Podcast Mission And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Husband Material Podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? 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. Thank you for listening to today's interview with Sean Bonito. He is a close friend, a wonderful coach, and today we are talking about why our hearts are hungry and how to meet our unmet needs. Sean gives a really compelling case for why we don't just have physical needs. We have an emotional, relational hunger that needs to be filled just as much as our physical bodies need food. Yet many of us have been starving for years or for decades. We've often deprived ourselves and sexualized what we truly need. And that's where our unwanted behaviors get their power. So this episode could be a really helpful reframe for you. And I hope you enjoy it. Today I am thrilled to have Sean Bonito back on the show. He was one of the very first guests on Husband Material. He was a certified Husband Material coach. He has worked with Deep Clean and Cathea Sam for years, and now he is back at Secret Habit. Thank you so much, Sean, for being with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

It's a privilege and just kind of going down memory lane, remembering those early days, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah. You spoke about freedom. You spoke about habits that heal. You spoke about erectile dysfunction. Can you catch people up on your story

Sean’s Story From Fear To Freedom

SPEAKER_01 1:40

and where you're coming from?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah. Snapshot for my story is that I grew up with a mother who was heavily depressed and was really scary as a person, but she was also my only reference point of Christians, of who God might be. So a lot of my journey of growing up was living in fear, living in intimidation. My dad lost his job when I was around 10 and became very depressed. And, you know, the the common journey of a man who loses purpose and becomes futile. So just a lot of avoidance and neglect and distance within my household. There was a lot of good things. I mean, we had playfulness and whatnot, but there was no like parenting. There was no power in the guidance of having parents. So I found myself into pornography. I found myself with video games. And that just became my life of isolating, withdrawing, thinking that everything was my problem, my fault, and there's never someone safe to share it with. So part of my journey, you know, asking girls on a date, getting no show, getting rejected. So all of that just started to get reinforced. And a big part of my coaching today is helping guys understand why things feel so true. And that's just really my story is all these experiences started to reinforce that God is like my mom. God is just, you know, he's real. And that's actually a really bad thing for Sean. And that just became a really scary place to grow up in. And then as I went into my teen years and young adult years, found myself like sexually acting out more physically, didn't get into prostitution. There's always sort of this moral barrier that I had. I think God protected me into that realm, but just found myself getting into bad, bad places. I even got into a cult. I was in a cult for seven years and found myself trying to make money and provide an image that would cover up all the stuff going on behind the scenes. So a lot of my story is looking for recognition, looking to be wanted and seen. That was the types of porn I found myself watching. And God had such an incredible plan because when I met my wife, she was probably the first safe, reliable woman I had ever met. And sometimes that story doesn't end well when guys have addictions because they cling on and idolize that person. And I think I probably did at some level, but God used Helena in such incredible ways. And he he showed me things that I didn't see before when I met her. So we, you know, we've been married uh nine years now, been together 10 years. So I could probably give so many stories around all of that. But when I met my wife, I just started to realize like what's actually available, and God is actually safe. God is actually accepting and started this journey of me separating what feels true and starting to look at more of what is true, meeting a safe pastor. And, you know, one of my stories I got into celebrate recovery at that time. And I don't fully agree with their methods of how of how they might heal, but it was a community. For the first time, I wasn't looked at as some failure, some horrible person. I didn't have people, you know, calling me a bull in a china shop for making a mistake. And I just started to realize that I'm not inherently flawed. There's actually a journey for me to go on, and that there's people that actually want to help me, much like my child, the opposite of my childhood, where I just felt like my dad wanted to just play and do sports, and my mom just wanted to watch TV. I started to realize there was people that actually wanted to help me and guide me, and that started to change everything. That's where I got out of the cult. I quit pornography, been uh eight years sober and free now, which is absolutely incredible. So I did bring it into my marriage. And, you know, very long story short, God has actually moved me across Canada. I moved from the West Coast of Canada to the East Coast to pursue doing this work with Secret Habit Coaching. Got into the nonprofit world, and God just did an incredible healing on my heart and on my life. That's when I met Drew around that season, moving to Halifax. And that's when I started to really learn about story work and inner child work and the deeper realms of my heart. And that's probably where I moved from more of a sobriety with little ounces of freedom to feeling really free. And then since then, I've actually moved to the Czech Republic and I've been here now for three years.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

And that is really good news for some of our listeners in Europe or on that side of the world that Sean is there, like in a time zone that might be closer to you. And I hope many of you will connect with him. And it's been an incredible privilege to witness your journey and to take part of it together. Yeah, the courageous couples. Yes, we had a group called Courageous Couples that was awesome. And Helena and Rebecca were part of it. I'll never forget that. Over the past few years, you have worked with hundreds of men and helped thousands of men, and you've started to see some patterns.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, you know, I've done about 3,000 coaching sessions now. You know, worked with my own practice for a while, worked with Sathia Sam for three years, and just countless clients all over the world, different backgrounds, different denominations. And it was so common I'd have guys coming to me, three years of therapy, five years of therapy, 10 years of therapy, and just no confidence at all. Like

Why Porn Is Not The Problem

SPEAKER_00 7:08

maybe sobriety, but just zero confidence that they could actually live freely. They could actually enjoy life again. They were always just not white knuckling necessarily, but it's like, if I don't do these things every day, then something bad's gonna happen. And I started to realize that they didn't have clarity of the real problem. They still thought porn was the problem. They still thought the trauma story of their life was their problem. But what I started to realize is that their heart was void of something that it was hungry for. Like Proverbs 4, 23 talks about all things we do flow from the heart. And I started to think about all these guys that were telling me about all their feelings, all their thoughts. They're very valid and they're very important to name, but they flow from the heart. And the heart, I started to realize, is the source, especially with that scripture. Everything we do flows from the heart. And I started to ask guys, what is your heart hungry for when you feel anxious? What is your heart hungry for when you fear failure? What is your heart hungry for when you start to believe that you have no worth? And it started to become very clear that that's the problem, is they have a heart hunger that they've never learned how to feed with quote unquote the bread of life that is Jesus, with loved ones and friends and even their own hobbies. I started to realize that a lot of guys just get busy doing a lot of good Christian things and they hope at the end of the day they just feel better. And they're just not feeling confident living that way. And I kind of got a little bit obsessed for a few years there, just figuring out how do I communicate this with guys in a way that is clear, effective, practical, and something that is systemized. Because sometimes the logical guys we would work with, sometimes the stuff we do feels a little mystical, inner child work or inner healing prayer. And I've had a lot of lawyers and like really logical guys working with me say, Sean, this actually makes sense for the first time. Like I've never understood inner healing prayer, inner child work, and just this idea of clarity of what the heart is hungry for began to help guys realize that that's the focus of any strategy, any inner healing is that clarity of what the real problem is, which is a hungry heart that's never been fed in a way that's godly.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

And that resonates with me.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

And it makes me so curious for what you say next. Like, how do we learn to satisfy our hunger in a healthy way?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah. So maybe maybe I'll put it this way. So when we think about the word hunger, which is why I love this analogy, is it's very rare that we let our stomachs get hungry. Most people have a very regimented plan so that they don't ever feel hungry. No one lets themselves starve. Even when guys are f thinking of fasting, they find it very difficult to consider the idea of fasting for three to seven days. Like that's bonkers to them. But if we think about the heart being hungry, we might have a great morning and then we just

Treat Emotional Hunger Like Food

SPEAKER_00 10:13

assume that life's gonna be great for the next week. We don't even think about the heart being hungry just like our stomach would be. And if we can have that similar mentality, we realize that just because you had a great devo time in the morning doesn't mean that by lunchtime you're still gonna be full, just like your stomach. You would never eat breakfast and say, okay, I'm good for a week. We just wouldn't do that. So when I think about how do I help guys get practical, it really is asking that question of how do you plan to feed your stomach? What if we thought about it in that sense of as you move through your day, if you start your day with clarity of what your heart is hungry for, I'd say for a lot of guys, it's it's commonly boiling down to reassurance, understanding, validation. If you can start your day with that in mind, as you go through your day, I call it the heart hunger game. You can start playing this game within your day to say, whenever you reach for something or do something that you don't want to be doing, it actually adds to the heart hunger. You just take five seconds and realize that just added to my heart hunger. And when you start doing things, or you or you avoid something that you know is good for you. But when you start doing things that are good for you, or you avoid something that's bad for you, you can just take five seconds and realize, hey, that's actually helping my heart be more full. Just to have a gauge, you know, five-second gauges for guys rather than these big 30-minute blocks, most guys are so used to. I journaling for 30 minutes, I call my spotter, I go to this group, and it's like so, so demanding. It's it's not that they're bad things, but it's very demanding. So what I'm teaching guys to do is actually like five-second moments when you reach for that extra cup of coffee. What is that telling me about my heart? When you reach for that sugary snack, when you hit snooze, when you avoid the Bible, instead of just saying, Oh, I'm busy, I'm void of reassurance, I'm void of security, I'm void of safety, and it just starts to have that gauge of how hungry we really are. And then from there, I I got this from you, Drew, because it's absolute gold, but we start to ask the question who who can I talk to about that heart hunger that can meet it or remind me of how God meets it. And what can I do to create opportunities for that heart hunger to get met more regularly with God, with other people, within my own hobbies and interests, and even by serving other people. And we begin to realize that it's not about doing a bunch of things hoping it works at the end of the day. It's about strategically saying, I'm gonna use my time, my energy, and my resources to get this heart filled. And that becomes the focus of our attention, and that's what helps guys realize that's what works. And then you just plug and play, you rinse and repeat, and that's what helps guys become more confident because they start to feel more full, life becomes more colorful, and it's not some guessing game. It's it's clear as to why it's working, and they just keep doing more of that. There's more to it in the realm of healing the full heart, but that's the whole idea of clarity leading to a strategy that actually works.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Such a beautiful invitation to notice what is leaving my heart more hungry and what is actually filling me up at the soul level. I mean, because so often what we feel on the surface is sexual energy. But if we start to really sit with it and explore it, we find no, this is coming from a deep place in my soul. And there are so many ways to drink deeply at the soul level that you've started to talk about what do you do when your heart is not just hungry but wounded?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

We can't work our way out of this sort of pain. Like I think that's one thing that guys often want to think about is if I just regulated more, if I just had a better, what I call the green zone plan, then I would I would be healthier. But what I what I've helped guys understand, what I've realized, is when guys struggle to regulate, or let's say they know they're hungry for reassurance, they brainstorm 10 things that would help them get reassured with the Lord or other people or within their own hobbies. I talk a lot about upgrading the things we're already doing in terms of how we think about them or how we do them

When Hunger Is Wounded And Scary

SPEAKER_00 14:47

so that they actually are a reminder of the reassurance or validation. So it's not even adding more to our plate. But what it shows if somebody has a challenge to consider what would I even do to be reassured, or they have a big list of things and they're not doing them, it's not about motivating them to figure out a way to make a routine to do those things. It's a question of why is that scary? Why are you distancing yourself from something you know is good? Because there's something there that feels true. Like you have this plan to meet for coffee with a friend once a week, but deep down you feel like you're bothering that person. We start to explore the story there, right? It's what is true is that friend's always been safe, and that friend loves Jesus. And every time you have coffee, you guys have a great time. But the story you're telling yourself before you call him is that he's gonna be just like that bully. He's gonna be just like your brother, who was always so mean or rejecting towards you. So that's what I do with guys. And when I think about trauma, my main perspective to help guys break down some of the barriers to that word, or to if someone had a maybe a more vanilla childhood and there's no clear trauma, is my focus is, and and we've talked about this, is what did you suppress growing up emotionally within your thought life and within your heart hungers? Not because everything was bad, but because maybe there was no space to talk about those things. Maybe dad worked a lot and just inevitably he didn't have time to offer you those things. We're not here to throw anybody under the bus, but we're asking the question what did you suppress growing up? Because that becomes the focus of today. Those are opportunities instead of shame points. They're now places to say, hey, I get to grow in that area today, and that becomes the solution, that becomes the strategy, which is not avoiding trauma, but it's not getting so caught up in it and talking about it for three years and hoping it gets better just because you talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah, that's a great point. What did I suppress growing up? I imagine for many of us, the answers are how we feel. And maybe especially our sexual feelings. So it's no surprise that those feelings are so strong and seemingly insurmountable.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah. I would say the common feeling guys have, and maybe this is my main theory, when guys would tell me they feel anxious or they feel overwhelmed or they feel stressed. I started to realize below the surface that what they were telling me was that they felt helpless or powerless or restless or out of control. Those are the top four that I realized for the guys that I've been working with. And the cool thing about when we get to that kind of clarity of what we're feeling is it has a clue built in of what we're also looking for. So when we actually get away from saying, I'm so anxious to say I feel helpless, we can start to get closer to the strategy because we now have a little clue built in to say, I'm looking for help. What would help look like or feel like or sound like right now? And it helps us go to scripture with that hole in our heart. It helps us go to prayer with that hole in our heart to say, Lord, I don't feel helped by you right now, but I'm hungry for help. What does that look like right now from you? And you go to Psalm 34, and it's he's near to the brokenhearted, his ears attuned to the righteous, he hears the cries, and you just start to realize that scripture is full of words of reassurance and comfort, but it's hard to know. I don't know, there's just something that changes in a guy when he names what he's hungry for. Scripture just comes alive in a new way. Yeah, that's so true. So many of the guys I work with just separating what feels true, starting to live more on what is true.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

And I like that idea of how we're feeling, providing a clue to what we really need. So helpless, and I need help, powerless, I need power. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, that that kind of just came naturally from the anecdotal evidence of coaching guys. I didn't read about that anywhere, and it's just really it's really stuck with guys since I thought of that idea. So I'm rolling with it.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

We know that many of our feelings are not just rooted in the present, but also rooted in the past. I mean, how do you navigate that balance?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, I think with that heart-hunger idea, if we think about that scripture, Proverbs 423, that all things we do flow from it. The main reason why someone's heart is so hungry today and it can feel so difficult to feed that hunger almost as if you feed it and like 10 minutes later it's hungry again, is because it's been starving for a long time. And to receive reassurance almost doesn't feel normal. It's hard to attach to that being real. So that's where we get into that idea of the wounds, suppressed emotions that you never learned to deal with, suppressed thoughts you never learned to communicate, and then those suppressed heart hunger. So probably the overarching message that I give guys when we start the journey together is we want to learn about what your heart is hungry for, teach you to sit with it and not run to sex for the first time in your life and actually go to God with that heart hunger. That's kind of the overarching message. And then obviously we fill in those gaps as we go. And that's where we do regulating. I call that red zone is getting clear on the problem, green zone is getting clear on the strategy. So your red zone is flushing out the emotions, thoughts, and heart hungers. Green zone is fleshing out the who and the what of how you're going to get those heart hungers filled. And then with the inner child process, we go through that whole story work of locating the boy, learning about his emotions, thoughts, and heart hungers so that you see that they're almost the same as today. That's what builds that compassion and that empathy and that curiosity. And then I'm a big advocate of the step of leadership. I

Inner Child Leadership And Gospel Truth

SPEAKER_00 20:57

want to help guys learn how to lead what I call their inner world, the stuff that goes on inside of you that probably happens second nature. You can actually learn how to lead that out of it feeling true. And what scripture says, take your thoughts captive. I think there's a lot more to that than just like, God, I feel like a failure and I rebuke that in Jesus' name. I think there's a lot more to that. And how do we lead ourselves into truth? And that's usually part of the story to say, God, there's a story behind why I feel like a failure or why I don't feel like I have any worth. And what I'm realizing is when I look at you, God, I see my dad. Or when I look at you, God, I see that bully. And I can see that I never learned how to process helplessness. I can see that I never talked to anybody about believing I have no worth. And my heart has been starving for comfort my whole life. And this is what the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus tell me about someone who feels helpless and somebody who's hungry. For comfort, and we start to preach the gospel to ourselves, not in a bumper sticker way of just God loves you and He forgives you and you have a purpose, but in the very areas of our deepest wounds, and the ointment of Christ begins to heal us on a deep, deep way. And you will wake up differently when you start to embody the gospel.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Amen. Embody the gospel, what a great way to say it. Because a lot of times we we know it cognitively or in our heads, but there are these parts of us that functionally don't know Jesus, and they've never experienced his love. And that's so much of what we do. I am so excited to hear all of the overlap between our approaches and the way that that we work. Oh, yeah. Because this problem of porn is just the entry point into so much more life and love than what we've settled for in the past. You know, we've starved ourselves, we've deprived ourselves emotionally, relationally. And you know, learning to outgrow porn and get over these secret habits is so much more than behavior change. It's like this is an opportunity to experience abundance and to be filled up to overflow. Like that is what we truly want.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Let me give a picture that plays into that because it's so beautiful, Drew. And I'm just beyond grateful, man, for the chance to run alongside you. I know I've been on the podcast several times and you know, we did some work together. I felt like there was just an element of transformation that came in my personal journey, yes, but in my coaching from learning from you and guys like Eddie and different sources. So I'm just beyond grateful. But, you know, when I think about the healing journey, I'll use this water bottle as an example. So the way I see it is most guys, when they are in a place of lacking clarity, they're just starting recovery, they they have a deep desire to get free, but they don't know how to, they're basically carrying around a water bottle with holes in it. And the problem with that is you can't store water. So if you bring your water bottle to the gym, good luck with that. You know, what what I see with something like regulating, the idea of being able to ground ourselves psychologically,

The Leaky Water Bottle Picture

SPEAKER_00 24:26

spiritually, emotionally, come out of dysregulation where we feel everything's dangerous or scary, and we feel more of a peace and a calm. Not because everything gets better, but because we're able to regulate through breathing or filling our heart's desires. The way I see regulating is you're able to fill the water bottle up to the top, get a drink because you're thirsty. You have to keep regulating because your heart has holes in it. Your water bottle has holes in it. And that's not a bad thing, but it's incomplete. You can't be free by just regulating. You can get sober, you can certainly be have a much more colorful life, but the only way freedom happens is if you get a new water bottle. You have to get a water bottle that doesn't have holes in it. And that can only happen truly through the transformation of Christ, where those holes get clogged or they get filled by the gospel, where you don't have a leaky heart anymore, and you're able to fill yourself fully with the bread of life, not just little by little every day, and then you have to go back and refill. You start to actually live as if you have a full water bottle, even when life is difficult. Like I'm a foreigner in the Czech Republic, I don't speak the language here. It is so hard, guys. And actually, this journey of being a total beginner in a language has made my coaching so much better because I actually understand what it's like to feel like you have holes in your water bottle. Not around sexuality, but around my confidence as a man within a community. And it's really blessed the way that I coach guys because I realize when somebody starts something as a beginner, they need a certain way of communication and guidance that I don't know if I would have really realized unless I started to learn the Czech language. Because my tutor is, I had a bad tutor for eight months and it was dread. And then I found this incredible tutor, and she's radically transformed the way that I'm able to learn the language, not because it's just all of a sudden easy and it's faster, but because she's empathetic and she guides me and she reminds me and she has this ability to teach that doesn't come off as just smart and cool, but it just makes sense. And that that's why this approach has so is so personal to me. Because it's the approach that I needed when it came to learning the Czech language.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah. The approach of tenderness, gentleness, love and acceptance so much more powerful than just trying to work harder.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

I would find myself when I was trying to work harder within the Czech language that it just always felt like this never-ending cycle of, hey, like my first tutor, hey, I did all this homework, look at all the things I wrote, and I'm I'm doing all this. And then there would just be the sense of, oh, like here's more to do. And it was never like this acknowledgement of how important that was and what that meant. It was always just like, here's more to do, here's more to do. And I just always felt more burdened, more intimidated, more embarrassed. And I think that happens a lot in recovery, where it's like, oh, cool, you're just journaled. Here's another thing to do, and another thing to do, and you have to do all those other things too, and you never get to stop. And that's exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

It's so hard to integrate that into a life. Right. It's counterproductive and self-defeating because it leaves your heart more hungry at the end of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Even our recovery practices can be part of the problem if they're not serving their purpose.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Absolutely. And I think that's probably where we get the differentiation between satisfying a heart hunger and distraction. Distractions can be good things, but it's so common for Christian guys to go to a Bible study without talking to anybody about what their heart is hungry for. And connection is too broad. I can put two magnets together and they're connected, and it doesn't mean anything. We have to realize that connection happens because you feel seen, you feel wanted, you feel known, you feel heard, you feel understood or empathized with. And if that's not happening regularly

Distraction Versus Real Soul Satisfaction

SPEAKER_00 28:38

and your heart is hungry for that, you're just distracting yourself. And at some point, that beach ball is going to come out of the water and you are going to be surprised that you just relapsed. And that's frustrating. That happens way too often. And I am really passionate about it because my biggest key is awareness is the fuel to healing. And most guys think awareness is the healing, and they're also being aware of an incomplete puzzle.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah. Awareness is a starting point so that we can actually meet our unmet needs. Yeah. So I hear a lot of empowerment for you both personally and in what you're teaching guys professionally. Sean, what is your favorite thing about freedom from porn and healing and meeting these needs and filling up this heart hunger?

SPEAKER_00 29:30

A favorite thing, hands down, is that my gifting and calling on my life is to help guys with the very thing that I struggle with. Like I feel like Paul, a lot of the times, when he writes, pity me if I don't share the gospel. Like, I just love doing this. Like there are days where I don't have clients because those are like creative

Purpose After Porn And A Free Quiz

SPEAKER_00 29:54

days. And I'm like, I just want to be coaching guys, Lord. Like I love it. And I don't know if I would have really found what I was made to do if I was in bondage still. Like Romans 12 talks about renew your mind, but then it says, as you renew your mind, you'll discern God's will for your life. And I think that's my story. God really revealed his full will for my life through freedom.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Amen. Well, I'm so glad that you are doing exactly what you were created to do as God's beloved son, as a husband, as a father, as a friend and coach. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

What I'm really excited about is we just released this quiz of how to get clear on what your heart is hungry for. It takes about five minutes, it's seven questions, and it's gonna ask you some things about your day, your porn consumption. It's actually gonna give you a result at the end of what your heart may be hungry for. After that, there's a short video of how to apply that to the red zone and green zone of regulating and filling your heart. And from there, if you wanted to book a call with me, work with me, that's all part of that sequence. But it's a really cool free tool just to help guys get more awareness of where's the starting point, what's the real problem? Because once you get clear on the problem, you get clear on the solution. So you can find that at secrethabit.ca. If you want to get more specific, secrethabit.ca slash quiz. And then you'll see around the website blogs. You can talk with me about working with me one-on-one. But that would be the main resource I definitely want to promote today because it's free and it's really powerful. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

I'm gonna go take that quiz right now. And if you guys want to learn more about Sean, go down to the show notes and find all the links. Sean, thank you so much for being with us. Yeah, such an honor, Drew. Love you, man. Love you too. Gentlemen, always remember you are God's beloved son. In you, he is well pleased.