How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. And today we have a special treat.

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I don't talk about psychology or even counseling or self -improvement all that much.

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I, as you know, if you listen to this podcast, talk a lot more about social justice and political things and things that affect

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Christians from a social and cultural angle. But today, and I think this actually does fit in with a cultural, social angle, we're gonna talk to John David Haskins, who has written a book

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I read over the Christmas break, if you will, on screen addictions and pornography.

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But really just more in general, quitting habits. And just real brief background on why

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I read this. I saw a thread on Twitter from John David Haskins on,

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I guess, X now, they call it X, on screen addictions. And it was a thread, I kept reading it, and it was basically an advertisement for his book.

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But I thought, you know, I would like to be less on X. I'm seeing this on X, but I'm like,

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I'd like to be less on X, especially on my phone for 2025. And I was preaching a sermon on New Year's resolutions, and I thought, yeah, this would be a good book to seem like easy reading and just see what he has to say.

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And I read it and I thought, this is actually pretty good. Like this is, you know, he says some things in there, and I'll get into that as we talk, but that I haven't seen emphasized as much in even some of the biblical counseling.

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And I've, of course, been to seminary and I've taken a lot of grad level courses on biblical counseling and so forth. But there's just some really good practical advice.

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And then there was some hints that John David Haskins left in the book, that he was a

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Christian. And I thought, okay, I should get him on the podcast because I think there's some practical, useful advice here. So anyway,

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John Haskins, I appreciate. Do you want me to call you John David Haskins? I know that's what you go by. Like, how do people call you?

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Family and friends call me John David. I introduce myself as John. If it's John David, it's

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John Haskins, I answer to both. If it's all of them, I answer that too. Yeah, well, I know, like you said, you're living in Texas now and in the

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South, so many people have like a hyphenated name. So John David or my niece, both my nieces actually have hyphenated names.

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And so anyway, so I'll call you John David then. You don't have to call me

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Jonathan Edward. That's way too of a mouthful. But hey, I just, thank you, first of all, for writing this book.

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And if people want to find out more, I should say from the outset, they can go to johndavidhaskins .com and it's called,

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I Can't Believe How Easy This Is. And there's a picture of a cell phone on the cover. There you go.

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You got a copy of it. I have a digital copy. So, you know, let's maybe start at the beginning here.

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You are not a trained professional. We don't have the certifications, but you told me that you get results and you have testimonials in your book.

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You're also fairly new to this. And so I'm intrigued. What led you down the path of trying to help people improve their lives and have maintained discipline in these kinds of things?

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Yeah, man, no, that's a great question. So I got started in it because in early 2020,

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I would have just kind of started getting my feet wet in Twitter, Twitter at the time X now.

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And I was following a few people in what we call money Twitter. So like, here's how to make money online.

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You read tweets, they got threads about it. And I followed Jose Rosado, who's a guy based out of the

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Dominican Republic that's been in money Twitter for quite a while. And he's a reputable source.

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Like he knows what he's doing. He gets people results. He's got a successful business. And he had a tweet that was promoting a course called the ebook printing machine.

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And his premise was, if you've solved a problem that other people need help solving and you write a ebook that details that process, you can sell five copies a day at 20 bucks a pop and you'll make $100 a day.

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And back then I was working as a part time sort of almost full time employee at a used sporting goods sales or used good sporting goods store.

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And I thought to myself like $100 a day would be life changing money.

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Like that's more than I make going to work, right? It was $10 per hour, eight hour shifts.

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And so I was in this sphere of the internet where people are talking about making money or then also kind of manosphere adjacent, right?

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It was more red pill happy at that time or we would have called it the red pill but the manospheres evolved past that.

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Now it has. So the content that I was consuming on that side would have been like how to be a better husband, how to be a better father.

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And when I got introduced to these concepts of like making money online, I'm unmarried,

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I don't have kids. So I wasn't gonna preach on those topics because I didn't have real world experience in that.

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But I had just recently broken a porn addiction. And because of that, then some of the things that I had done, they were different than advice that you normally get when you

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Google or when you search how to quit porn, if you look it up on Google, if you watch all the YouTube videos on it.

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Because at the end of the day, the majority of the advice boils down to just don't watch it. And when you're dealing with an addiction, it's more complex than just don't watch it or just don't think about it.

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And my book goes into why that advice is so bad and counterintuitive. So I first created or wrote an ebook is about 20 ,000 words on the things that I had done at the time to break my porn addiction.

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And I remember I got my first book sale while I was sleeping for about 12 bucks when

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I had less than 400 followers on Twitter. This was around May or June, 2020.

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And then over time, I started to get connected with other coaches who were in this coaching industry, right?

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Which is kind of info product adjacent or self -improvement adjacent. The self -improvement industry is a huge industry right now.

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Everybody's getting courses, everybody's reading books, everybody's looking at coaches. And at the time,

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I didn't realize that coaching went beyond just like fitness coaching or even sports coaching.

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When I thought of a coach, I thought of someone who did high school sports. I didn't realize that there were people hiring relationship coaches or people hiring business coaches, that there are people hiring online fitness coaches.

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Like none of this stuff made sense to me. I didn't realize that it was an industry. But I got connected to it because I was thrown into an engagement group chat on Twitter with other people that were coaches.

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More so relationship coaches and marriage coaches. And they started to encourage me and tell me that I could do coaching.

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They're like, you can get clients. They will pay you for your knowledge and for your skills.

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And really anything, they'll just pay for the accountability. And I knew that that was just a no brainer because accountability when breaking an addiction is a really big part of it.

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Especially considering, if you pursue an accountability partner who's also struggling, you run into a blind, can't lead the blind type of situation.

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So I signed on my first client in April of 2021 and got him results quick.

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And then the floodgates open to that point. You get one client, I got my next one and so on and so forth.

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And over the course of coaching clients, my exposure to what really worked started to increase.

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And also my understanding of the psychological component also expanded because I was operating under my main thesis at the time.

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My main idea at the time was when you watch porn and also when you have sex, your lateral orbital frontal cortex, part of your prefrontal cortex shuts down.

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And it's the part of the mind that's responsible for logical thinking and rational decision -making. So the basis of my thought process was if you're able to keep your prefrontal cortex engaged, you're going to greatly decrease the likelihood that you go and pursue porn.

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And I started to experiment with that in my own process of quitting. And I would do that by incentivizing how good it would feel to stay free as opposed to the momentary pleasures of indulgence.

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I remember distinctly there was one time I even did that. I remember I was looking at porn and I was telling myself in my mind and even out loud some things like I'm not actually attracted to these women because at a core value -based attraction,

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I'm attracted to women who want to be a wife, who want to be a mother, who are Christians, who have godly values.

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And I quite literally turned myself off in that moment. And I was like, what am I doing?

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This is so out of alignment for what I actually want. And then I also, I recount a moment where in,

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I think it was July, yeah, it was July, 2019, where I had a moment where I was going to watch porn.

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And for the first time in my life, when that thought of I shouldn't be doing this came into my mind,

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I distinctly remember thinking to myself, I won't feel any different afterward, why bother?

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And that was the first time that I was like, I was in an active session or an active relapse and I got out of it.

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And I remember going to bed that night, like finally having hope that I could quit because I said no, and I said no successfully that one time.

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That was then the precursor that led to me writing the ebook. And then I started doing the coaching.

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And then from the coaching, as I had time to research and continue studying, the component of the subconscious mind was introduced.

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Because while engaging the prefrontal cortex was helpful, what I find to be really incentivizing was starting to work things at a more emotional level.

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Because you can interface with the mind and there's a lot of good that comes with that, specifically interfacing with the conscious mind.

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If we didn't have a conscious mind, we wouldn't be able to interact and discern that we're having an online video conversation as opposed to the fact that you're not sitting right in front of me.

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Because this simulated reality feels an awful lot like an in -person discussion.

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We've got all the visual cues, we've got the auditorial cues. We even have some of the emotional cues that would simulate that, but the conscious mind is able to interject and go, hey, this is happening over video.

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So that prefrontal cortex engagement was more conscious minded. And while effective for a time, you're susceptible to relapse and you're susceptible to the types of relapses that will get you stuck again, right?

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Because the beliefs exist at a subconscious level. Anyways, I can dive more into that, but the wrap up of how

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I got into it was I was told that if you have solved a problem successfully that other people need help solving, you can create content, you can create courses, you can coach people through that.

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And then as I work with coaching clients, I'm a perfectionist. If there's a way to do something better, if there's a way to do something quicker,

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I'm gonna figure out what that way is. And that way led me to working with the subconscious mind as opposed to these strategies to keep the prefrontal cortex engaged.

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There's a time and a place for that, but if you want sustainable results, if you want long -term results, you have to interface with the subconscious mind.

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I love your honesty with all this because like so many people, if I asked that in your line of work, they'd probably be like, oh,

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I just wanted to help people, which I know you do, but you're basically from the beginning, you're like, man, I just wanted to make money.

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I wasn't making any. I love that, that honesty there. Well, and now you're doing this full time and you're not just, obviously you didn't just write a book, you're also doing coaching with people or I don't know if you call it that, but you're having sessions, right?

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Where you help them counsel. I wanna start here if it's okay.

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And this is because I have a Christian audience, obviously, I told you I'm a Christian and I've been around the block a little bit on counseling and I'm very familiar with the integrated counseling debates over whether or not we should have psychology and tools from the psychological world or observations from the psychological world integrated with Christian counseling and all of that.

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And I wanna just explore that for a moment and then maybe we can get to some more practical strategies here.

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But you said, so there's two things you said. You talked about the subconscious mind and you also talked about the prefrontal cortex.

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And so obviously these are physiological terms. The subconscious, I don't know if that's actually physiological, that's more,

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I guess, what, psychological or that's... Go ahead. The conscious mind and the conscious mind split is more of a model that certain people use to better understand the way that the mind experiences things both experiences reason and logic and experiences emotion.

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So it's less that there's a part, it's less that there's a part of the brain that we would call the subconscious and more that the subconscious is a model that best explains the fact that there are things that we know and there are things that happen and there are processes that we undergo that happen outside of our conscious awareness, right?

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So our conscious awareness is anything that we hold at our center of attention. And while I can hold this conversation at the center of attention,

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I still know how to ride a bike. I still know how to drive a car. I still have an imagination.

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I still have memories. And those are things that are going to continue to exist and persist, but they're stored somewhere else.

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So it's more so, it's more of a psychological model that helps to explain what for a long time has been difficult for people to explain.

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So this is where I wanted to ask you specifically about the

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Bible's teaching on these things and whether or not you think what you're saying dovetails with biblical teaching. Because obviously, you know,

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Romans 12, one and two, that's a big section of scripture for biblical counselors.

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I mean, it says that we're supposed to be renewed. We're supposed to renew our minds. And often,

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I mean, these terms aren't used in scripture. It's an ancient, you know, collection of documents.

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And, you know, they use a lot of different terms and, you know, categories that may be even parallel, but they're just, you know, not the same as today.

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So do you see that category in scripture of the subconscious mind? Is there another term that you see used in scripture?

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Do you see teaching on, you think renewing your mind has something to do with that? Yes, so when we look at,

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I was actually thinking about this recently. I thought it was so interesting that when you read through scripture, you'll see verses that'll refer to the spirit and verses that'll refer to the soul.

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I think we tend to think of those as interchangeable or as synonyms, but the spirit is referring to, it seems to refer to something close to the heart, but then also a layer deeper, right?

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We know that we have our heart of hearts, the thing that holds our deepest desires, our deepest wants, and other types of things.

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And the way that I relate to the subconscious mind would be a lot closer to those biblical terms, heart, or those biblical terms, spirit.

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I think especially spirit. So it's, again, it's less that it's a part of the mind, like a part of the brain, and more so that it's one of our many faculties that a lot of people have fallen out of touch with.

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And then also you have lots of scriptures that'll refer to it, but then the methodology of communicating with it or the methodology of reaching it, if you want to extrapolate biblical ways to do that, you kind of have to read between the lines.

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And I find that the way that the apostle Paul communicates, especially the way that he communicates from Romans 6, 7, and into 8 is a really effective means because Paul's writing is so interesting in that he's really smart.

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And he's proposing a lot of intellectual reasonings for faith and for salvation and for grace, but then you're almost always reached with a point of you just have to accept it, right?

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Especially that's a big point in Protestant Christianity is you accept the gift freely given and that's how you acquire grace, that's how you acquire salvation.

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But these are concepts and these are ideas that in no way, shape or form makes sense to the conscious mind or to our logical reasoning.

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You even have things, I think it's Philippians 4, 9, and I might launch some of my references, my scriptural references, but he says that the peace of Christ given to us is a peace that surpasses our understanding.

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So that suggests that there are things that go on in our mind that are going to not hit at this conscious, logical level of reasoning, especially us modern day

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Christians. I think there are verses that support how significant it is that we have faith because we're of those in the category who have not seen but believe and because we believe now we see.

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And this is language where we can intellectualize it or we can look at it as a type of philosophy, but there's something in the mind, there's something that was created in us that's innate to our humanity, that's innate to our nature that allows us to have these religious experiences, even faith itself.

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The fact that while things are going wrong, I can still maintain trust in faith and God who's going to provide for me, that isn't a thing that humans, when you consider things just from a logical or a reasoned perspective, that shouldn't be possible.

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But the fact that I'm okay, despite things not going right at different stages in my life, the fact that I have peace, like sure, there's that lingering, that skepticism in the mind that goes, but how do you know?

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But then there's that other part of me and that's much deeper that knows, I'm protected, I'm covered, I'm okay.

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Things are going to work out, even if it doesn't work out how I want it to. So you're not going to find the word subconscious mind in scripture, but there are things that we can look to and we can point to where if you want like 100 % verification of these things,

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I don't think we're going to find it. But if we are going to read between the lines or piece things together, it is obvious to me that there's a model, there's something going on that I believe we have the ability to access and that I believe we have the ability to study and to learn so that we can help other people.

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Yeah, it's interesting, you mentioned maybe a split between spirit and soul. I know this is,

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I mean, I'm not sure if these words necessarily are words you've heard before, but in theological language, there's been a debate over dichotomous and trichotomous, they call them, debating whether there's like three parts to man or two parts, you know, is there a material and immaterial or is that immaterial part split into two broad sections?

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And it sounds like you'd be more maybe fitting in with a trichotomous model. I wanted to maybe follow up with this, you know, in the book of James, James chapter two,

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I believe it is, or actually James chapter one is what I'm thinking, round verses 14 and 15.

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James says that when we fall into sin, when we're tempted, right?

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It starts with these desires that we have that literally they drag us away, some translations put it that way, like we're dragged away by these lusts, these strong desires.

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And I've had to do some thinking about this because of the debate lately in Christianity over homosexual orientations or desires, or there's so many different words they'll use, temptation.

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I think concupiscence was a new word for me, but that's a word that Jared Moore introduced me to and this whole understanding of concupiscence from Augustine and many other church leaders of the past where they basically say you can have disordered desires.

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You can have desires that, you know, and I mean, you can warp yourself or you can have experiences that warp you that, but there's sin, you've sinned, someone sinned against you, but ultimately then you have these disordered desires that in sin kind of remains in there.

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And so this would, I suppose, also be applicable to pornography and other sexual desires that are not in keeping with God's plan because he wants men and women to marry and to be only sexually attracted in a certain sense, at least to that, not that they can't recognize beauty, but they want them, you know, the sexual attraction should be to your spouse.

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So all that to say, I'm setting it up, but on this desire level, that's where I thought maybe this subconscious thing kind of fits in with like, there's things

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I know, even like stupid things. Like, you know, I really want pizza and I didn't get pizza and I didn't even think about wanting pizza, but after I've eaten a meal and I'm, you know,

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I'm like, you know, I really wish I would have had pizza or something, like I wasn't thinking about it, but there is this desire in operation or these expectations.

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Is what I'm saying tracking with what your understanding of the subconscious level and what the subconscious wants, like, am

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I speaking the same language or am I talking about something different? Yeah, you're speaking the same language in the sense that, so to expand upon what the subconscious mind is, we find that our most innate parts are stored in the subconscious mind, right?

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Because we're not always going to be consciously aware of these things. Things like our identity, our values, our beliefs, the programmings of our behaviors and the fundamentals of our behaviors are stored somewhere.

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I think we can both agree, I think most people can agree that those things must be stored somewhere because of the complexities of the mind.

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We like, again, we know things to be true. We know things to be experientially true or, you know, true through knowledge, acquired knowledge, but we must keep that somewhere because I don't always have to relearn this.

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I don't always have to relearn that I'm attracted to women. I don't always have to relearn that I like pizza.

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I don't always have to relearn even the fact that there are things that are good for me and there are things that are bad for me.

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It might take a few times around the block to really have it sink in, but it's held somewhere.

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So desire, our desires are once, they're going to be in there.

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And you can kind of have a sense where you split between, like we have a sin nature, we have fleshly desires, but then as we undergo the process of sanctification, right, we can kind of conscious mind understand that our logic, the sanctification process as our wants and desires over time becoming more godly.

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And if you were to think, you could say that your sinful desires, your fleshly desires are going to be more in the subconscious mind.

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And then your knowledge of what godly desires are would be held in the conscious mind.

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But then we also have a level where, especially us as Christians, where we know that in our inmost parts, we want to do what is right.

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The apostle Paul talks about this at length in Roman seven, right? The evil that I do not want to do,

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I do. And the good that I want to do, I don't do. That again, is an experience that is best explained with having some kind of model that splits between knowledge and splits between emotion.

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You can also go to say that logic is a feature of the faculties of the conscious mind.

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And emotion is a feature of the faculties of the subconscious mind. So when we look at desires, we're going to have sinful desires.

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We're gonna have godly desires that are present in both of those faculties.

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But when we're dealing with some type of perversion or some type of deviance or some type of thing that is wrong that we cannot explain why we're turning to, such as the case of addiction, such as the case of porn addiction, or just any sin that we know we shouldn't do, but we keep persisting, you're then dealing with what

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Christ might say is a matter of the heart. What I might say is a matter of the subconscious mind.

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Because again, we're using words and we're using different words to explain something that is just a feature of our humanity.

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So when you find yourself wanting pizza, and when you find yourself wanting pizza at times that it really doesn't make sense to want pizza, that desire is coming from somewhere.

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It's gotta be somewhere inside of you. And because it's somewhere inside of you, if you wanna call it in the heart, if you wanna call it in the spirit, if you wanna call it in the subconscious mind, that the language checks out or the experience checks out with how

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I relate to these models or how I relate to these types of people. There's probably people listening right now who want pizza that didn't want it before just because we kept talking about it.

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Yeah. And it's just because they keep hearing the word and it brings to mind this image and experiences they've had before.

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And you mentioned Christ, I think about Christ saying that out of the heart of man comes all these evil desires.

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And it's not what goes into the man, but what comes out of the man. And so with that in mind, when we're talking about screen addictions, that there's a dopamine hit,

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I guess you get, and people can cultivate this over time or pornography, video game addictions.

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I put those all kind of in a similar category, even though they're somewhat different. There's this, you're deceiving yourself,

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I guess, into thinking something is real when it is not. You're engaging in a lie at a sub you would say a subconscious level.

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There are these strategies and you talk about some of them to remind yourself this, like you say at one point, think about the image,

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I think, and make it black and white in your mind, right? Minimize it and then swipe it away, whatever you're interested in, whether it's pornography or something else.

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I don't find that specific strategy in scripture. What I do find in scripture though, is that your willpower should come into play here somewhere where you stop sinning and you have a change in direction.

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Like that's the basis of, that's what repentance is. And you do something more positive. So, I mean, does that, do you see what you're doing as, at least for Christians, ways to repent, like ways to, like this is a practical way that you can, your willpower can come into play here and stop what's going on.

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And so like it dovetails, it complements, what scripture teaches on this. I would say that it assists the process because when, so something like willpower, willpower is a feature of the conscious mind.

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Willpower can also be fickle. Willpower can be unreliable. Willpower can be overly dependent on motivation and willpower in my experience breaking addiction and in the experience of my clients, willpower is the thing that they rely so heavily on that falters when they need it most, whether because their prefrontal cortex is shut down or whether because their emotions get in the way or whether because their desires get in the way.

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So, but willpower is still a thing that we must exercise, right? Because when we read through the book of James, it's very apparent that works are not nothing.

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Works are, again, a feature, works are again, a product and that's what's important. That's what us, you know, that's what

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Protestant Christianity really focuses on is that works are, works come from faith, right?

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Our faith that works is dead, but works are a product, right? And we can relate this to things like the fruit of the spirit.

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They are called fruits and not benign noble virtues that we all ought to strive for.

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There are things that we know as evidence of our Christian faith. That being said, because we exist in an objective reality, because of our human experience, we know that at times there are things we must do even though we don't want to do it, whether because we know it is the right thing to do or because we know it is the good thing to do for us.

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I've been focusing in on what James says in his book that a man who does not do what he knows he should do for him it is said.

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I think that's a really interesting piece here. And it shows me that I've been thinking about my own life recently.

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But when looking at this biblical model of repentance, what we find is a lot of people, or actually let me start here.

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Repentance is not dependent on our feelings of being repentant. Repentance is what

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God does for us. Whether we feel forgiven or not does not define, does not determine the fact that we are forgiven.

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It is, again, it's a process. Ask for repentance, recognize that you are forgiven and in recognition of forgiven, go and send no more, go and make some type of change.

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Our feelings are going to muddy the water. If we don't feel forgiven, we're not going to act forgiven.

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So then this is where a deeper understanding must come in play and recognizing that or trusting rather that we are forgiven.

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And because we are forgiven, we are then empowered. We are then able to change our ways.

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We're then able to course correct. But that doesn't necessarily make it easier.

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So when I look at these subconscious strategies or these subconscious models, my thought process is in assisting the biblical experience or in which the biblical experience being the uncontested truth of the experience of our reality.

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It has been, how can we make that easier for us? If there is something that we can interact with in our mind or in our heart or in our emotions that are going to make it easier for us to change our ways,

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I believe those are worth exploring. And I believe at a fundamental level, so long as it's not contrary to what scripture says, that those are things that are worth employing.

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So if there's something we can do so that we don't have to engage in this monstrous struggle of employing willpower in the moments that it matters most, which are often the moments that it fails us, then it's worth exploring that.

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So we find that we need to use willpower when what we want to do is not, or sorry, we find that we need to use willpower when we don't want to do the thing that we know we should do.

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That's kind of that brute force, that split second decision that I'm going to go to the gym even though I don't feel like it.

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I'm going to close the browser even though I don't feel like it. I'm going to do the thing I should do though I don't feel like it.

33:52

My thought process is, but what if you felt like doing it? And emotions are very real, but emotions are also fickle and our emotions are influenceable.

34:06

Our emotional states are subject to suggestion and they're very susceptible to suggestion.

34:14

So this is then when I can branch the discussion into the power of words as a lot of what

34:20

I do with people, especially in coaching or in a more professional sense or counseling, whatever you want to call it.

34:26

Again, models of our understanding of what that thing is. Then our language is a very powerful tool.

34:33

We know that life and death is in the power of the tongue. And we also know that we have to focus on things that are good.

34:39

If we can use our language to help us focus on things that are good so that it impacts us at a deeper emotional level, which

34:46

I relate to being a subconscious level, then those are things that we should explore. And for the

34:52

Christian, backing that with the truth of what scripture says and incorporating, doing what scripture says at an emotional level, that is where I have people telling me that change was so easy, they can't believe it.

35:08

Yeah, so this is actually fascinating to me. And I think this is probably the big hook.

35:14

Maybe you've seen that in the responses that people, when they hear you talk about this, think I got to find out more about this.

35:20

Sometimes you'll even, I think you did an interview with a guy talking about hypnotism and talking like hypnotic strategies, which obviously a lot of stereotypes about this that wouldn't fit what you're doing, but they're like speaking to yourself at a deeper level and trying to, changing these desires is what you're after.

35:40

I still see willpower and I'm sure you do at play in this. Like you have to read the book.

35:45

You have to, obviously you have to get the ball rolling. And, but it's different than like some guys

35:53

I know who literally have been able to quit habits because they're just like,

35:58

I don't want to do that anymore. And obviously there's, with the want there, there's a deeper desire, but they were like flip the switch.

36:05

They were able to just say, yeah, I'm not going to do that habit. It doesn't, for addictions, it doesn't usually come that easy.

36:12

There's some people that can do that. But a lot of people, when you're in the moment, as you said, that's when it fails you.

36:19

Like, yeah, I wanted to an hour ago, but now, I don't know, it seems pretty good to engage in this fight. I want the nicotine or whatever it is.

36:26

So all that to say, like the two big strategies I saw in your book at speaking to this subconscious or this desire level element that we have with us are rooting it back to identity and to like who you see yourself as, who you should be for the

36:44

Christian, obviously that's who we are in Christ, but to the dad who just found out, hey,

36:50

I have a son on the way. He cleans up his life because he's now a dad. There's an identity. And then the other thing that you talk about that stood out to me is you don't just focus on a negative, like I'm not going to do that.

37:04

Like in the moment of temptation, like I'm not going to do that. You tell yourself there's like something positive, like I'm going to do this and your reach for a goal.

37:12

So maybe expand on those. And if there's another major heading that you want to add, those are the two

37:18

I saw in your book. Maybe talk about that. For someone who's listening right now, who's struggling with an addiction of some kind.

37:25

Yes. So this actually ties in perfectly to what I started to say with the power of words.

37:33

Our words, language is something that exists for us to be able to exchange information.

37:43

Think of your mind as a computer and then think of language as the code.

37:49

We're able to use code to create new programs so that we do something new.

37:58

Language is what we use to update the software. There's not an awful lot we can do to change the hardware, but there's a lot we can do to change the software.

38:08

And like all computers, there's code that they respond to and there's code that they don't respond to.

38:14

I cannot create an incorrect code to get a correct outcome. In fact, the incorrect code is either going to break the system or most likely do nothing.

38:25

You can change code and then it'll change the outcome, but you can't use incorrect code. It's not, it's null.

38:31

It's null and void. But correct code has an impact. So language then we know does something.

38:39

We know that language influences us. Anytime that you've had a conversation with someone and you've said something and they've gone, huh,

38:47

I haven't thought of it that way, or you start to see them smile or you start to see them frown, the language is influencing their emotional state.

38:55

Something is going on. It's being received. They're being suggested to. So when we look at language and then we start to work back from that and we know that there are things that people respond well to and there are things that people don't respond well to, there's also just some fundamentals.

39:12

So when we get into the split of negative language and positive language, we know that if I tell you not to think of a purple banana, whatever you do, do not under any circumstances think of a purple banana.

39:25

Don't let that image come into your mind. It's really hard to not think of a purple banana. It was really hard for me to not think of a purple banana while I'm telling you to not think of a purple banana.

39:35

Because of that, language -like, don't think about watching porn, don't think about eating pizza, you are essentially setting yourself up to only in that moment be able to think about watching porn, being able to think about eating pizza.

39:53

And when these crystal clear images come into our mind are the thing that we shouldn't do, it builds and it builds and it builds to the point where it's just too easy for us to indulge because we're creating a self -fulfilling prophecy, we're predicting, we're doing something in the mind that is going to make us do the thing that we know we shouldn't do because you can't not think about it.

40:19

The closest thing you can get to not thinking about it is thinking about it and putting a big red X over it.

40:26

Also in theory, if I were to tell you to not think of a purple banana, you could alternatively think of someone swinging a baseball bat, but that is such, there are so many loophole, it's just mental gymnastics that most people aren't gonna think of.

40:40

And even while I'm aware that I could think of someone swinging a baseball bat instead, I have not once thought of a baseball bat instead when

40:47

I've been told not to think of something. So it's safe to say that what most people do is

40:54

I just won't think about it, I just won't think about watching porn, I just won't think about using my screens. What then happens is they're exerting a massive amount of time and energy to not think about something that at some level is no different than if they just went and did it.

41:12

I go as far as to say that if you have to spend all your time not thinking about watching porn and creating ways for you to not watch porn, at that point, it's no different than watching porn.

41:23

You're not experiencing true freedom from that thing if you're still engaged in a monumental struggle to avoid it.

41:30

Now, that being said, it's noble to still avoid it if you do have to spend all your time and your energy and your efforts to avoid it, and you're not sinning, then do that.

41:41

That's still the noble thing to do. I believe that freedom can be a lot more enjoyable than that, a lot more,

41:49

I'll use the word easy, right? It's in my book title. So when we're using language, we now know that we can structure language in such a way that it's going to help us in a way that's going to impact us.

42:00

Lots of people will tell themselves, I need to do this thing, but at a subconscious level, we're just being batted around by commands.

42:11

When you think about kids and the way that kids respond to language and the way that kids respond to things that we tell them, it's very different than how we try to communicate to ourselves or how we try to communicate to our friends.

42:24

Don't watch porn, okay? If you tell that to a kid, right? Don't play with the red truck.

42:30

They're all of a sudden really obsessed with playing with the red truck. If you tell them that the yellow car is faster than the red truck, dude,

42:39

I gotta play with the yellow car. I'm not gonna play with the red truck. So if language impacts kids, and also part of my model here with the subconscious mind is the subconscious mind is only about five, eight years old.

42:54

It's very young the way that it thinks when it understands things. So if you're trying to break an addiction, instead of telling yourself, don't think about it, or you need to do this thing instead, you want to build your phrases.

43:06

I call them power phrases in my book around this equation of, I want to do

43:12

X because of X, Y, Z benefits or X, Y, Z reasons that are good for me.

43:20

So it's very easy to say, don't watch porn because it causes depression, low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, sexual deviance, perversion, and all these other things.

43:30

We know that is true. We know those are bad for us. We know that indulgence is perpetuating a very corrupt industry that's created at a fundamental level to dissuade, disempower, and attack

43:41

Christians and attack a Christian worldview. We can know that, but if it doesn't influence at an emotional level, it can actually create cognitive dissonance which will make the situation worse.

43:52

But what if instead we were able to influence our wants and our desires at an emotional level, which in a sense is kind of selfish.

44:02

You could take that angle, but if it's good for us and it assists the process,

44:08

I think it's worth exploring. So instead, we might say something like, I want to be porn free because my energy levels are so much higher and I have so much more confidence to do these things.

44:21

That I want to do. And all of a sudden we're simulating a reality in our mind where porn is no longer in the picture.

44:29

We feel good without it. We're enjoying our experience without it. Why go back to it?

44:36

Why go watch the thing that's gonna make me feel bad? You can also say something like, I could watch porn, but I would feel so much better if I went to the gym.

44:47

I would feel so much better if I kept and held onto this energy. I'd have so much more confidence.

44:53

Now we're using this want language, which conveniently bypasses the command of need and it's going to act on our emotional incentives.

45:03

A lot of people, when they try to break an addiction, they really only think about how negative consequences will stop.

45:11

They don't think much about the benefits that will start. I want people to train their mind to focus on the benefits that will start and the benefits that they can enjoy in the moment, as opposed to avoiding these negatives.

45:26

Because avoiding negatives isn't very persuasive. It can be in the fact that pain is our greatest motivator.

45:34

Pain can be really motivating for a time and in certain moments, but when we're talking about sustainable long -term change, we want that to be a positive experience for people.

45:45

So again, our language, just to reiterate, you want to build these phrases you tell to yourself on,

45:52

I want to be, I want X because Y. I want to do X because Y.

45:58

I am X because Y. These different ways of speaking to ourselves will speak to our beliefs.

46:05

It'll speak to our values and it'll speak to our identity. If you picture yourself as the man who is already free from porn or a free man or a

46:14

Christian, and you start to think of, well, what does he do in times get tough? What does he do in these moments?

46:21

He takes action. This looks like that. This feels like that. You are then creating, you're expanding your subconscious understanding, which is then also making it more likely that you're going to do the thing you know you should do, but now you're doing the thing you know you should do because it's the thing you want to do, right?

46:41

Again, this kind of goes back to desires. It's really easy to desire the thing that is wrong for us when we've built up this idolized version of it where it's somehow good for us or it feels good in the moment.

46:55

But if we then take the thing that we know we should do and create an intense emotional experience on how that's good for us, think of it like a scale.

47:05

What I tell people is you need to make, because right now the desire to watch porn is heavily outweighing the desire to live porn -free or to quit porn.

47:14

I need to stop watching porn. This is a lot more significant than that. What you want to do is you want to make the desire to live porn -free greater than desire to watch porn.

47:25

That's going to happen when you incentivize the positive outcomes of what living porn -free is like.

47:32

And then also in a sense, accepting that if you right here right now are not watching porn, congratulations, my friend, you're porn -free.

47:41

By definition, you're porn -free. And then to keep that going, to incentivize it, you can do so with interacting with your identity as a man, with your beliefs, with your values.

47:54

And then at that level, you're able to make behavioral change because what

48:00

I have seen in my life and the lives of my clients is that behavioral change is just easy.

48:05

It's no longer a matter of swapping a bad thing with a good thing. It's doing the good thing because you want to do the good thing.

48:13

And our language has an awful lot to do with that because our language is what we use to interface and to interact with our emotions, with our desires and with our wants.

48:25

Yeah, this is good, John David. I think there's a lot of people probably listening who are curious, especially as they've made resolutions for killing whatever habits and that they don't want in their lives and they want to strive for positive things this new year.

48:42

I'm assuming when you do counseling sessions, then a lot of the homework and things you say are directed at specifically applying what you just said to situations where someone might have a hump because they, this is just hypothetical, but every time they go into a room that looks a certain way, that that's where they did the thing, that it was sinful, and you try to break down in their minds that stronghold that these associations have over them and at a subconscious level then say, yeah, but that didn't bring us anything good.

49:30

And not only that, this is the man I want to be. And so, I just know there's people with very strong associational afflictions where, and let me just throw, this might be throwing a curve ball at you a little bit.

49:49

I don't know if you've had anyone struggling with this specific issue. I'm sure you probably had similar things, but there was someone on my

49:56

YouTube channel who would comment whenever we talked about homosexual desires and concupiscence and these kinds of things.

50:03

And basically his story was, look, when I could barely, I can't even remember, it's like in the earliest recesses of my memory, this vague notion of I was abused and discontinued and all my early sexual memories, like I never got to form them.

50:22

Like they were basically given to me because of some evil people who wanted me to associate stimulation in that way with only erotic homosexual behavior and nothing else.

50:35

And so this became a problem where like, that's all I've known. I feel like I've been programmed and it's by someone else to do these things.

50:46

How do I break free from it now? And of course, a lot of the debate was like, who's responsible for this? Am I responsible for this?

50:52

And now that it's later in life and that kind of thing. But, and I don't wanna put words in your mouth.

50:59

You don't know the situation, but like someone with, whether it's that or another situation that has like these deeply ingrained associational things where there's a biological reaction that they have perhaps even to something sinful.

51:16

And it's just, and that's all they've known. I mean, have you seen success in trying to train the subconscious element of the mind to overcome that?

51:30

I haven't worked with a case quite like that. What I have seen and what

51:40

I know to be helpful in moments like that is the first part is, it's not his fault, but correcting the behavior is his responsibility.

52:02

And I say that very, very carefully, but in knowing that correction can be his responsibility, he then can exercise his agency to come to solutions and to use solutions.

52:17

What I would do if I were working with a client through a case like that is I would first want to, without reigniting the intensity of the trauma, one of the problems with talk therapy is talking about trauma makes people relive trauma, which then re -intensifies it, re -vivifies it.

52:35

I don't see that in a talk therapy model. I would then instead help them decrease the intensity of the experience by helping them dissociate from it, which they're probably, they might already be dissociated from it, so that they're able to, to the best of their abilities, move past it and heal from it.

53:02

And then we would work on creating positive associations with the right experiences.

53:13

This would not be, for all intents and purposes, easy, nor would this be something that would happen overnight.

53:21

This would be something that by experiencing it in a session,

53:27

I would then give them tools to keep working through it. You mentioned the exercise that I referred to in chapter eight of my book, the pinch exercise, which is where you make things black and white, you then minimize the image and you're able to just swipe it away.

53:45

You're able to also do that with emotions, and rather you're also able to do that with memories because of the way that the subconscious, that the model that I would use is,

53:56

I would have them recall the memory, but I would then have them focus on the emotion of the memory.

54:02

And then I would have them just focus on the emotion and not focus on the memory, because now we're dealing with the root of the memory.

54:10

We're dealing with the root of the experience of the memory, which is the emotion that was ingrained. And then instead of trying to change it from positive to negative,

54:17

I would want to minimize its intensity or neutralize it. Neutralizing it would be making it black and white.

54:24

It would be minimizing the image. It would be making it silent. If it's a recurring, you know, pausing it, making it quiet, making it black and white, and then slowly having them envision it getting smaller and smaller and smaller, the emotion getting smaller, smaller and smaller to the point where they can just, you know, let it go or pinch it away or swipe it away.

54:43

They might have to do that more than once. They probably would. But what that'll do is that will create an emotional change so that the root is now being worked through.

54:57

It's not so much so telling their conscious mind, it's not your fault, it's your responsibility now, but it's not your fault.

55:06

Like they've probably heard that. And I say that because I know intellectually that's the right first step.

55:12

But to create the emotional change, to go past just that knowing that's where progress or breakthroughs or healing is going to happen, whether that is an act of the

55:24

Holy Spirit or that is something that we as brothers in Christ are able to help assist through, we know that a lot of our

55:33

Christian experience is gonna be being helped by our, you know, by other members of the body of Christ.

55:40

And if there's ways that we can do that, I think we should explore that. And one of my big points here, but in that case, when you work through the emotional intensity, when you work through the trauma, when you decrease it, when you're able to neutralize it, then you're going to enter into a period of time where your mind can start to create its own positive associations.

56:05

And then also you can begin to create the right and the positive associations.

56:15

I know this to work because there is a study out there. I don't know how to find it. It was sent to me once by a friend where, and I'm gonna use the

56:24

H word, hypnosis, where they used hypnosis on a group of homosexual men to create disgust diversions to homosexual acts and to increase their attraction to women and to heterosexual acts.

56:40

And a good number of the participants experienced a regression in their homosexual desires and tendencies and even found themselves attracted to women and in monogamous committed relationships with women.

56:54

Wow. So it's possible, it does happen. I'm in no way, shape or form saying that it can be as easy as my title of my book suggests because I don't want to come off as insulting, but it is possible.

57:07

And because it is possible, that then means it could be a lot easier than someone suggests.

57:13

Now I understand there's the nuance of the individual's experience and what they're going through and the emotions are tied to that.

57:20

If I were to work someone like that, I would treat it no different than I treat all my clients, get to know them, the situation, what they're going through, understand their experiences and help them to live life while going through that, decrease it, neutralize it and then build those positive associations and help them to support them, encourage them, but then also in the spirit of exercising brotherly love, get them to do the thing they know they want to do, the thing they know they should do because that's where accountability comes in, right?

57:53

That's where I'm exercising my will to help someone influence theirs. Again, it is possible.

58:00

So last question for you and this is primarily for Christians out there because your book can be applicable to Christians or non -Christians and a lot of the things you talk about, if you want to, there's an unwanted desire in the sense of your conscience mind doesn't, it says,

58:19

I don't want to do this and it's damaging your life, but at an emotional level, you have a dedication to it and you're not a

58:30

Christian, you just see that this is having a harmful effect, like your book has principles that'll work for that. Christians could also apply it and they can sort of like, instead of thinking of themselves as a successful, let's say entrepreneur who's being inhibited by this, they can think of themselves as a child of God who wants to live to please

58:48

Christ, right? And so it's a different identity, but it's a lot of these principles would be the same. So what

58:53

I wanted to ask is like, where do you see the place for sin repentance? And you mentioned the work of the

58:59

Holy Spirit in bringing someone who's a believer out of a sinful tendency.

59:08

Are you asking where I would suggest? Well, I guess

59:16

I'm saying like, do you counsel Christians differently? Is there, are there resources

59:21

Christians have because of the Holy Spirit and because they recognize many of the habits you're approaching as actual sins, they're violations of God's law.

59:30

They're not just unhelpful habits in their lives. They actually are either breaking a divine law.

59:37

Are there resources and things that make fighting the addictions easier? Or like, would you counsel them,

59:45

I guess differently? So what I do is historically

59:53

I've predominantly worked with Christian men. I would say the second largest or the third, one of the other large groups have been

59:59

Muslims. Which is an interesting experience.

01:00:07

With Christians, one of the things that I emphasize is helping them to understand that God's grace is sufficient, that God still loves them, not in a way to enable or to facilitate their once poor sinful, or their once poor sinful deeds or sinful desires, but to help disable this overwhelming sense of guilt and shame they feel.

01:00:38

Because we're able to look at our experience and go, I'm doing the bad thing.

01:00:44

Shouldn't I be punished, right? Because our human experience can be very transactional in that way.

01:00:51

If I do the wrong thing, I deserve to be punished. We are made well aware that the wages of sin are death.

01:00:58

We're also made well aware that the price has been paid no thanks to Christ being sacrificed on the cross.

01:01:09

Us Christians are, we're saved. We have salvation with us.

01:01:16

That does not mean we won't sin. That also does not give us permission to sin. So recognizing that they are on this side of grace and then helping them to accept that, it then makes it a lot easier to offload the guilt and the shame and the remorse they feel so that they can go from this very tough state of emotional existence toward I'm actually able to do the right thing despite the fact that I'm struggling with the wrong thing because I'm forgiven, because God's grace is sufficient, because God is merciful, and because God wants me to serve and to honor and to obey him.

01:02:00

So it helps facilitate a change in heart posture. Our heart posture is very important.

01:02:06

A heart posture is also interchangeable with these things that I've related to as like subconscious experiences, our emotions, and those types of things.

01:02:16

So what I do, because I don't admit the importance of taking action.

01:02:21

At the end of the day, you must take action. It is up to the individual to take action. You have to exercise your agency.

01:02:27

You have to exercise your responsibility. If you do not take action, you will not get what you want. You will not do the thing you know you should do.

01:02:34

What I then help the Christian do is recognize the significance in the truth of the matter, of the reality of the matter, that they are forgiven.

01:02:47

They then have the ability to go and sin no more, to right their wrongs, to do the thing they know they should do.

01:02:54

And if that means helping influence it at an emotional state, or just help them be aware that like,

01:03:01

God's not out to get you. He loves you. He's going to provide for you. And he's going to bless those who are obedient to him and to his, what he tells us to do.

01:03:12

And I know that there's a piece of emotion tied to that, not to conflate that.

01:03:19

You must be in the right emotional state to do the right thing, still do the right thing. But the emotional state that I believe

01:03:28

God wants us to enjoy, which fundamentally is going to be peace because we trust him.

01:03:35

We know that he's going to do what he's going to do to us and for us. It then makes it easier to progress.

01:03:42

It then makes it easier to take action. A lot of what I do, what my book does is, let's make it as easy as possible to take action.

01:03:52

What my coaching then does is facilitate that so that it's easy to take action and then get the people to take action.

01:03:59

For the Christian, that is not me recommending that they repent until they feel forgiven.

01:04:10

It is repent, thank, you know, repent, recognize the,

01:04:18

I'll use the word severity of the reality of God's, of Christ's sacrifice and his resurrection, and then dwell in the significance of his resurrection.

01:04:31

And then know that because of that resurrection, you are made new, you are resurrected.

01:04:37

You are then able to do the right thing. You are then able to experience a change in your heart and your desires and your wants, and you're able to live a godly life.

01:04:47

That is a thing that some people need an awful lot of help with. Other people, they're really quick to go,

01:04:53

God, I watched porn, that was not right. I ask for your forgiveness. Thank you for forgiving me.

01:04:59

Give me the strength to do the right thing in the moments that I know I need to. And then keep going.

01:05:06

What a lot of people do is they feel so bad that they did the wrong thing. They then reason themselves into doing the wrong thing again.

01:05:13

What you ought to do is recognize, I messed up, I'm in a mistake, but I'm not going to let that dissuade me from doing what

01:05:20

I must do now. You must keep going. You must keep progressing. You must continue on the straight and narrow, despite the fact that sometimes we wander off of it, despite the fact that sometimes we totally just jump off of it.

01:05:35

You must keep going, you must persist, and you must know that the good deed, the good thing is going to get you where you want to go.

01:05:49

Because in this discussion of the subconscious mind, there's still the admission of the reality and the significance of taking action.

01:05:56

Action does something to us. There is a reason why when

01:06:02

I go to the gym, I'm not going to get an extra 10 pounds after each lift, but over time,

01:06:09

I'm going to acquire that because the action is significant. It is not that I'm going to experience the entirety of divine revelation through reading my

01:06:18

Bible once. It is that I'm going to acquire it patiently over time as I do that for however long

01:06:25

I do that each day. It is not that I'm going to have a perfect relationship and connection with God after one single prayer, but it is that I'm going to enjoy communion and fellowship with him as I, as the

01:06:40

Apostle Paul says, pray without ceasing. These actions are significant, but they are significant because they compound.

01:06:47

So the biblical model would be repent. It is a thing that we do.

01:06:54

Recognize that we are forgiven. Understand to the best of your abilities the significance of that and what that means for you as a

01:07:00

Christian and then how it empowers you to do the right thing. And then ask God for strength and wisdom and discernment in doing the right thing.

01:07:09

If that means you have to cut things out of your life and that means you have to make necessary changes or adjustments, do that.

01:07:15

That is noble. That is the right thing to do. And then to the best of your abilities, fight back.

01:07:22

I also would encourage people to recognize the significance of like, say someone endures temptation for an hour, yet they still end up relapsing.

01:07:36

If they endured it for an hour compared to the last time, it was just a quick five minutes that they gave in.

01:07:42

I would encourage people to still count that as a win. They still, they put up efforts.

01:07:49

Sure, they failed at the end, but the thing they did is more important than the fact that they gave in, right?

01:07:56

Because I want people to be empowered. I want people to know that they are still making progress, right?

01:08:03

In my book, I go as far as to say, when it comes to relapses, a free man is free to learn from his mistakes.

01:08:10

A free man is able to go, I messed up, but I persist. I was thinking of the verse where,

01:08:19

I believe it was in Timothy, the verse where we want to be, you know, we want to say that we ran the race.

01:08:29

We don't need to win the race. We just need to run it. And if we focus on the fact that we're running it as opposed to running it perfectly, oh,

01:08:38

I gotta get the right shorts. I gotta get the right shoes. I gotta make sure I have the right hydration pack. My brother in Christ run the race.

01:08:46

Yeah, 2 Timothy 4. Yeah, I fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith.

01:08:53

No, that's good, John David. You know, I'm sure there are gonna be people probably who want to contact you.

01:08:59

And it sounds like a lot of what you talk about is pornography addiction. And I know there's other things also out there that screen addictions and video games and seed oils, maybe, who knows.

01:09:09

But, you know, I would encourage people to go check out the website and the book. It's johndavidhaskins .com,

01:09:17

johndavidhaskins .com. And it's, how it sounds is how it's spelled. And you can check out,

01:09:24

I Can't Believe How Easy This Is. And, you know, thank you. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Yeah, man.

01:09:29

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. If anybody wants a direct point of contact, just follow me on Twitter at johnhaskinsjr and shoot me a

01:09:37

DM. Tell me that you listen to the podcast and I'll get back to you as quickly as I can. Sounds good.