How Our Counterfeit Emotions Undermine Connection and Intimacy | Curtis Morley | #177

We sit down with Curtis Morley to learn how “counterfeit emotions” quietly disconnect couples and how authentic emotions build peace, clarity, and real intimacy. We dig into practical shifts like choosing curiosity over anger, honoring pain without turning it into misery, and removing shame so connection can grow. 

• Curtis’s origin story after divorce and the loss of his friend Jerry 
• Four criteria for spotting counterfeit emotions: connection, direction, motivation, valuation 
• Why peace has no counterfeit and what that means for relationships 
• Curiosity as the antidote to anger and a path to calmer conflict 
• Two marriage practices: promise to lean in and create a nightly slow-dance ritual 
• Anger versus advocacy and how to address injustice without burning connection 
• Nice versus kind and how people pleasing blocks growth 
• Attachment versus connection and moving from need to want 
• Pain versus misery, how shame and blame fuel misery, gratitude as a reframe 
• Sobriety versus recovery, healing underlying emotions instead of white-knuckling behavior 
• Love versus lust, give and receive versus take 
• Parenting around porn exposure, using “thank you” to remove shame 
• Takeaway tools: name emotions, pause before reacting, the 90-second emotion window 

Visit our site for FREE relationship resources and regular giveaways: 

Strongermarriage.org  

Podcast.stongermarriage.org

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StrongerMarriageLife

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@strongermarriagelife

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strongermarriagelife/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strongermarriage/

Facebook Marriage Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/770019130329579

Dr. Dave Schramm: 

http://drdaveschramm.com

http://drdavespeaks.com

Dr. Liz Hale: 

http://www.drlizhale.com/ 

Transcript

Meet Curtis Morley

SPEAKER_07 0:03

On today's episode, Dr. Liz and I welcome Curtis Morley to the show. After going through a dark season that included his own divorce and the suicide of his best friend, Curtis began asking deeper questions about human emotions and why we sometimes get stuck in destructive emotional patterns. Over the past decade, he's devoted his work to understanding what he calls counterfeit emotions, feelings that look real, but quietly sabotage connection, communication, and relationships. From the difference between pain and misery to the roles of curiosity, gratitude, guilt, and shame, Curtis helps people recognize these patterns and replace them with healthier emotional responses. You can learn more at counterfeitemotions.com, and he has a new book on the topic coming out this fall. Curtis Morley is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and internationally recognized keynote speaker known as The Emotionologist. He's the founder of the Counterfeit Emotions Movement, a framework that helps individuals and organizations recognize hidden emotional patterns that undermine connection and performance. Curtis previously built and led multiple companies, including one that grew 20 times while serving 96 of the Fortune 100. And he's the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of The Entrepreneur's Paradox. Today he speaks around the world helping leaders and teams build emotional clarity, authentic connection, and stronger cultures. We hope you enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Welcome to Stronger Marriage Connection. We've got the psychologist and professor. I'm Dr. Liz Hale, along with the beloved professor, Dr. Dave Schram. And together we have dedicated our life's work to bringing you the best we have in valid marital research, along with a few tips and tools to help you create the marriage of your dreams. I ran across the work of Curtis Morley recently, Dave. And I love the fact that he's right here in our own backyard. But I was captivated by his story. You know the saying, life happens while you're making other plans. Just might agree with that quote. He was working as an entrepreneur, having written one Wall Street Journal bestseller and right in the middle of writing a second one when one of his closest friends, Jerry Williamson, took his life. And that changed everything, it seemed for Curtis. Jerry was a really good man. He just didn't have the tools to combat the trials that life throws at all of us. For this reason, Curtis has dedicated his life to helping all of us break free from the counterfeit to the authentic emotions by tapping into vulnerability and growth. I really like that. I don't think I've ever really heard of counterfeit emotions. Well, welcome to Stronger Marriage, Curtis Morley. So lovely having you here.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Thanks so much for having me on, you guys. I love your podcast. And I love your mission. And I love what we're doing to strengthen marriage.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

We do too and back at you. That's exactly why we're having you on, my friend. You you say that emotional intelligence is vital for thriving in the world and even in marriage, and that your life mission is to help us live more authentically. Some even call you the emotionologist. I really love that. Can we start, um, Curtis, with your dear friend Jerry? Tell us a little bit about him and how the end of his life really became the beginning of something very new for you.

Jerry’s Story And A Turning Point

SPEAKER_01 3:35

We're gonna get started with right into vulnerability. Here we go. Um yeah. So this this is Jerry. This is my friend. Um, we were college buddies, and um and we both happened to go through divorces at similar times. And um Jerry would come over to my house and we would we'd sit on my couch and and we would honor our pain together. And every time he'd leave, every single time he'd be like, Curtis, I hate you. And I'm like, Jerry, why do you hate me? And and he said, he said, because you make me cry and I hate crying. And and it was a very tender place. And and when I say we honored our pain together, we we sat in we sat in our pain, we we picked it up, we looked at it, we we respected it. It wasn't wasn't a complaining session or how la bad life is, it was just a series of understanding conversations.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

And um yeah, and then it never gets easier.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Um Jerry Jerry struggled with um some compulsive behaviors and some addictive behaviors and and he didn't have the tools. He didn't understand the difference between guilt and shame, didn't understand the difference between recovery and sobriety or pain and misery, and we didn't have enough time to sit on the couch together to talk. And because of that, he's he's no longer here. And I'm not okay, I'm not okay with how he left us, not okay with how he chose to exit this world, and and that did that lit a a spark inside of me that I said, you know what, there's others just like Jerry that don't have the tools, and I can share how beautiful guilt is and how miserable shame is, and I can help people understand what the difference is so that they can find peace, so they don't have to live a life running from what's inside, but rather using that as their superpower instead of their kryptonite.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Oh wow, you're really honoring what a beautiful way to honor Jerry. Kind of picking up where you left off, and just is there a short way to say what um how if we're living a more authentic life versus a counterfeit life, Curtis, what is the essence of that?

How To Spot Counterfeit Emotions

SPEAKER_00 6:40

How do I know? How will I look?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah, there's um there's four criteria to understand if what I'm feeling inside is authentic or if it's counterfeit. And the four criteria are connection, direction, motivation, and valuation. What does this emotion do for me? Does it connect me? Does it connect me to my true self? Does it connect me to you? Does it connect me to God, my higher power? Does it connect me to truth? Does it connect me to purpose? If it does, that's authentic. If it disconnects, and I know this podcast is so focused on connection, which I love. Um, but if it's disconnecting, you can know that that's a counterfeit. Um, so that's the first criteria. The second is direction. Where does this emotion take you? And every authentic emotion will move me forward, upward, or bring me together. And when I did the research on this, I thought the counterfeits would do the opposite, but they don't. This was fascinating. There's only one direction for a counterfeit emotion, and that is back to itself. That emotion circles on itself. And a great illustration of this is pain versus misery. And a lot of people don't like to hear that pain is an authentic emotion. Um, and it is, and misery is what we add to life's inevitable pain. But you think about the saying about pain, no pain, no thing, right? Because pain takes us somewhere. Pain has a very important purpose of helping us grow. There's no faster, more effective way to grow than through pain. But you think about its counterfeit, it's it has a saying too. Misery loves company, company, because misery has to have more misery to survive. If you if you stop feeding misery with misery, it will it'll evaporate, it'll dissolve into nothing because that's its own food. And every counterfeit emotion, all it does is circle back on itself. And so that's the second criteria is is direction. The third is motivation. And what I've found is that every authentic emotion is motivated in two meta emotions, and that's love and surrender. And the counterfeits are motivated in fear and control, and they flow through each one, and then finally, valuation. What does this emotion value me at, and what does it value you at? The authentic values us have as having divine worth, infinite divine worth, every single one of us, which says there's no such thing as a bad person. But the counterfeits, they start, they start with I'm worthless. Then they say, I'm worth less because I'm not as smart or as handsome or as rich, or so we just keep notching down saying I'm worth less and worth less and worth less and with less. And and using those five four criteria, anyone can identify at any time the if they're feeling authentic or if they're feeling the counterfeit emotions.

Why Peace Has No Counterfeit

SPEAKER_07 10:15

Wow. Yeah, that's powerful, Curtis. You say that there's one emotion that has no counterfeit, and that is peace. I mean, that's such a powerful suggestion. Can you describe for us, please, why peace should be the ultimate goal?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, peace is universally desired. There's no human on earth that doesn't want peace. And um, and it it is unique. There, the definition of a counterfeit emotion is an emotion that looks acts and feels like the authentic, but it creates these destructive cycles of disconnection in our lives. And using that definition, there is nothing that feels like peace that gives us that that beautiful sense of serenity inside that that is able to counterfeit. And there's several reasons why. One is the neuroscience. The neuroscience of peace is fascinating. Um, there's every other emotion has a sensory perception tied to it. You look at fear, fear has cortisol, it has adrenaline, it has all of these different brain chemicals that squirt. So what about peace? And uh and it's fascinating because if you use that criteria that a counterfeit looks acts and feels like, especially the feels like, and that's where peace stands alone. There's nothing that truly brings that serenity like peace. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_07 11:48

And I'm curious, and I I love this and and completely agree. How can we bring peace to you know, really at to the heart of any relationship? Is there um a surefire way to bring peace to any given moment?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

In in relationships or or just in life?

SPEAKER_07 12:06

Yeah, I think in relationships, as we talk about, yeah, but then just as a as a piece, as a person, uh individually.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah.

Curiosity Ends Conflict

SPEAKER_01 12:14

In in relationships, um, one of the dyads in the counterfeit emotions framework or pairs of emotions, call them dyads, um, is that curiosity is authentic and its counterfeit is suspicion. And I truly believe that curiosity is one of the most transcendent emotions we can experience. And you ask, how do we bring peace to relationships? It's it's so funny because most people, and me, myself included, until I left the tech world and really started doing the research, which is almost at a decade now. Um, I I always thought that love was the antidote to anger or conflict. That if there's some conflict or there's some anger, well, I just need to love more. And I was wrong. I was so wrong. Love isn't the antidote to anger, curiosity is. And not only is curiosity the antidote for the other person, it's the antidote for me. I cannot be angry, I cannot be upset if I'm truly curious. And and what I mean by that is curious to the point of wanting to see the person, wanting to see who they are, regardless of what the issue is. Doesn't matter if the toothpaste cap is off or on, doesn't matter which way the toilet paper rolls, just to be able to see the person, understand why do you feel this way? Regardless of what's happening here, I want to know you, I want to see you, I want to be able to experience life with you. And what happens is curiosity changes conflict to from this to this, where we're going down the path together. We're on this journey together instead of we're gonna be conflicting against each other.

SPEAKER_06 14:18

We'll be right back after this brief message.

Lean In And Create Daily Rituals

SPEAKER_04 14:31

And we're back. Let's dive right in.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

You recently Curtis married the love of your life, Patty.

SPEAKER_08 14:41

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Father to five, a stepdad to seven, and something television, you know, a little something on how a thriving marriage is based on authentic living. What can we do to help ourselves today? And and our marriages become even more authentic, satisfying, and successful, in your opinion.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Um, there's there's two things. And and this is my patty. I I'm very convinced she is the best human on planet Earth. Oh, that's nice. She is absolutely amazing. Yes. Very centered, very just kind, very yeah, just so full of goodness and light.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

She began. I'm so tickled.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

She brightens every room. Um, there's two things that come to mind immediately. One is lean in, is promise each other that you're gonna lean in. It's so easy when we have big emotions in marriage to be say, you know what, I'm gonna lean out. I'm I'm gonna go to the man cave, or I'm going shopping, or I'm, you know, it's time to doom scroll. It's and and one big thing is to make the promise to each other that I will always lean in, especially when it's hard. That's the time I'm gonna lean in most, is when it's hard. And I'm gonna lean in in curiosity, I'm gonna lean in in love. I'm gonna lean in to a place where I truly can see you. And and that's the first thought. The second thought, and and this is something Patty and I do almost every night. It's not a hundred percent, but it's almost every night, is that um we we have a nightly dance where we slow dance and we press our hearts together and we turn on some beautiful music. Um, last night it was Ray Rachel Platton made mode, and and we just sway back and forth. And and our hearts, our hearts literally produce an electromagnetic field. And it's not woo-woo science. Like you can go to the hospital and they can put an EKG on and they can measure the elect the electrical field, the magnetic field around your heart. And um, and what happens when you press your hearts together is it's almost like two magnets that click together and they magnetize, and we just sway back and forth for three to five minutes with a beautiful song and look in each other's eyes. And and oh, it's it's such a such a connecting, intimate experience.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Um, never heard that. Never heard anyone share that before. That is beautiful.

SPEAKER_07 17:35

I love that. And the thing, the thing I think I I love about that most is that it's it's intentional, right? That this connection, this emotional intimacy doesn't happen uh on accident. In fact, the the kind of the natural is to just naturally drift apart and not do anything. And as we go down that kind of river of life, but intentionally like holding on, like literally holding on to each other through this, uh, through this life is is awesome. So yeah, absolutely love that, Curtis.

Anger Versus Advocacy

SPEAKER_07 18:06

Uh in the marriage field right now, that there's there seems to be a lot of conversation about anger and how it's you know it's always wrong because it's it's often damaging. So what do we do with with anger? We get fresh, frustrated, we get you know resentful in our relationships.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Yeah. Anger is the is the counterfeit of advocacy. And in life, there's only two reasons we'll ever get angry. The first is danger. If the bear is chasing us in the woods, it is really important to get angry. It's really important to let all of those, you know, endorphins and adrenaline pump through the body, grab the stick, and poke the bear in the eye, right? It's that's important because that saves your life. The second reason is a perceived injustice. And I say perceived because it may or may not be a true injustice. You know, the little kid where his milk is this much lower than his brother's and he throws a fit because there's this perceived injustice. That's just something we grew up through, right? But there are true injustices, and there are places where our boundaries are crossed. And advocacy says, I'm going to invite you in. It actually comes from the Latin word advocate, which means literally to invite in. You can only say I'm going to advocate for. It is. If we say I'm going to advocacy, then that's going to be constructive. But each one address the same injustice. Each one. And would it be okay if we did a fun little experiment? Let's do it. Okay. So it's okay if you don't know the answer to this question. In the thousands of people I've asked, there's only been three people that have known the answer. So if you don't know, that's totally that's totally fine. But here's the question: Who is Huey Newton and Bobby Seal? Who is what one were saying? Who is you Huey Newton and Bobby Seal? No one's yeah, no one knows. No, no one knows those the names of those two men. Let me ask you a different question. Who is Martin Luther King Jr.? Yeah. Yeah, we know who Civil Rights, yeah. Everybody knows. Every major city in the U.S. has a Martin Luther King Jr. street, and the number of high schools and junior highs named after him is immense, and he's known throughout the world. The question is, why don't you know who Bobby Seal and Huey Newton are? Yeah, why don't we? Didn't know what they did with the because they were the ones that founded the Black Panthers. They were the ones that started the organization that were firebombing cars and killing police officers and and all of these things that they both saw the exact same injustice of racism. And it's a real injustice. It is true, but one shows anger, the other Chose advocacy. And it wasn't that Martin Luther King Jr. said, no, I'm just going to be a pacifist and um we'll just continue. He said, no, I will not stand for racism. But what I will stand for is I will stand at the base of the Lincoln Memorial with one million people to change the world. And I'm going to invite you in. I'm going to invite you in to make this change with me. And the beauty is that once we go to the authentic emotion, the counterfeit twin of that emotion says, Oh, you've got it. I don't need to be here anymore. I see you're going to address this. So I'm going to take a rest. Thank you, advocacy, for being here. Because now anger doesn't have to be.

unknown 22:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 22:56

Yeah, I've never thought about it like that. That was great.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

We talk a lot about anger in in marriages, right? That that's natural, common, and we should be uh weary if we don't fight. Is there such a thing as as um healthy couples who never fight, Curtis?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I I'm sure you guys hear this a lot. I hear this a lot. Oh, if you're not fighting, you're either lying because you are fighting, or you're um suppressing all these emotions. And that's that doesn't have to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

So you know is a couple, a famous couple who says they have never had a fight. Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey. So I wonder, is is that true? So okay, I'll be quiet now. I want to hear the rest.

Nice Versus Kind And Attachment

SPEAKER_01 23:46

And and this actually goes to um another one of our dyads is is the dyad of kind versus nice. Well, and and just nice, nice sees conflict, and it's number one motivation. The number one little motivation behind being nice is conflict avoidance. I'm gonna put on the smile and I'm going to placate you and be a doormat and a people pleaser, and I'm gonna do all that because I don't want conflict. But kindness, kindness is magic. It is alchemy. Because kindness, instead of just trying to avoid conflict or even resolve conflict, kindness transforms conflict into connection. And it says anytime there's a chance for conflict, there's a chance for connection. Anytime. And and I found that that's true. And when Patty and I have big conversations, which we do, it's it is so beautiful. We almost we almost smile at the other person when the when the other person's like, hey, I'm feeling triggered. Would it be okay if if we had a conversation about that? And we smile because we're like, yes, this is gonna be more connection. This is gonna be so good to be able to dive in and be able to see each other. It's another opportunity to see each other in a way that we didn't see each other before. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

So gosh, good for you. I I love this. We're we we also hear a lot about um not just anger, but also attachment theories from a number of marriage entomic therapists and authors. What's the difference between attachment and and connection?

unknown 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

You know, love connection here on Stogger Rearish Connection.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yes, yes. Connection is the goal. Connection is the goal. Attachment, like described by John Bowlby or Mary Ainsworth, you know, it's it's important in the infancy and the maturation stages, but where they leave off is beyond attachment. You find connection. Attachment has this dependency component to it. Attachment says, I have to be attached to you. Connection, connection says, I'm okay right here. With everything that I am, I'm okay. You're okay. We don't have to have each other, but we want to have each other. And there's this beautiful desire leaving off the quote unquote need that I'm not complete without you, I'm not a whole person without you. No. Connection goes to a place that says I'm whole and you're whole. And together we can go on this journey. And um this may sound completely backwards from every Hallmark movie you've ever seen, but uh when we were dating, I I told Patty, I said, the most romantic thing you can say to me is I don't need you.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

I don't need you.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

It said, I want you. And and yeah, if if we didn't have each other, uh would we still be whole? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

But with each other, we're whole plus adult attachment then the anxious and the avoidant you and just really focus on connection versus disconnection. Is that it? Yeah, because we hear my clients will bring in attachment, right? Theories all the time, adult attachment.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yeah. It's I I had a friend the other day, he's like, My wife told me I need to spend more time with the kids, and he's like, Okay, that's my goal. And he pulls out his calendar and he's like, okay, time, time, time, time, time, and he starts going through his calendar. And and I said, What if you took a different approach? Instead of time being your goal, what if it was connection? What if connection is your goal? And and if you if you look at a lot of the Western um philosophies, um, Buddhism, Taoism, um, several other you look at their philosophies, um, in in Buddhism, it says that attachment is is the cause of all sorrow. And we so easily attach to titles, to labels, to identity structures. We we say, Oh, I am this person, and I've got trophies on my trophy shelf that show this, or I've got loving kids that say, I'm a good mom, or I've got all of these things. And the stories we make up about those attachments, those identities. If we if we pull all those away, what we find left is peace. Is when we get rid of attachment in all forms, that's a great place to find peace. Attaching to a story.

SPEAKER_05 29:14

We'll be right back after this brief message.

Pain Versus Misery And Gratitude

SPEAKER_04 29:27

And we're back. Let's dive right in.

SPEAKER_07 29:30

Curtis, you've created some uh transformational self-paced masterclasses. Let's talk about this first one here: pain versus misery. What's the difference between pain and misery? We kind of touched on a little bit earlier, but I'd love to dive a little bit deeper, right? They sound similar, uh, other than we often add misery, love's company, right? That we that we talked about earlier. In fact, I remember uh I was serving a mission for our church, my sister at the end of all of her letters that she would write, she would say, Um, you know, pain is necessary, misery is optional. I just remember her at the end of every letter that she wrote, she would write that same thing, right? Going through walk us through kind of pain versus misery.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Yeah, I I love that she said that. And and the way I say it is very similar is that pain is inevitable, misery is optional. And and pain has to happen. And I used to think in my former life, I used to think that pain meant something is bad. That either I'm bad, my choices are bad, my situation is bad, there's there's something bad going on. And I I'm if you can imagine a wall, right? And this is an impenetrable wall you cannot break through. And I put pain on one side, and I put joy and love on the other side. And if I'm feeling pain, I'm not feeling joy. If I'm feeling pain, I'm not feeling love. But what I realized when I went through the greatest pain of my life, when I went through my divorce and when I went through losing Jerry, that this was not called pain. This side of the wall, that's misery. I get to choose where I put my pain. I can put it on the side of joy and the side of love. I can elevate and honor that pain and turn that pain into a sacred sorrow. Or I can bury it deep under the sludge and slime of misery. And that's my choice. And one thing about pain is pain is not meant to be held. Pain is meant to be felt. Pain is meant to move us. It has a very specific purpose, and that is to move us to action. And when the pain comes into us and we we cover it in that tar of misery, then the pain is trapped inside of us. And that's not where pain is meant to live. Pain is not meant to live there, it's meant to flow through us. And if we can remove the pain from the side of misery, and and side note, misery has two base emotions. Misery is based in blame and shame. You want to be miserable, start blaming and start shaming. Direct path right into misery. But we take we take that misery and we put it on the side of joy. And I thought, wait, no, you can't, you can't cross the line. No, you can. Pain and joy can exist simultaneously. And it doesn't mean joy after the pain. Oh, I made it to the end of the race. Now I can feel joy. No, it's joy and pain together. And Dr. Paul T P. Wong, a researcher out of site out of um Canada, he um he did an amazing study called the Existential Gratitude Scale. And he first tested people on the on the spiritual wellness scale, uh, which is a very standardized um test in the psychology world. And then he said, okay, now let's see what people are grateful for. And he found that the people that actually marked their pain as something they're grateful for were in a completely different stratosphere on the other scale. They were in a completely different league all their own when people actually expressed gratitude for their pain. And it made this transcendent difference in people's lives.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

My goodness. Fascinating. I don't know about that study either, but I'm so glad I know now.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Um another Jayad, kind versus nice, we mentioned briefly. I took your online quiz, Curtis, and needless to say, and then I was invited to take your masterclass. So clearly, I am more of a people pleaser than I ever realized. And I need to learn how to be more authentically connected to others. Oi. So, how can being nice hurt our relationships? And and the difference between nice and kind again, please.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah. Nice. It's so funny because you think about where did nice start? Santa has his naughty and nice list. You know, bumper, Bandaby's best friend. Can't say nothing nice, don't say nothing at all.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

I grew up with that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah, we all did. And we were told in school and at home and church, be nice, be nice, be nice. The word nice comes from the Latin base of nessius, and nessius actually means ignorance. The base root of the word nice is ignorance. And if you think about this in the people-pleasing sense, you say something, and I'm going to be nice, and I'm not going to give you my opinion because I'm going to be ignorant and I'm going to play ignorant, but then you really will be ignorant because you don't know what I'm trying to say. And there's this unspoken deception. We don't think of it as a deception, but it's this unspoken deception of, you know what, I really need to say something, but I'm going to avoid the conflict and just be nice. That's that's what I'm going to do. And it's this people-pleasing of my number one goal is to not rock the boat. And the trouble with that is that when you can't rock the boat, that means you can't row the boat. You can't progress the relationship. You can't have those important conversations to say, I care about you enough to identify a destructive behavior in your life. And this conversation, it may hurt, but when it hurts, I'm going to sit with you in the hurt. I'm going to be there with you. And I'm going to invite you in, just like advocating. I'm going to invite you in to a place of health and growth and prosperity. And then it's yours. Then it's completely yours to accept that invitation or not. But I am willing to be courageous enough in kindness to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Oh my goodness. Is that another Curtis Morley isms? If you can't rock the boat, you won't row the boat.

SPEAKER_08 36:34

Yeah, I love it. That is so good. I love it.

Sobriety Versus Recovery And Lust

SPEAKER_07 36:39

Let's chat briefly about overall um addictions. You emphasize the importance of addressing underlying emotions rather than merely suppressing them. So what's the difference between sobriety and recovery? And what's the real driver there?

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah, I'm so glad we're having this conversation. Um the the idea between behind sobriety, sobriety has one metric and only one, and that's how long. How long can I go? How many X's on the calendar can I mark off? And the the study showed that there is zero correlation between the length of time somebody's sober and the amount of recovery they've done. Because recovery measures how deep. Sobriety measures how long. Recovery measures how deep. And here's my here's my little demon. Um in the sobriety mindset, we have these big emotions. We'll call them emotional demons, right? They're not real demons, just these big emotions that pop up. And and in sobriety mindset, we're like, okay, put on the filters, sing the hymns, you know, memorize the scriptures, do all the things, which all of those by themselves are great. But it's just pushing those emotions down. And it's just like taking uh a beach ball and trying to shove it underwater. The farther down it goes, the more pressure there is to shoot it back up. And that's what the sobriety mindset does. It says, okay, we'll teach you really, really good ways to push these demons down in your soul. But then you have to carry the demons with you. And the recovery mindset says, you know what? I'm gonna pull this guy out. I'm gonna stop resisting because what we resist persists. I'm gonna stop resisting. You know what? I'm gonna take him to lunch. I'm gonna sit across the table with him, and I'm gonna say, hey, you've been haunting me for a long time. Help me understand what message you need me to hear. Help me understand what you're trying to do for me. And we take him to lunch, we even pay the bill, and we say, we say, teach me why you're still screaming in my soul. Help me see you. And when we do that, we find that these demons are not demons after all. We find that they're an important part of our past that we couldn't understand at the time. And when we dig them up and we make peace with them and we put that little boy back in the soul in a place where he can rest, then we can rest. And we no longer have him screaming. Sobriety says, let's push all these screams down. Recovery says, Let's stop the screaming, let's get in a place where you don't need the behavior because one of the big myths of pornography is that it's all about the sex and the sexual aspects of it. It's not, it's about the emotions. It's not actually about the pornography itself, it's about the need for the pornography. And the need for the pornography comes from a whole bunch of these little guys buried in the graveyard of our soul. And instead of that, when we dig them out and we make peace with them and we bring them back in in a place that they feel safe, we all feel safe in this great big crazy emotional soup in our soul, then they don't scream anymore. And the men that go through my program, we don't have filters on the phones because they don't need them. Because we got rid of the need for the destructive behavior. It's not about the pornography, it could be gambling, drugs, exercise, shopping. Like it doesn't matter over here. What matters is do I have the need? Do I have the need to try and escape? And it's hard to escape what's inside.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

It's really hard to escape.

SPEAKER_08 41:16

Super powerful.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Let's keep talking maybe about the myths of pornography recovery and then the truths behind the myths, please, Chris. What's the one distinguishing factor between uh loud and lust, let's say this is such a good one.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

And and if I could go actually one step back just to recovery and sobriety, is um is with with the differences there, the when I'm sober, I'm miserable. When I'm recovered, I feel peace. And and when we go into when we go into this idea of love and lust, this actually took me two years of research to figure this out. I know it sounds silly, but it's like, really? It took you that long. Yep, it did. It took me two full years of research to figure out there's only one difference between love and lust. And and the difference, actually, thought I had it close by. Um the the difference is is represented by the open hand. Love, you you hear the saying all the time that love or marriage is a matter of give and take. I reject that 100%. Love is not a matter of give and take. Love is a matter of give and receive. And it's it's represented by the open hand where my hand is open to receive, your hand is open to give. And when we come together in that way, then that is true love, that's true connection. Lust, the distinguishing factor between love and lust is the take, is I'm gonna take from you. You may have, you may have yourself, your vulnerable self over here, and I'm gonna take that. And you become an object instead of human. And we take through uh so many things where, you know, but it's it's so tricky because it does such a good job of masquerading, putting on that mask of I am love, because love says kiss and lust says kiss. And love says, hold hands, and lust says hold hands. The question is, what is the motivation behind that? Are you doing it because you're connecting and you're giving yourself in vulnerability and being willing to accept the other person in their vulnerability? Or are you doing it because I need, I going back to attachment, I need, I need, I'm gonna take. Now you're just an object for my desires. And that's the big distinction between the two.

SPEAKER_07 44:05

Wow. Yeah, that one wants to wants to take. Yeah, it's it it disguises itself, but yeah, it's really on the they they may look the same on the outside, but it is it's inside of uh uh is the difference. Yeah, it's really good.

SPEAKER_06 44:21

We'll be right back after this brief message.

Dads Defuse Shame With Thanks

SPEAKER_04 44:33

And we're back. Let's dive right in.

SPEAKER_07 44:37

Let's can we talk about um dads a little bit? I know that you know a lot of our listeners, dads wanting to to help, and I'm sure they're listening to some of this that you know when it comes to these counterfeit emotions, we've been we've been talking about what do dads often get wrong, and and how can we better guide our kids through emotional health and pornography exposure and breaking free from shame?

SPEAKER_01 45:00

I I love that. And it turns out most most kids, most people are not actually addicted to pornography. Pornography is not the problem, it's shame. Shame is the problem, that's the addiction. And and one of the best things a dad can do if their kids come to them and say, Hey dad, I saw this image, or I went to this website, or whatever it happens to be. One of the best things they can that can come out of their mouth the very first is the words thank you.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Thank you for coming to me.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

And uh, I'm getting a little emotional. Thank you for being willing to share this with me, because I know that's really hard, and that probably felt very vulnerable. Thank you so much for coming to me and telling me this. And all of a sudden, instantly, the kids get into this trauma response of, oh no, my hero, my dad, my hero, he's flipping out because I just told him this instead that. Just very simply use the words, thank you. Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for being willing to have this really hard conversation with me and sit with them and remove the shame because the problem is not the pornography, the problem that keeps people in those cycles is the shame. And in in my program, when we go through this and we pull out the shame, leaving the guilt. Guilt is beautiful and healthy and important, but we when we remove the shame, it's amazing how free these men become, how just liberated they become because they don't have to hide. Shame has three foods silence, secrecy, and judgment. And when we remove the silence of I'm not gonna tell anyone about this, or the secrecy of I have to be hiding in the basement to do this, or the judgment, like you are a really bad person because of this. When we remove that, it's amazing what happens. That compulsive desire, it just dies. It's amazing how beautiful it is. And that's what dads can do. That's what dads can provide that shame-free environment and just wrap their kids up in a great big hug and say, I just love you so much. Thank you, dad. Thank you for sharing this with me, and destigmatizing it and breaking out of that. I need to hide this and instead just shower them with love.

SPEAKER_07 48:03

Yeah, that's powerful, I think, for all of us to hear. Just re there's a different big difference, as you pointed out, in responding with love and gratitude versus reacting out of this, yeah, this anger or fear. Wow. Powerful.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Thank you for starters. That's yeah, we we we could keep going on, Curtis Morley. Uh, we love all your keen insights here. We want our friends to be able to find you. No, you have a website, counterfeitemotions.com, and a podcast with the same name and a and a book coming out, Counterfeit Emotions. Um, what's the best place? Social media? Where can where can we easily find you, please?

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah. If you um on social media, you'll find me at authenticcurtis. Um, is the Herendel, authentic Curtis. You the website, counterfeitemotions.com, or if you're specifically looking for recovery, pornography recovery, it's counterfeitemotions.com slash recovery. And um, you can find the podcast on on all the platforms. And we just actually submitted the book proposal today. So I am so excited. Oh decades worth of research is is going on.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Keep us posted on that book, will you?

SPEAKER_07 49:24

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

And we're gonna be happy to add these resources to our show notes for quick references for our listeners and viewers, for all of us. Thank you, Curtis.

Stronger Marriage Keys And 90 Seconds

SPEAKER_07 49:34

Yes. Hey, as we wrap up, Curtis, we'd like to ask all of our guests a couple of questions. The first one, in honor of the name of our podcast, Stronger Marriage Connection, is what do you feel like is the key to a stronger marriage connection?

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Dancing at night, well, actually, we are talking about that. Um the I I think I think the key in in marriage is two things. One we already talked about was curiosity, is truly being curious, and the other is surrender. And um most of the time when I say the word surrender, especially to men, um, Dave, you and I were in this group. Um, men think, oh, I'm not I'm not throwing in the white towel, I'm not, you know, giving up. No, that's the that's the counterfeit. The counterfeit to surrender is resignation. Um but true surrender means that I get to be part of this beautiful, hard, chaotic, lovely experience called life. And when I surrender to God's will, to the experience of life that involves my patty, involves my partner, and says, I get to see you, truly see you, and step back from the emotion, step back from any emotion, and just spend time seeing your your spouse. Spend time seeing your spouse on a daily basis, on an intentional basis. Just like brushing your teeth every day, every day dance, every day see them, every day tap into each one of the pillars of intimacy because there's seven. There's seven pillars of intimacy. Uh most people think there's just the sexual intimacy, but no, there's the emotional intimacy, the spiritual intimacy. Build all of those first before you get to the sexual intimacy, and you'll notice that they just flow into that. Uh you build those first, and then you do it every single day. Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_07 51:54

Uh, second question, last question for you, Curtis, is we call it our takeaway of the day. Is it a take-home message you want our listeners to remember from our discussion?

SPEAKER_01 52:03

I think the biggest one is to name your emotions because you can't solve something that doesn't have a name. You can't solve something if you don't know what it is. Name your emotions and go through and make it a practice. Make it a practice of naming your emotions. What am I feeling right now? They actually just at the beginning of this year, they came out with a study and a phenomenal study that said the highest measure of emotional intelligence is if you can feel an emotion without acting on it. Whether it's positive or negative, if you can the the amount of time between stimulus and response is the highest indicator of emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_08 52:53

Wow, feel it and don't follow it.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

For either one. Yeah, for yeah, the the what we think of as good emotions. There is no such thing as a good or bad emotion, but the ones that we think are the positive or the negative, if you can just spend time saying, Oh, I know this emotion, and put a name to it, and then just watch it. I like I like to imagine it like you're sitting on a on a grassy hill on a summer day as a little kid and you're watching clouds float by. And this is one of my favorite exercises. I do this myself, is as the emotion comes in, I just watch it because every emotion, um, they did a study out of Harvard, or sorry, Stanford, um, that said that emotions take about 90 seconds. On average, emotions last 90 seconds. And so if you can lay on that grassy hill and you can just watch as the emotion comes, floats overhead, and floats on by. Whether it's a soft cotton ball type cloud of emotion, or maybe it's you know a dark storm cloud, any any cloud that comes in view, just watch. And after the 90 seconds is what's called the refractory period, where you get to decide what am I gonna do with this emotion? Am I gonna act on it? Am I gonna let it become my mood? Am I just gonna let it float on by? And if we can do that, then we find so much peace.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

90 seconds. That's all I need to give it. 90, right? I get that right, not 90 minutes, but 90 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

90 seconds, a minute and a half. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 54:37

Yeah, and I think the key even there is is to feel it, but don't don't feed it, right? There's a difference in like feeling it and then okay, and then feeding it, okay. You know, 90 seconds is up, now I'm gonna explode. Yeah, it's it's more like pause, watch it without yeah, judgment and take some breaths. Yeah, and those powerful emotions sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Yeah, I love how you said that because it's not a matter of turning into a robot or uh uh you know, this stoic no-emotion person. No, feel it. Emotions are meant to be felt. Feel it, feel it deeply, uh but spend the time watching the feeling. We are not our emotions, we are not our thoughts, we are so much more. And if we can just feel it but not act on it, then that's where our emotional quotient goes way up.

SPEAKER_08 55:28

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_07 55:30

Wow, Liz, what about you? What's your takeaway of the day today with Kurt?

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Oh my goodness, it's endless, right? Um, I I love Dias. Kurt is saying it's brilliant. Love, less, pain, misery. I hadn't thought about misery, and I'm not sure if it's the two ingredients or the baseline being um uh shame and blame, but I thought that was brilliant. I love that. And then pain. And the the key for pain is really gratitude. I I think that's lovely. Uh um, Dave, what about you? What's the golden nugget in our time together with with Curtis Morley?

SPEAKER_07 56:03

Yeah, I love this. I need to spend more time on the website going because I absolutely eat this up, uh, Curtis. I love the when you talk about the anger and then the the advocate, advocating for uh instead of yeah, against. I just never thought about that. I haven't thought about a lot of these things you're you're talking about. But man, I uh so it just all resonates with me. And I I appreciate that. Love that these emotions and thinking about the counterfeits and the uh you

Wrap Up And How To Follow

SPEAKER_07 56:30

spent a lot of time, a lot of time, my friend. You're doing so much good. We sure appreciate you taking time with us today to come on and share so much of your wisdom. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Thank you. I'm truly honored. I I love what you do. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_07 56:45

Yeah, healing is beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Love what you're doing as well, my friend. All right, friends, that does it for us here. We will see you next time on another episode of the Strong Marriage Connection Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

That's right. And remember, it's the small and simple things that create a stronger marriage connection. Take good care of yourselves and each other. See you soon.

SPEAKER_07 57:08

Thanks for joining us today. Hey, do us a favor and take a second to subscribe to our podcast and the Utah Marriage Commission YouTube channel at Utah Marriage Commission, where you can watch this and every episode of the show. Be sure to smash the like button, leave a comment, and share this episode with a friend. You can also follow and interact with us on Instagram at StrongerMarriage Live and Facebook at Stronger Marriage. So be sure to share with us which topics you love, which guests we should have on the show connection. If you want even more resources to improve your marriage or relationship connection, visit strongermarriage.org where you'll find free workshops, e-courses, in-depth webinars, relationship surveys, and paper. Each episode of Stronger Marriage Connection is hosted and sponsored by the Utah Marriage Commission at Utah State University. And finally, a big thanks to our producer, Rex Polanis, and the team at Utah State University, and you, our audience. You make this show possible. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Marriage Commission.