Changing: Altering the Patterns of Our Lives

Everyone who wants to get out of the rut of compulsive sexual behavior needs to change some of their life patterns.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes” is a line often heard in the rooms of recovery. If we want a different life, just wishing our lives were different won’t do it. 

Habits and the Challenge to Change

We have to learn how to make changes and it’s not easy work.

Why? Habits. Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (Random House, 2012) is a very helpful read. 

“If you believe you can change—if you make it a habit—the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be.” (p. 273)

In his research, Duhigg discovered there is a pattern to our habits. Our brains begin to recognize cues that lead us to engage in behaviors that give us a reward of some kind. It becomes a loop. The reward strengthens the power of the cue. 

These can be simple or complex but the key to change is to recognize our patterns, figure out the routine, begin to change the rewards and isolate the cue. 

This only works if we have a plan. The plan is how to alter our routines into other patterns which take us where we want to go. We change habits by replacing them with better habits.

Years ago when I was a pastor and our kids were young, I’d come home from evening meetings tired and to a quiet house. I’d turn on the television and aimlessly scroll through the channels until I found something mildly entertaining. And almost invariably, I’d get up and look for something to eat. 

One habit led to another. Cue (tv) and reward (empty calories) and a routine developed.

Through no cleverness of my own (other than noticing I was always tired the next morning and gaining weight), I changed my routine. My plan entailed finding a better reward. No tv (or computer) after ten and I began to read mystery novels before bed. It worked.

So if we really want to change our compulsive sexual behaviors, part of our recovery is changing our patterns. 

Here are some areas to examine for unhelpful habits. Then think long and hard about how we can replace those habits with new and healthier habits that will take us where we want to go.

Some Areas to Consider

Access to sexual images and material—whatever it takes, remove all access to every kind of portrayal that triggers your sexualized interest and makes you want more.

Daily routines—are there times in the day or week you tend to act on your sexual impulses? What places or people are linked to your problematic behaviors? Change your routines to break those patterns.

Diet—healthy nutrition and eating patterns are essential in making us feel better in numerous ways, while unhealthy eating patterns often reinforce cravings for external elements to try to stabilize internal imbalances. 

Exercise—is helpful for nurturing a sense of well-being, while inactivity feeds restlessness and passivity that makes us more vulnerable for stimulants like sexual arousal.

Mind drift—how aware are you of what you think about? Develop the habit of observing what you’re thinking about, and when your mind is on auto-pilot, where does it tend to go? 

Personal boundaries—some of us let others place unhealthy or unreasonable demands on us. Others of us need to exercise more self-restraint in what we share about ourselves or demands we make on others. Appropriate boundaries help us achieve personal balance and healthier life patterns.

Sexual behaviors—are we using our sexuality to affirm our partner, grow in mutual nurturing and intimacy? Or are our sexual behaviors resulting in negative consequences, cravings and preoccupations? 

Sexual thoughts—these are sometimes very difficult to wrangle effectively, or even care about, but they feed our compulsive nature. Recognizing and redirecting  sexual thinking is essential for living a life we can feel good about.

Triggers—learn to recognize the prompts in life that cause you to seek out sex as a solution. (See  Practice Nine of “Fifteen Practices for Living the Life You Want”, a free resource here at livingintegrated.org.)

Viewing habits—like mind drift, lazily scrolling through programming, social media and websites puts you in a reactive mode where you’re much more receptive to unhealthy prompts and restlessly vulnerable to externals for making you feel better.

Video gaming—overlooked by many folks as innocuous entertainment, gaming has become highly problematic for a lot of us. Good video games often overload our senses, create unrecognized cravings and arousal activation. We can inadvertently develop dependencies for gaming to entertain, energize and allow us escape from reality. 

You know or will discover other areas to examine. But be strategic: don’t tackle everything at once. Pick out the most obvious pattern to change and work on it first.

So where do you want to go? 

How do you want to be in the world? 

How do you want to spend your life?

To successfully change the patterns of our lives takes time, practice, wisdom, discipline, supportive community and spiritual help. tcr