What does it mean to feel stuck in unwanted sexual behavior, and how does our personal anger factor into the equation?
This very question is what we are unpacking in this episode with our guest Aaron Tagert. We walk with you through the profound insights of Jay Stringer, aiming to shed light on the six core experiences that characterize these struggles: deprivation, dissociation, unconscious arousal, futility, lust, and anger.
In the midst of these conversations, Aaron urges us to gently examine our own experiences, inviting us to engage with our patterns through a lens of curiosity and compassion.
Furthermore, Aaron introduces an exciting upcoming resource, a tailored coaching group for men on the journey toward understanding their sexual struggles. Over the course of eight intensive weeks, participants are guided to explore their stories within a faith-filled and supportive community. This group is not just about identifying participants' struggles, but about climbing out of them and discovering fascinating prospects of freedom.
Together, we hope that this exploration leads us to a deeper self-understanding and a more intimate connection with God. Tune in and join us as we uncover the mysteries of unwanted sexual behavior and the paths toward overcoming them.
Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here
If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.
What does it mean to feel stuck in unwanted sexual behavior, and how does our personal anger factor into the equation?
This very question is what we are unpacking in this episode with our guest Aaron Tagert. We walk with you through the profound insights of Jay Stringer, aiming to shed light on the six core experiences that characterize these struggles: deprivation, dissociation, unconscious arousal, futility, lust, and anger.
In the midst of these conversations, Aaron urges us to gently examine our own experiences, inviting us to engage with our patterns through a lens of curiosity and compassion.
Furthermore, Aaron introduces an exciting upcoming resource, a tailored coaching group for men on the journey toward understanding their sexual struggles. Over the course of eight intensive weeks, participants are guided to explore their stories within a faith-filled and supportive community. This group is not just about identifying participants' struggles, but about climbing out of them and discovering fascinating prospects of freedom.
Together, we hope that this exploration leads us to a deeper self-understanding and a more intimate connection with God. Tune in and join us as we uncover the mysteries of unwanted sexual behavior and the paths toward overcoming them.
Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here
If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.
Speaker 1:
Welcome back everybody. Hey, if you were did not listen to last week's podcast, we are continuing a discussion we started last week with Aaron Taggart. He's one of our coaches here. You can listen today and benefit just right off the bat, or you can go back and listen to that. But at some point, go back and listen to that because it'll frame up what we're talking about today, I think, a lot better for you.
Speaker 1:
But the quick flyover from last week is we talked about the importance of story work and beginning to cultivate a level of curiosity around why temptation comes to you when it does. This week we want to talk a little bit more about why do our sexual struggles stay? And so question for you just think about this as we start. You ever asked yourself or asked the Lord like why do I keep going back to this over and over and over again? I promised myself I wouldn't. I set up filters and I'm still finding ways around them. I've done everything I know to do and I'm still going back to this stuff we're going to talk about that today.
Speaker 1:
So we're also highlighting the work of Jay Stringer here, because we've learned a lot from him, and he talks about these core drivers, or core experiences, and I'm going to kick that to you, aaron. What is he talking about that these are like. Well, first of all, what are they and why do they matter for considering why we stay, why we keep coming back to these behaviors?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I would just say, as we begin to kind of explore this, that that's staying, and I know the listeners can probably identify that as the word stuck. This is where we often feel, I think, stuck, as we keep coming back to those same things. So this kind of idea of being stuck, and why are we stuck? And so these six core experiences of unwanted sexual behavior that Jay talks about, and, listeners, I want you to just kind of sit there and think about how do these hit each one of these six? Where have you experienced this in your life? Where have you seen these things? Because I think they're different for everybody and some of these are like the top two or three like these are it? And I know I was able to identify that just going through this material myself.
Speaker 2:
So the first one is deprivation, and so the root word of that is kind of deprived, right when we feel like we're not worthy of, and so this kind of sense of like I don't deserve these things, I don't deserve that, I don't deserve this, and so maybe we turn to other things out of a feeling of maybe, of lack.
Speaker 2:
So deprivation, dissociation and ways that we dissociate, it could be a number of things, but really it's just a numbing of the mind is kind of how I think of it.
Speaker 2:
You know, flipping the TV on and watching the news for several hours at night or putting sports on and then scrolling through social media, just completely unaware of what's going on around us. It's just totally dissociating. The next one and we'll talk a little bit more about this maybe in a little bit and come back to it but unconscious arousal, and this is something that Jay talks about as the arousal cocktail, and these are different things that make that up. So it'd be things like thoughts and images, the fantasies that we have, objects and even situations, no-transcript. And then he goes on and talks about futility and really just this sense of not having any purpose and kind of just roaming aimlessly without any clear vision or purpose for our life, even just feeling significance or importance. And then the more common ones lust and anger. So these six core experiences are what Jay identifies as the things that really keep us stuck.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I know, even as you're reading through the list again, I'm thinking okay, dissociation huge for me with my sexual behavior and it's still. Even though I've left sexual sin behind, dissociation is still a go to for me. It's still kind of woven in to some of the ways that I respond to difficulty in my life. And then the thing I wanted to remark is that futility. Some guys listening to me are like no, no, I've got purpose in my life. But one of the things I'd say is like, do you feel like there's an area of your life where you feel futility? So, like some guys actually who are really successful at their jobs, their vocation, their career, experience a lot of futility in their relationships or in their marriage or in their parenting and it's one of the reasons that they would choose to dissociate from those areas and instead spend their time and energy on their careers or vice versa. So all that to say like, just as you're thinking about yourself as you listen to these things, this is not accusatory, this is not like a measure of a man kind of stuff. This is just trying to be curious, like we talked about last time, about your patterns and what is keeping you returning to your unwanted sexual behaviors, and so we want to ask these questions of curiosity and a lot, a lot of kindness, because this, again, it's not about accusing, it's really just about uncovering, so that you can become more and more whole.
Speaker 1:
So, aaron, you said you wanted to cut. Well, let me ask you another question. You mentioned anger right at the end. Just kind of drop that that hand grenade and walk away from it. How is anger connected to lust? I get the association. Yep, I disconnected from whatever kind of, started vegging, going down this doom-scrolling path and ended up watching porn. But anger some people might be surprised to hear that connected to sexual struggles.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, I got to go back to, I think, how Jay talks about it, and he talks about how anger needs an arena. It needs space. Anger's directed someplace, it doesn't. Just, I almost see it as If you hit something against a wall in an enclosed space and it just continues to ricochet off the walls. In a lot of ways, it's kind of what anger does it's looking for a place to go, and I think that image that Jay gives us about the anger is looking for something. It's looking for an arena, and I think we know too, anger is a kind of surface emotion A lot of times, other things that are going on underneath anger sadness, disappointment, all these other things.
Speaker 2:
As we talk about curiosity, even just as anger comes up. I know this is something I try to practice in my own life and I'm not perfect at it, especially with my kids. But when I'm angry in a moment, if I can have the space to just ask myself the question what is going on inside me right now? Why is anger? What's manifesting? Like there's something else that's happening and it's coming out in anger, and then that anger needs a place to go, and I think that's where it really kind of gets tied in a lot of ways in this to lust.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, good. Yeah, I think a lot of men, myself included, have a very complicated relationship with anger. For many, even beginning to their experience of the anger of a father or the anger of a mother, maybe getting pulled in somewhere along the way, a sense, whether it's correct or not, of God's anger, and then they're experiencing their own anger. You mentioned children. Like, I think, a lot of fathers, I don't want to feel this kind of anger or to express anger towards my children in the way that I do.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it can be a complicated emotion, for sure, and so to take it and turn to some type of sexual behavior instead is a misses the opportunity to kind of dig into or open up that anger, like you're describing you trying to do All right. You also mentioned in there the arousal cocktail. So dig into that, because, on the one hand, I hear that I think a lot of men would probably listen sorry, a lot of men and women, I apologize, I'm thinking men, I'm going to show my hand here. I mentioned men a couple of times because we are going to announce towards the end of this podcast and show a little bit more about a group that Aaron will be running specifically for men, a coaching group. So, women, forgive me for excluding you in this conversation, because really this stuff does apply to men and women, including the complicated.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so.
Speaker 1:
I apologize, but I think for a lot of people listening, the idea of arousal cocktail like well, yeah, that's the no-brainer part, like you know, sexual arousal those are the thoughts and feelings I'm having. That's obviously connected, but it's deeper than that. It's more than you want it to. So share a little more about the arousal cocktail.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I think there's no mistake on Jay's part of using that word cocktail. And if we were to think about a cocktail as a drink, right, we know that a cocktail is a beverage imposing of lots of different flavors and things that are going on right, and so, and we go to restaurants all the time and it's like, oh, the cocktail specials are these or these. And you know, reading through those can be enough to be like, oh, that's just sounds disgusting, right, and let alone tasting it and confirming, yep, that's definitely not for me.
Speaker 2:
And I think, as he uses that word cocktail here to describe this mixture of thoughts, images, fantasies, objects, situations, these things are specific to each and every one of us, to the point where we either like that cocktail or we don't. And so how can one person maybe struggle with these certain unwanted behaviors instead of these ones, or be drawn to this instead of that? And I think what we need to do and this is part of that curiosity work is to get to a place of understanding why those certain elements of this cocktail of mine or that appeals to me is appealing to me. There's something profound there that's trying to be communicated to us.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and here I think of Drew Boa, who also works in this field has described.
Speaker 1:
He says the power is in the particulars.
Speaker 1:
So, as we talked about last time, the importance of curiosity around these, questions A lot of us, when it comes to our fantasies or the search words we use for pornography to look up or the kind of genre of porn, whatever it is, the specific type of person we typically are drawn to, we'll often just assume it means something about us that can never be understood, or it's just because we're really perverse, or that's just my type, or something like that, without ever being curious about like.
Speaker 1:
Well, wait, why Like? Why am I drawn to that kind of pornography? Why am I typically writing this in the search bar? Why am I attracted to this specific body part, on this specific type of man or woman? And when we can open ourselves to be interested in what is the arousal cocktail, what are the mixtures that my brain has come up with, that when in front of me, it elicits desire in a more intense way than another kind of cocktail, and that connected what we were talking about last time about story work is where some amazing breakthroughs can happen for people you wanna say anything about that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, jay talks about how much that curiosity and entertaining that again on the porch.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, not entertaining in the audience, not in the mind and acting out on it, but that curiosity, the entertaining of the curiosity, spending some time there. He talks about how much more healing that brings in this journey than never doing that or a thousand hours of I forget what he said exactly maybe praying and trying harder and doing these things, but to actually spend some time and to be curious about what is it about these things that are so appealing? And actually this is something I ask some of my clients in coaching from time to time and I'll ask them, I'll kinda preface it with can I ask you kind of an unusual question and I'll say something have you ever thought about the type of pornography, maybe, that you've searched out, and why, or what was the last thing that you've searched out? And just kind of like this right, Right, right, yeah, this is like uncharted water.
Speaker 1:
Why are you asking that, like what is trying to get ideas?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, this feels strange, very vulnerable, yeah, very vulnerable, but again, it's something that we're not in a habit of doing personally, and sometimes we need other people whether it's coaching or a group or something to help us to safely explore.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, and two things can remind me. One is that question can stir up a heck of a lot of shame, or maybe expose shame, like you're asking me to share something with you that I never want anyone to know about me. Even if it doesn't seem particularly shameful, it's still. It's exposing a very, very vulnerable part of a person's sexual story struggle. But it also allows for a great deal of freedom from shame, both in experiencing in the face the voice of another, that this particular part of your story, this arousal cocktail, does not send somebody running from the room. Because Jesus certainly doesn't run from the room.
Speaker 1:
He is very aware of the cocktail, he knows every little ingredient, and not because he's voyeuristic, but because he is deeply sensitive to the tiniest moves of our hearts towards the things that we desire. And what we're really looking for and that's the second issue is more freedom from shame, because we begin to connect our struggles, these specific struggles, our arousal cocktail, with the things that we've experienced in our story and then can begin to address those things in a healthier way by learning to open them up to Jesus. So, with this in mind, aaron and we listeners want to let you know, and this is part of the reason we're doing this two part, both because we hope this has been helpful for you, but also Aaron's going to be running an intensive small coaching group in the new year, beginning in January, and they'll have information about that in our show notes. A limited number of guys. How many guys can participate, aaron?
Speaker 2:
We're only going to eight guys, eight spots for this work for eight weeks.
Speaker 1:
So and what would you say kind of the ideal guy is, where is he in his journey? Is there a kind of ideal person for this?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I would say. I mean, this work really is for anyone but the group specifically, I think you know would be beneficial for people who have started or have done some of you know this kind of curious work, or at least initially. You know they're aware they've done some recovery work and they want, they're ready to do a little bit more, to go a little bit deeper, to maybe, you know, be curious either for the first time or more consistently.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I can think about. I mean, I know who went through an unwanted group after years of recovery work and just the lights that got turned on for him and the freedom that just kind of rolled out in front of him after it as he really began to open these parts of his life to Jesus in a new way. Jesus and other people. A couple of the things, just so you know. There's this group, because it's a coaching group. There'll be a lot asked of the guys who participate in it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, there's going to be reading and homework and some writing out of your story in particulars and a lot of support from Aaron here. So if you're looking for something to kind of pop in and out of, this, is not it for you. If you're looking for something like, yeah, I could come to about half of those groups, that's not for you, but somebody who. How long is it going to be, Aaron? Eight weeks, Eight weeks, you know you can see guys, eight weeks Change your life, yeah. So find more out in the show notes about that, or you can also email Aaron with specific questions by finding them on our website. So, Aaron, you need to ask words before we wrap up.
Speaker 2:
Stay curious or be curious, yeah, yeah, I just think there's so much there and there's such an invitation in that curiosity and, yeah, even just thinking about how often Jesus asked questions, oh, that's just hitting me right now. He didn't come at people with a bunch of answers, he came with a bunch of questions, and I think there's something for all of us in.
Speaker 1:
Ooh, that's another podcast That'll preach, hey. And also, if you're listening and you're like, hey, that sounds I'm curious about that group, but it doesn't sound like it's quite for me, or January is not a good month, or whatever, if you've got a group of coaches here would be happy to walk with you. It'll be a different kind of environment, of course. A group environment provides a lot more, and this will be an intensive one at that. And if you're a woman listening, you're like wait, why not for women? Like, email us, let us know, that's something you'd be interested in.
Speaker 1:
And we're a ministry where you're here to serve men, women and families who are really seeking to learn and live God's design for sexuality. So if this has piqued your interest and you'd like to see more of this, just let us know. We certainly want to meet you where you are. So, jesus, thanks so much that you ask good questions and you do so, lord, not because you don't know, but because you want to help us know ourselves better that we might know you in the places we need you most. I would thank you that you came to seek and to save that which is lost, including that which we have lost even within ourselves and pray for all those listening that you would lead them further into yourself. Pray these things in your name, jesus, and that