Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_00 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. Hey, thank you so much for listening to this incredible interview with Tyler and Brandon Patrick, who are also known as the Therapy Brothers, founders of the Therapy Brothers podcast. For over 20 years, Tyler and Brandon have helped individuals and couples move through infidelity, broken trust, and addiction towards something real. Therapy Brothers is where they take those conversations public. Tyler has dedicated his career as a licensed marriage and family therapist to recovery from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. Brandon is a licensed clinical social worker who has developed unique programs for healing betrayal, trauma, and moving through a faith crisis. They are awesome. And after you hear a little bit about their personal stories, we will explore this truth that Jesus Christ himself has a penis. This conversation encompasses everything from sexual shame and self-rejection to purity culture to betrayal trauma triggers and theology, because what we believe about God and what we believe about sexuality has a huge impact on each of our healing journeys. Remember that the views expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of husband material ministries. Featuring a guest is not an endorsement of their beliefs, methods, products, or services. We believe in discernment. So, as always, listen thoughtfully, test everything against sound wisdom, take what's helpful, and leave the rest behind. Enjoy the episode.

Who Are The Therapy Brothers

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I am absolutely delighted to be with Brandon and Tyler Patrick, the therapy brothers. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

It's good to be here. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

It is so cool to have you guys here, especially talking about the topic that so many people will be curious about. The idea that Jesus has a penis. Exactly. Obvious yet provocative and incredibly important for us to understand this in terms of our sexuality, in terms of recovery and healing. You guys talk about infidelity and addiction and everything to do with sexuality on your show.

Two Journeys Into Recovery Work

SPEAKER_00 2:26

How did you become passionate about this?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I'll give you the short version. There's the short and the long version. When I was young, I was probably 20 years old. I had an experience where I was serving a church mission for my church. And I part of my mission was helping young kids learn how to read. And so we'd meet with them once a week and get to know them and teach them to read, read from the Bible with them. And as I got to know these little boys, I realized that out of like the nine or ten little boys that came every single week, not a single one of them knew who their father was. And so that started to sit with me. And then as I got ready to come home, I started to think, you know what? I want to work with families. I want to work with men. I want to work with boys. I want to, I want to help families be stronger. And so I got into marriage and family therapy for that reason. The whole time I was keeping a secret addiction to pornography in the background. And after I graduated and I went up to work for the drug courts of southeastern Idaho in the addiction world, I thought it was this perfect thing for me because I could secretly do my recovery work because I was just doing everything that I was learning in the addiction world. And then that all blew open, and my wife found out, and we had our D-Day, and the whole process started to unfold. And at about that same time, Brann was on a totally different path, and I'll let him explain his. But he didn't know this just shortly after our D-Day. Brann called me. He is just finishing his degrees and he's like, Tyler, we need to specialize in infidelity and sexual addiction. And I was like, how did he know what's going on for me? Because I hadn't told him anything that had been going on for me yet. And it was almost just like, to me, that was almost like a god wink. Like, my story matters now if I go in this direction. And so I have a real passion for what we do here because professionally it's what I love to do, but personally, it's also the pathway that I find myself on. And it's awesome. It's a great path.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

I'll I'll tell my story in kind of a different way, maybe a little piece of it that will illustrate how I ended up here. How did I know Tyler was struggling? Because pretty much every guy our age at that time was. And the internet had just come out. There was a lot of just a lot of purity culture and rigidity around religion. And so so that it was this perfect mix of things that were just coalescing that it was like a shame storm and a secrecy storm and an addiction machine, you know. But backing up just a little bit, I graduated with my degree in economics, and I got this job as a recovery auditor. And I I got to sign my cubicle, and I was making phone calls, recovering money for big businesses, and hated it. And I went to work one day, and I remember I got lucky, I got to sign this case for DuPont, the big company. And they had made a double payment for 1.2 million bucks. And so I recovered 1.2 million bucks in like a phone call. Just like, and I was I that the face you're making, Drew, I was like, oh my gosh, I just recovered 1.2 million, right? Like this is crazy. And my boss was excited and stuff, and then we called DuPont, and they were like, eh. Oh, whatever. Okay. Oh, okay. Dropping them. And it hit me like I'm sitting in this cubicle. There were no pictures on the wall. I just recovered over a million bucks, and I was just like dead inside. I'm like, what am I doing? And in the meantime, Tyler was like helping kids in Idaho. Like he was just like, you know, like in the battle with these kids. And like I was a young guy, I had just got married, and I was like looking at my life, and it I realized I gotta do something where I feel like I'm in the arena where I'm I'm engaged and I'm I'm connecting, I'm helping, and I'm I'm doing what God's asking me to do because I wasn't doing that at that job. So needless to say, it's been a long journey. I'm so grateful I made that decision to actually step in. I haven't been grateful every day. Some some days I've questioned that, but for a while now I haven't. And I'm just really, really glad that that I found myself working with this population and doing what I do. And I know that God led me here.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

And how unique for you to do this work together as brothers.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

It's such a gift, you know. Like, you know what it's like when you're working with people and their problems and things, it gets pretty heavy and can be lonely sometimes. And most people have their own therapy teams or they're have their own coach teams, or sometimes people in private practice. I don't know how they do it, but it's great to have a brother where I can call him up on a bad day and be like, I'm done, I'm out of this career, I'm leaving. And he just kind of like listens for a minute, then he laughs at me, and then he talks me through it, and then I'm like, oh no, actually, I love my job. Like, thanks, bro. Like, you know, so it's it's nice to have someone in the trenches with you for

Why Jesus’ Body Challenges Shame

SPEAKER_01 7:35

sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And you guys have so many resources on betrayal trauma, so many episodes where you're answering tough questions. The episode that one of my listeners shared with me that stood out to me so much was called Jesus Has a Penis. Can you say more about that?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yeah, so I've written a book that I haven't published yet, but I I need to follow through like like you, Drew. Um but that that comes from uh really my my my story of I was the guy who the way I I got started in marketing my practice and getting involved with the with the battle here, what I thought was I need to go stop guys from looking at porn and masturbating. Like that, I need to go in, I need to tell them it's wrong, I need to drive home that they need to stop, that there's this wave, there's this, there's this epidemic coming, and it's gonna take over the world and watch out because it's evil and bad and all the things. And and so I did that for a while. And what do you know? I actually filled up my practice that way because I was speaking to a narrative that was just really prevalent with where I lived. And what I realized was yes, porn we we could call it evil. Yes, guys were struggling, their marriages were falling apart. But going in and just in a way, continuing the message of reject your sexuality in order to be of God and good, that actually is counterproductive and doesn't lead to one recovery from addiction, two, peace for people, and three, um, trust in relationships. And so to examine this and look at this and say, is sexuality actually of God? Is sexuality a thing that is an important part of his creation and who we are as human beings in our experience? And the answer is yes. So that message needs to come into play here. And I just want to say this, Drew. It's it's interesting what you said about the name Jesus has a penis. What's fascinating about that? You said it's provocative, and I know it is, and that's why I named my book that's Brandon's style, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

He likes to be provocative.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, but but but let's just stop for a second and ask why is that provocative? Right? Like, seriously, why is that provocative? Thinking of Jesus and sexuality and putting those two together, a lot of us, the way we've been raised, it's like that alone is just blasphemous. That's weird. It's like you don't, you don't, it's taboo. You don't talk about Jesus and sexuality together because we equate sexuality with Satan and sin, not with Jesus. And that alone kind of proves what I'm talking about here, that the the underlying issues of Christian men and women for that matter, automatically, systemically rejecting themselves as sexual beings sets the table for the adversary to just just have sexuality come out sideways in every which way and compulsivity and addiction and all this stuff. So I'm very passionate about it. I know you are too, Drew, but the overall message is sexuality is of God.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

100% yes.

Betrayal Trauma And Male Power

SPEAKER_00 11:14

And while that sounds really good as a bumper sticker, when we get into some of the practical reasons why that might be provocative, I'm thinking about many wives and sexually betrayed partners who see the penis as a threat, who see it as the problem. And a lot of guys feeling like, I need to reject my sexuality because it's destroying my marriage.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

The world that we live in, so many people, and this is where I think Brandon's point is, is that we've been taught to self-reject so much that it actually leads to it penting itself up and then coming out in lots of different ways that are actually outside of our values. And when we act outside of our values, then we feel bad about ourselves, we feel shame, and we start to look at things and say, man, I blew my life up and I blew my wife's life up, and I'm like this is really, really dangerous. And for a betrayed partner, if her experience is that this power has been misused in those ways, then of course it's gonna be scary and dangerous. And here's the weird paradox that's so hard to wrap our heads around is if you ask a let's say a betrayed wife what she really wants in her relationship, most of the time you're gonna hear her say things like first and foremost, I want to feel safe. Secondly, I want there to be trust. I want to be like cherished and protected. And when you look at this, the pathway to those three things, safety, trust, and being cherished, actually has to go through a man working a process of complete self-acceptance, acknowledging that he has energy in him that can either be of God or it can be misused. And when we deny that it's there, it's only going to be misused. But when we accept that it's there, I can accept now that I'm dangerous to my wife. And that danger can be harnessed and channeled and put into a relationship where it can be passionate and purposeful, and that energy can flow into our relationship. It'll also help me to protect my family when I'm dangerous, but I need to know how to channel and harness it by making choices about how I use that power. And if I'm denying that power, I'll never make choices about how to use it. That's so well said.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

I think there's some taboo things. And just to add on to what Tyler's saying here, a couple stories. I remember sitting down with a client. She was very rigid, very religious, and she looked at me almost almost in anger and was like, You're telling me that Jesus would walk down the street and check out women? And it was like a pretty intense question, right? I kind of in my therapist way threw it back at her and said, Why don't you explore that? Why don't you think about that? Why don't you? She went and talked to her church leader, she did all this, and she came back angrily and was like, Yeah, he probably did. But she was she was pissed, right? And I'm thinking, like, well, we're talking about Jesus here. And I remember talking to another client, a betrayed partner, and we were having this conversation gets me in trouble all the time, Drew. When I say, All of us are attracted to uh multiple people, not just our spouse. Attraction happens, that's how attraction works. And so she was like, How dare you say that? Like, he's married to me, he should be faithful to me. And I was trying to explain to her, look, his faithfulness to you isn't dependent upon him shutting down attraction because he can't. Coming back to what Tyler was saying, if you want safety and trust, then we need to operate in reality and we we need to operate from a place of honesty. And it's funny what she said to me in that moment because she was really mad about what we were talking about, and she like paused and she's like, Well, it's true. Like, when I walk past the magazines in the grocery store, like I'll notice Chris Hemsworth, like when he's in his Thor outfit or whatever. Um and it made me laugh because it's like it like hit her like, wait, like I do have attraction outside of my marriage, but I don't want him to have attraction outside of our marriage. And there's a good reason for that. He has hurt her with betrayal, proven that he won't use it properly, right? But what we can't do is pretend then that it's not there because that will never heal the relationship, that will never lead back to trust. We gotta be honest that it that it is there and own it, and then harness it and navigate it from there.

What Jesus’ Sexuality Could Mean

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Right. And my next question about Jesus having a penis is how did he harness it? Like in what way was he sinlessly sexual as a single man?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

It's interesting because the Bible really doesn't have a ton in it about Jesus's sexuality. But you'll notice, and you were bringing this up the other day, Drew, Jesus is very sex positive when people have struggles or there's lust, or he approaches that with compassion, with acceptance. And I think, like anything, if you were writing a book, you're probably not gonna put all of your sexual stuff and things in like little tiny parts of your sexuality in there. It doesn't mean that Jesus didn't have that, right? And so I actually think he harnessed it so well that and accepted it so much that it wasn't an issue. Now, that doesn't mean that he shut it down and pretended like it wasn't there, right? I can't answer that because I don't know the specifics of it, and I don't think we need to, and yet, because he's Jesus, I'm sure that he loved his sexuality. He it was full self-compassion and self-acceptance in the perfect way, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:42

And I think about sexuality as our God-given engine for intimacy, and Jesus had that engine, and he was intimate in a healthy way with a lot of people. It doesn't mean he was sexually intimate with them, but just thinking about the community of men around him, the many female disciples who were part of his group as well, like we see him having these intimate moments where a woman's washing his feet with her hair, for example, he's touching people when he heals them. Like there's a lot of tenderness and connection there.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Yeah. I agree with you. And if we go into Christian theology for a second, every every different denomination looks at these things a little bit differently, but generally at the core, when you look at what you might call the atonement of Jesus, we believe that the atonement of Jesus is such that in the Garden of Gethsemane, he went and he experienced everything that would be part of the human condition. And he had to experience that in order to have full capacity for empathy and love and completion of what that atonement might be. And then the second part, of course, was when he was killed on the cross, right? And so it would make sense that if if he's going around and, you know, in the Bible he chooses to get baptized when he's sinless. Why did he do that? He chose to do that because that's what you did as a part of the covenants that you made with God on the path that you're on, right? And so it would make sense that he'd also have to experience all the other things that go along with being human. And even though it doesn't talk about him misusing it or using it properly, it had to be there.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

And one of my favorite parts of this sentence, Jesus has a penis, is that it's not past tense. It didn't say Jesus had a penis. He has a penis in his resurrected body. Yes, his perfect body. I mean, I just scratch my head about this sometimes. Like, what is that part of his body going to be doing for eternity? And what are our own genitals and our own body parts?

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Well, Drew, not to get hit by lightning here, but when Jesus wakes up in the morning, I mean, what's going on? That let's be honest. Like, that's a lot of speculation, man. I don't want to go too far with this because people get uncomfortable, right? But he wakes up in the morning and he's like all of all of us, right? Like, I mean, he's God, he's different than all of us, but there's nothing wrong if he wakes up with an erection, right? And that's true for for you, it's true for me. It's not a sin to have this part of us that is sexual.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

And this part of us has often been the target of evil. Precisely because it's so good. Precisely because it's beautiful. Nothing can be broken unless it's fundamentally good. And that's so true for our sexuality.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

To go along with that, I I've I look at so many of the people that we work with who many of our clients I would say are very highly religious. And if you look at it, like Brandon said, it's kind of the perfect storm because, on one hand, many of us were raised in cultures that preach like shut it down, keep it closed off, it can be dangerous, don't do anything with it. It becomes taboo, we don't talk about it. And then you have the porn industry over here that's the other counterfeit on the way other end of the spectrum. That's like, hey, I'll we'll educate you, we'll teach you, it's all for free. Like anything goes, like, go for it. Like, come here and we'll give it to you for free from the time you're 13 until you're 34, and then you'll be paying for it for the rest of your life. But we're just going to give it to you. And somewhere in the middle is actually where we need to be able to land to say, wait a second, like we do need to actually land in a spot where we can talk about the power of it, we can teach about what it actually produces. I love what you said about how some. It's very possible that some of the very energies of that sexuality might have been part of what Christ was using in his healing with people who were wounded. That connection piece, that closeness piece, that intimacy piece. Safe touch. Yeah, that safe touch.

Safe Touch And Harnessing Desire

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Safe touch. Man, that whole that could be a whole podcast in and of itself. Brandon and I went to a training for something called the Marma method earlier this year. And the whole premise of that training was understanding safe touch. And you should have seen the energy that was popping off with all these people that were there going, like, are we allowed to like do this? And is like, I don't want it to be sexual. It's like this isn't sexual all the way. But safe touch falls in the category for so many people. And man, there's so much healing that can take place when it's safe, when there's there's safe touch there. And part of that safety is an acceptance that that we know what it is and we know how to use it.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Absolutely. If you want to go further with this, and maybe this gets almost a little radical, but to Freud, everything is sexual. To David Dita, he would say when you have that sexual energy come through you, you can harness it and you absolutely can use it for good. So it's weird to say it of like, let's say I get triggered sexually and I notice it and I acknowledge it, and then I harness that into creating some really good content today, or I harness that into like going home and just connecting with my wife and being present at my house. Now, I know that doesn't make sense. Like you're talking about a sexual arousal, whatever. How are you doing that? That's actually counter to connecting to your wife. And in reality, it's not if I'm able to like take that energy in and then use that sexual energy in a positive, creative way. Like I would even say with Jesus, some of his healing methods, and like you were saying, Drew, maybe they started with sexual energy, but he harnessed it so well it wasn't inappropriate, there was consent, it wasn't lustful, all of those things, but maybe that energy started as sexual, first and foremost, with some of his things that he did. I know that seems really weird and uncomfortable for some people to think about it that way, but the same thing is true for us today, where we can take that and we can do that as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I really think you're onto something. In a way, everything is sexual in the sense that everything that happens in my life to me, I experience it through my male body. And that would be different if I was experiencing it through a female body. And so there is kind of a sexual component to everything in a way, it just depends on how we define that, right? It depends on does sexuality refer to just living in a sexed body, or does it refer specifically to genitals or some kind of like erotic charge? And so we need to wrestle with the fact that Jesus is fully God and fully human. Sexual thoughts and feelings are an essential part of what it means to be human and in our everyday experience. Of course, that played a role in his ministry. How could it not?

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Had to. And if it did, if we come to terms with that, then then what does that mean about you as a Christian, as a human, as a person who's been developing as a sexual being? What does that then mean about you? If we actually, instead of rejecting Jesus' sexuality, we accept it. How does that translate now to you? I think that's that's an important question.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Let's explore that.

Boundaries Without Purity Culture

SPEAKER_01 26:27

If by default we're already sexual beings and it's of God to be sexual, and then let's say someone defines the law of chastity as save that energy for inside of your marriage, right? That's usually taught by like, shut it down, don't touch it, don't do anything with it. It can be really dangerous. And only inside your marriage should you ever like versus channel that energy, like move that energy into places where you can deeply connect, where you can actually then attune to your partner because you care about them more, and because your energy is moving that direction, because you've harnessed it that way, does it become a rigid commandment that is that makes your life more miserable? It becomes an opportunity to actually have more joy, more power, more connection when you see it that way. And that's why accepting this allows us to turn in and look inward, right? And go, wow, yeah, like why wouldn't I want to live the law of chastity? Like that's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

You think about the little subtleties that happen. Like I have an 11-year-old son, and my boys are late bloomers, so he's like puberty's a ways away for him. But 11's an interesting time because it's like you know, he'll be playing with his genitals or you know, certain little things happen, right? And as a dad, how I respond, if I'm in that purity culture, sex is sin, then I'll quickly start shutting him down automatically. Hey, like, don't do that, knock that off versus get curious with him and approach it from a place of positivity. Oh, what's that like? How do you feel? What would be a better place to do something like that? Or think about like when you I was watching a show with him the the other night, and it wasn't like a rated R show, but there was a scene in there, and the first thing my wife wants to say is, hey, that's the bad part. And so immediately, what how does he interpret that? Like if he had some feelings during that part and we're saying that's the bad part, automatically we're starting to install this system of shame inside of him around his sexuality. But if we believe that Jesus had a penis, we believe that sexuality is good, and we start from that premise, then we don't automatically apply rejection to sexuality, we apply acceptance to sexuality, and then you develop as a sexual being without the shame running the show.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Brandon, in that scenario, though, you would still take the opportunity to have a conversation with your son to do some understanding and some teaching, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:13

You're teaching the harnessing of it. I really like that word, the holding it and and then deciding what to do with it. So it's it's not just like, oh yeah, I'm not gonna call that scene bad. In fact, let's let's watch one that's more explicit, and then that's that's really not bad. And what are you feeling? And what no, we because now I'm not I'm not modeling that that harnessing of it, right? Versus let's start with the acceptance, let's notice what you're feeling, let's get curious. What do you do with that? And there's no like negative purity rigidity around it, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

It's almost like teaching emotions when you see anger show up on a TV show, or when you see loneliness show up on a TV show, we don't say, Oh, that's the bad part. Yeah. How do we respond when we have those emotions? What do we do with it? Where can I take that emotion? I think you're saying the same thing just with our sexual thoughts and feelings. Yeah, exactly. And this reminds me of a verse in the Bible that seems relevant. In Hebrews chapter 4, it says Jesus was tempted in every way, yet without sin. That's a very interesting statement that he was tempted in every way. And it makes me curious about what kinds of thoughts and feelings he must have had, and some of the urges and cravings he must have experienced.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

I know that everyone's personal wrestle with God is is different and unique, but but it actually, my own personal journey with my relationship with Jesus actually goes really deep into that very principle. Being a person who's done the things that I've done in order to lay claim on an atonement of Jesus, I have to believe that he understands me. I have to believe that he's been there with me. And that's what I believe we've been taught is who Jesus is. And so it would make sense that you know, if if I've experienced certain kinds of temptations, Jesus understands us intimately.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Yeah. It's truly part of the gospel, his incarnation. He knows exactly what it's like. One of the early church fathers said what he has not assumed, he has not healed. So the good news is he has assumed sexuality, and therefore he can heal it. I just think this is such a great conversation that needs to be had.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

I want to say, like, there's a reason why the three of us are here today, like on this earth, and the reason is is because people had sex. Like, I don't know how it happened where you know, me and my wife had sex and we made our kids, like, what? Like, what a like what's a bigger miracle than that? Like, to to have my children come from sexuality, like, what is more miraculous and more about creation than that? And you said something earlier about the adversary like attacking this extremely hard or whatever. I can't remember how you said it. There's a reason why it is so complicated and confusing and all of those things, because, and this is just the gospel according to Brandon. This is my opinion, is sex isn't just like, yeah, like we're neutral about it, and we're not gonna have shame about it. It's for for me, I look at it as like sex is like such a miracle and such a good thing that Satan has put shame all around it and confusion and all this stuff. Because when it's done right with what I believe a committed partner, and there's trust and intimacy and love and creation happening, where do you get closer to God than in those experiences? So sex isn't just like something we overcome. It's not just something that we we have to learn that we have to deal with and manage. Sex is of God, and it's really beautiful, and it's a way that we can connect to God.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

And to be specific, your penis is of God.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

It's interesting being on your podcast, Drew, because we've been on a lot of different podcasts, and I don't think we've ever had a host be quite so as forthright as you are about this same topic. So I know that having this discussion will probably it's probably bringing up a lot of emotions in all sorts of different ways for people. And I would just maybe speak to your listeners for a second and say if you're feeling some of those emotions, if you could take a couple deep breaths and sit with it and actually see what it might teach you, there might be some value in this, even if you don't fully agree with what is being said today.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Thank you so much for that. Yeah, we need to think about our own stories. And as Brandon did with that one client, to ask, what do I think about this as an individual? And I encourage everyone here to seek advice, get wisdom, and come to your own conclusions.

Radical Self-Acceptance And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 35:00

In any case, one way of phrasing what we're talking about here today in terms of sexual development is that we want to have two things be very, very clear. One is blessing our sexuality, and the other is having boundaries on our sexuality.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Both.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

And we can have both. We don't have to choose between one or the other.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

I think that's the hardest thing.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

I was just going to word it differently. You don't have to use self-rejection and shame to control your sexuality. In fact, the self-rejection and shame are the opposite of helpful to control your sexuality.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Amen. We've been doing this work for a really long time. Brown and I have been down a path where we've done things a lot differently than we currently do them. We hope that we're getting better as we go. We'd, you know, you never know. There's always going to be something better to learn. But I can tell you this: that out of the hundreds and hundreds of people that we work with and that we've worked with over the years, the ones that end up doing the best long term get a hold of the principle we're talking about today, where they start to realize that they can accept themselves, they can love themselves, they can allow the love of God deeper into their own souls as a result. And that love of God does the transforming as they start to make their own personal decisions about how they're going to use that energy. I've got guys in my group right now that have been coming for three years, and they come because their partner says they're going to leave them if they don't keep coming. But they come every single week or every two weeks and be like, guys, I had a relapse and I suck so bad and I'm terrible. And it's like, meanwhile, there's three other guys in the group that are starting to show up and be like, guys, like I've started to realize that porn doesn't serve me well for what I way I want to use this anymore. I want to do other things with it. And I want to have different ways of putting my energy into other stuff. And they start looking at a life that includes that energy moving forward, and somehow they go long term, you know, five, ten years, and they don't even think about relapse because relapse is stopping as a result of the life they're living and the creation that they're doing. And that's just seems to play out over and over again with the population of people that we work with.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Can I share a quick story, Drew, just to kind of drive this home? Totally. When I started with telling my story, like I I would go into churches and I would teach the porn topic and hellfire and brimstone, right? Well, over the years I shifted a lot, and my philosophy shifted obviously. And I went into a church and it was a large congregation, and I was just talking to the men, and there was, I think, about 300 men, and they were all single men, they were college students. And I started my my lesson with the question by raise of hand, how many of you men have had a sexual thought about one of the sisters in in your congregation?

SPEAKER_01 38:07

It's like eyes on the floor.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Yeah. So by raise a hand, like how many, and these are single college-aged men, like in search of a partner and wanting, right? And the bishop looked at me like that whoa, this isn't the lesson that I was expecting, you know. And it was so fascinating because of course there's that brave soul that is like starts raising his hand, and then the guy next to him does it. So the second guy is always the guy that gives permission to everyone else, right? So the the second guy raises his hand slowly, and then next thing you know, the whole 300 dudes have their hands up. And there was almost it was almost palpable, like this collective sigh of relief between all of them. Just like, yeah, I'm not the only one. And that was the whole point, right? Is you're all men, you're all men of God, and you all have sexuality in you. Now, I didn't go on to say, so now let's take that sexual thought that you had and let's figure out how to lust after those women and objectify them and because it's absolutely okay. No, but to normalize that sexuality. And but why do those men have to sit there and feel any bit of shame about having that sexuality inside of them? Any bit of need for secrecy, right? We need to free our Christian culture of sexual self-rejection and shame. The epidemic we're talking about is that more than anything, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, that's so true. And that's what gives porn and unwanted behavior so much of its power. Being afraid of male sexuality, being ashamed of male sexuality is adding to the problem. Whereas allowing it to exist, accepting it, and then harnessing it, as you're saying, is the key to so much more connection, creativity, and a life that makes porn seem irrelevant. So great. Tyler and Brandon, what is your favorite thing about freedom from porn?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

I tell my clients this all the time, and I I believe it. I this has been my own personal experience. I look at recovery as a continual unfolding of a pathway to radical self-acceptance. And when you're on that pathway to radical self-acceptance, more than just sobriety, you can go to bed at night on a clear conscience. And there is no better feeling in the world than going to bed at night on a clear conscience. And that's one of my favorite things about being porn free is that I can go to bed on a clear conscience. Not perfect, but being a work in progress and knowing that it's okay to be a work in progress.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

I just echo what Tyler's saying. I'm leaving to Costa Rica tonight. We're taking 14 men down there to do some trauma healing work. And it's interesting that I'm going down with these men to do trauma, like deep wounds, trauma healing work. These men are pretty far along in the recovery process, and sobriety is just happening. And now they get to do the deeper work of really understanding their identity and understanding who they are to God. And so to me, like that's my favorite. I get to experience that and see them step out of their shame and into the light and know what their purpose is, know who they are to God. That's real recovery. That's my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Awesome. Radical self-acceptance, trauma healing, embracing our true identity. That's what this is really about. If you guys would like to connect with Tyler and Brandon, hear more from them, go to therapybrothers.org or you can go to risingsun.org. We've got all the links in the show notes. And guys, always remember you are God's beloved son, and you, he is well pleased.