Angus Nelson

Dealing with porn issues is not for the faint of heart.

In 2002, I began a journey to deal with my motives, conflicts with, and addiction to viewing naked folk. My marriage had tanked, my self-worth was crap, and I had lost all passion for life. I was miserable.

Here we are years later, I’m still delving into the rational behind this drive.

Since then, I’ve experience years of sobriety mixed with moments of lapse. Those times of lapse are the invitations into my pain.

Questions arise:

“Am I coping with anxiety?”

“Am I stressed right now?”

“Do I feel self-destructive?”

“Have I come this far just to fall back in?”

Diving into these arenas of my heart is not easy. It’s riddled with complexity and humility. I’m anguished sometimes at how in makes me feel so…naked. All too ironic.

At every level, my pride, self-perceptions, and spiritual understanding continue to transform. The deeper I allow myself to investigate, the more resolve I have to yield to this process.

Fortunately, I have my wife to talk about this stuff, to communicate things so revealing. She’s transcended her personal aspects of the topic – making the conversation about “my stuff”, not hers. She doesn’t condemn or get repulsed by my confession. In fact, her lack of propensity to porn gives her objectivity and insight that inspires me to dig even deeper.

I’m convinced that porn is in an arena where most men feel trapped…many women too. It’s gritty, embarrassing, shameful, secretive, addictive, and destructive. For me, it took mustering up every ounce of courage to finally start talking about it, dealing with it. I needed moxie, cojones, and guts! No more fear, I have to be bold.

Ultimately, this boldness revealed greater confidence and power than porn ever stole from me. I see things more clearly, attack issues more severely. I refuse to back down or grow timid. My life is established in character. My heart in integrity. I am more open and honest with my self than I’ve ever been before.

This is liberty.

William Wallace (Braveheart) would call it “Freeeedooooom!!!!”

In full transparency, I’m not on my own. I whole-heartedly believe the grace of God is bringing about the stronger and better man I know that I am. His ability increases in me is in direct proportion to the amount of me I yield.

Are you ready for your kilt or would you rather keep the skirt?

Several guys I’ve been counseling recently have been struggling with their relationships. One fella has a girl he’s been with for two years and she’s been texting a former lover behind his back, she gave him crotch crickets, and would still enjoys going to the club with her girlfriends without him around… dude, this girl doesn’t love you. The hard, cold truth is that she likes to have you around, but isn’t interested in a safe, secure relationship – dump her!

Then another guy got his girl pregnant and then decided to be the hero and marry her. Many of us told this guy not to do it, but he didn’t listen. Now, he’s miserable. The girl constantly tells him he’s nothing, verbally abashing him time and time again. She says she needs a bigger car, a bigger house, a bigger blah, blah, blah. Her family is in chaos, all she knows is chaos and now my friend is in the midst of the chaos too.

But it’s not the girls fault.

My friend allows himself to be treated poorly. He ALLOWS her to abuse him, verbally and physically. He has no backbone to stand up or walk away.

These are all situations I’ve heard over and over again.

Here’s a reality:

Many people would rather suffer in a relationship than be alone.

Their suffering results in depression, instability, low self-worth, and even more chaos. They will lose their jobs, parents, siblings, passion and identity… all in exchange for not wanting to be alone.

That person can’t change until they want to. You are NEVER going to change them!

Staying is not love, it’s co-dependency.

Stop Dating Crazy! from www.angusnelson.com on Vimeo.

Would you rather suffer than be alone?

Tiger Woods, Jesse James, politicians, musicians… many male celebrities seem to share the same self-destructive qualities. They have huge moral failures.

Why do these men, some who have everything going for them, bring this kind of failure on themselves?

Perhaps a better question might be, “Why do you and I screw up our lives?”

Most men would say its because, “I’m afraid of failure.” I was totally guilty of this same mindset.

Men don’t fear failure… we fear success.

You see, success requires responsibility. Success demands courage. Success insists we change… We’re afraid of the change we know is necessary to become the man we see in our heart and dreams. We don’t think we have what it takes to tackle our stuff: the past failures, losses and shame.

Instead of yielding to the process of change, we retreat. Worse, we sabotage ourselves.

We sabotage business opportunities, relationships, and future happiness simply because, at some level, we’ve convinced ourselves that WE DON’T DESERVE IT.

The real truth is, we’ve been involved in something that makes us feel shame. We’ve either participated in it or had it done to us. Whether its pornography, abuse, failure, disappointment, betrayal, or never quite fitting it, we have allowed it to identify us as disqualified from what’s possible. None of us were designed to deal with shame, guilt or fear.

It’s my opinion that Tiger Woods believes, on some level, he sucks. Despite his career, checking account, or beautiful family and life. Perhaps his dad instilled a self-defeating mindset of never being good enough.

And Jesse James, he openly admits it. In fact, he sought out counseling and learned some of these same lessons about himself.

All of us… ALL OF US are susceptible to sabotaging ourselves from the best life has to offer if we maintain our mindset that “we don’t deserve it”. This is how we become our own worst enemies, the terrorists of our hearts.

What we believe about ourselves eventually manifests itself through our behavior. I know this because I lived it.

You don’t have to live like this. You can learn to forgive and let go.

What are you actively doing to prevent self-sabotage in your life?

What have you struggled with that’s keeping you from experiencing the best God and life have to offer?

My heart completely identifies with Tiger.  I’ve been in that place of shame, brokenness and guilt.  I know what it’s like to feel embarrassed and ridiculed.  Worst of all, I know what it’s like to have it all self-inflicted.

Shame is one of the most debilitating emotions on the the human psyche.  Instantly, we are removed from credibility, stability and confidence.  This is why God told us to “come boldly before the throne of grace, that we might obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need”.

Where we get in trouble is when we dwell on our mistakes, rehearsing them time and time again in our minds.  Somehow, we think there is some way to get, as Tiger stated it, “atonement” for our crap.  We think there’s something we might do, credibility we might attain, or level we can strive for…  never going to happen.

The only thing we can do is to forgive ourselves and wait.  Time becomes the greatest asset during a period of moral failure.  Time to heal, time to build, and time to regroup.  But none of that is possible until we first forgive ourselves.

Tiger was honest at his press conference.  I believe his words were sincere even if scripted.  He admitted he needs to reconnect to his Buddhist faith, but I hope he gets to a place where he recognizes that his own efforts are fruitless and instead, finds God’s throne of grace.

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I was at cocktail party last night.  People were decked out in lovely attire and I was there with my wife and friends.  It was held in a high rise office building 60 stories high, a spectacular view of the city..

At some point in time, a storm rolled in and rain and wind were pelting the glass windows.  This is where things got out of control!  As we were standing, holding conversation with the guests, the floor began to sway under force of the wicked winds which were pushing against the building.  No one else seemed at all disturbed by the occurrence and continued their merry socializing.  I, on the other hand, could not.

The entire building was swaying several feet and I thought for sure this thing was going to come down.

With everything I could, I clamored for the door to the stairwell as the elevator was no longer an option.  Grasping the door frame, then the railing, I called for my wife to come join me.  She just looked at me as if I was crazy!  I pleaded, but she wouldn’t come.

With every sway I became filled with more anxiety and panic.  With every sway the more I grabbed to control the things around me.  With every sway I was sure that my wife, my friends, the building and all would  come to ruins. Everything around us was completely unstable, drifting in directions unknown, and no one knew what the outcome would be.

This is how I woke up yesterday.

Metaphorically, however, I think I’ve woken up that way many days.  Most of my life is completely out of my hands and yet, I somehow try to clamor for control.  Sometimes, I panic or get full of anxiety for reasons that are unfounded or even unlikely.  Usually, I perceive my circumstances to be far worse than they actually are… or ever could be.

Things are not always what they seem, sometimes letting go is more powerful than hanging on.

What are you hanging on to today?