attractions, parts of you, attractions, parts of you, internal family systems is one of the major approaches that we use at Husband Material Academy. It's an anti-shaming approach which claims that there are no bad parts of you. God created every part of you and every part of you is good, and also our parts are often stuck in bad roles. Our parts are often immature, unhealed, stuck in sin, stuck in different cycles, and what we did in session two in the demonstration was we worked with a part of Jordan that felt unaffirmed, unseen, a part of him that had this sexual fantasy about an encounter with a man in a locker room. So now what I want to do is invite you to create what we call a parts map, based on that picture you drew of this boy in the soil, of his childhood experiences and what he went through, what were some different parts of you that developed out of that.

Speaker 1: 22:04

So here is me. We're just going to call this core self. This is the person that God made me to be. The core self is who I am. It's the image of God in me. You might say it's Christ in me. The core self has these qualities love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. In the book Boundaries for your Soul, they call it the spirit-led self. In internal family systems they call your core self curious, compassionate, courageous, confident, calm, connected and having a choice. So this is the person from our sexual recovery. Deep down, this core self exists. Nothing can erase the image of God in you and your identity in Christ, who you are, is probably the most powerful resource you have toward freedom from porn.

Speaker 1: 23:15

But we're not just a core self. We also have these parts of us. We have protective parts that are trying to keep us safe from various things. Who came in to help us in various ways to keep us safe from various things. Who came in to help us in various ways. We also have exiles, or what we might typically think of as the inner child parts that feel weak. Remember, we talked about the lies we believe about ourselves Unworthy alone, disgusting. I don't belong. Those are exiles.

Speaker 1: 23:45

So let's start with the exiles. What are some of the parts of you that are wounded, that want to seek out porn as a pacifier to take the pain away? Exiles here. These are some of those lies that we believe about ourselves. But the truth is I feel that way. Okay, I'm ugly, I'm fat, what else? People hate me. So I'm going to say I'm hated, unloved, dirty, I'm bad, alone. Bad alone. Fraud, perverted, pretender that might actually be a protector. Weak, undesirable, dumb, yeah, awkward, feminine, abandoned, yep. Dirty, yeah. So this is what we called the orphanage in session one. These are the parts of us that are attached to porn. We didn't feel these things, we would have no need for porn. So many, so many, um, exiles in here. So I want you to make a list of this for yourself and if you're not sure, well, look at that picture you drew of your external family and see how did that boy feel about himself Oftentimes, all of these things.

Speaker 1: 25:56

So how do we deal with that? Well, without the core self, we we turn to different things. Now some of our protectors are more socially acceptable, more seemingly successful. We call those managers in the IFS term. So, in our context of wanting to be free from porn, some of our managers might be the, you know, like the purity culture part of me Just wants to stop, to stop using it.

Speaker 1: 26:30

Maybe there's the warrior part of me. Again, these parts are not bad, there are no bad parts, but oftentimes they get stuck in bad roles. So what are some of your managers? Maybe the people pleaser Okay. Workaholic, that might actually be a different one.

Speaker 1: 26:50

But nice guy Ooh, the nice guy, that's good. Humor, okay, yes, what else? The religious part of me? The fixer Very good. Self-deprecating yeah, let's call that the inner critic, that's a big one. Self-deprecating yeah, let's call that the inner critic, that's a big one.

Speaker 1: 27:11

The helper who's always helping people. Controller you know the bossy part of me. Who? The savior? I was trying to save others.

Speaker 1: 27:19

Peacemaker, yes. Quick thinker. Performer, yeah, the achiever. Listener, maybe that could be. I think the listener could be different ones, but the sense of the person being a hero, yeah. The do-gooder, yeah, right. Like the good Christian boy. Compliant, yes. Golden boy, all right.

Speaker 1: 27:44

So these are the managers. These are the parts that oftentimes help us in life by actually seeming to be very useful. These are the parts that are often praised in church. These are the parts that we like to show to other people because they're clearly doing a lot. They're working very hard, doing a lot. They're working very hard.

Speaker 1: 28:13

Oftentimes, they're working very hard to try to prevent us from feeling these exile feelings. Maybe if I'm the nice guy, then I'll be loved because I feel unloved. Maybe if I'm the religious guy, then I won't have to feel like such a bad person. Maybe if I'm the performer or the hero, then I won't feel awkward or dumb. So the managers are often trying to either prevent the pain of the exiles or they're just trying to make the exiles go away, or they're just trying to make the exiles go away. The problem is these managers they try really, really hard but in the end they're limited. In the end they're not going to heal you. They can help you but they can't heal you. And a lot of us have been through porn, recovery programs or things like that, which were ultimately just feeding this side of us. Patrick says this is the most understandable way I've heard IFS explained. I'm so glad. Now, these are the sides of us that we think of as oh yeah, the good guy right. But we also have other parts of us that are also trying to help the exiles, that are also working hard, but they have a different strategy and their strategy is to try to take the pain away.

Speaker 1: 29:47

When I feel unloved, dirty, bad, weak, what do I do Oftentimes? Turn to porn, or turn to food, or turn to something else to try to distract myself or extinguish the fire. That's why these parts are called firefighters. So tell me what are some of your firefighters? Let's just say the porn watcher, okay so eating, masturbating, fantasizing Yep. Playing video games, even exercising yeah, that can be. That can be. That can be a manager or a firefighter. Drinking, daydreaming? Yep, I have a. I have a distractor who distracts me a lot Scrolling Yep, scrolling part of me. Sleeping yeah, again, these are not bad parts. Yes, so the workaholic can actually be on this side too.

Speaker 1: 30:56

Am I working to try to make pain go away, or am I working to try to stop pain from ever starting? I'm going to say overeating instead of eating. But all of these, all of these are well-intentioned attempts to try to deal with the fact that I feel this way, that I feel all of this pain, all of this childhood trauma. Firefighters are trying to help, and when all you do is try to stop doing these things, and when all you do is try to stop doing these things, then you're just having a war between your managers and your firefighters.

Speaker 1: 31:44

You have no access to your core self. Core self is where healing happens. I think what you saw with me, what you saw with Jordan, our demonstrations earlier, was being in our core self and bringing healing to these parts, because in order for them to heal, they have to touch. They have to touch Jesus, they have to touch God, they have to be in contact with curiosity and compassion and all those good things. So a lot of what we do at Husband Material is essentially trying to bring healing to these different parts. It's essentially trying to bring healing to these different parts. So when you look at your external family system, you see how these internal parts formed. They make a lot of sense when you see how you grew up.

Speaker 1: 32:30

So I'm going to put some more on here, because there are so many good ones Busyness, extreme hobbies perhaps Thrill seeking, reading could really be any of them. So here's why this matters All these different parts. They're not who you are and God is not interested in destroying your parts. He wants to redeem your parts. He wants to welcome them home. This journey of outgrowing porn, it's not about fighting a battle. It's about coming home after wandering. Coming home after wandering.

Speaker 1: 33:20

You can think of the managers as like the older brother in the parable of the two lost sons. You can think of the firefighters as a younger brother. Both of them. Both of them need some healing and love so that you simply don't need porn anymore. Alright, I hope this is making sense to you guys. The part of you that wants to use porn is probably a firefighter, and it doesn't need more shame, it doesn't need more criticism, it doesn't need condemnation, it doesn't need willpower, it needs love, it needs you, it needs you, it needs God. So if you've got your parts map, that gives you an opportunity for further work, to say, yeah, I think I want to spend some time with the anxious part of me, or I think I want to spend some time with the people pleaser, or I think I want to spend some time with the one who is scrolling on my phone.

Speaker 1: 34:23

Ultimately, a relapse happens when our exiles are in pain and the managers can't handle it anymore, so the firefighters take over. What we do at Hazmaterial is say no, no. Instead of doing that, let's have your core self relate to those exiles. Let's have your adult self relate to that little boy, find out what he really needs and then redirect that energy in a redemptive way. By the way, what I'm advising you to do here is for your own healing work. This is not to use on your wife or on other men to try to tell them what they should do or how they should relate to you. This is for each of us to learn for ourselves and then to support each other as a community. A lot of guys are not going to get this, and that's okay. A lot of wives are not going to get this, and that's okay. See the questions. Are we only spending time with firefighters? Any part of me you can. You can spend time with any part of you. Oftentimes, when you spend time with a part of you, you can come to a point of renaming it.

Speaker 1: 35:51

So I once had an IFS experience with my inner critic, who was telling me that whatever I did, I was going to fail. Even if I seemed to succeed. It was like nope, I'm giving you an F, you suck. My inner critic was really really hard on me. Well, jesus came into the scenario. My inner critic was holding a clipboard with a red pen marking up all my mistakes and when Jesus came in, he just dropped the clipboard and my inner critic was renamed the observer. Instead of having a red pen marking up all my mistakes, he now has an observer to just point things out without judgment. So my inner critic is now my observer and he's doing well.

Speaker 1: 36:39

The inner critic would be more of a manager in this model, someone who's trying to help me do the right thing. The firefighters aren't concerned with doing the right thing, they're just concerned with trying to make the pain stop. So the managers are trying to make sure that the exiles don't sabotage our life. Like you know, I got to do everything right so that I don't end up unloved ugly alone, things like that. The firefighters are saying who cares about that stuff? We just need to survive. There's a fire going on and we got to put it out. And that's where porn comes in Other similar unwanted behaviors. But the managers and the firefighters are both driven by fear. Driven by fear, the core self is driven by love. Arousal can be an exile for sure, especially if you have really hated yourself for a certain type of arousal. Maybe that arousal is, you know, it's part of your group of exiles. It can also be a firefighter trying to make the pain go away.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Richard says is the goal to get all of your parts to play nice together, kind of? I want you to think of your internal family system as a school bus. This comes from the book Boundaries for your Soul, which I highly recommend. In the book it says that all of your parts are kind of like kids on a school bus and your goal is to walk right up to the front of the school bus and take back the steering wheel. The problem is the kids might not let you do that. Remember, in session two we talked about you first have to love the boy before you can lead the boy. You first have to build trust with these parts of you before you can gain their cooperation. So for some of us it's almost like, hey, the kids are driving the bus and I'm like at the back watching them take control and veer off the road into an accident.

Speaker 1: 38:48

In this work you are learning how to love and lead your parts. You're kind of like the conductor of the symphony and there are all these instruments. So yes, in a sense the goal is to help the instruments play together so that you can create something beautiful in your life and in your sexuality. So just to clarify one more time I'm getting some questions about this Within us, about this Within us. We all have these three different types of parts the exiles who are wounded, the managers and the firefighters whose job it is to try to protect us, but they are often doing a poor job. So our goal is to live more from our core self rather than from any part of us, and that's it Again.

Speaker 1: 39:47

This teaching was a preview of the Husband Material Academy video course. If you want to go deeper into these topics and you want to learn more about HMA, go to joinhmacom. The doors are open now and they will not be open again until July. In any case, I hope this was helpful for you, especially in understanding internal family systems, and I want you to always remember that you are God's beloved son and in you he is well-pleased.