99. Taylor Chambers - Fearless Sexuality and Building Intimacy: Insights from a licensed marriage and family therapist

In this episode of Unhooked, host Jeremy Lipkowitz welcomes special guest Taylor Chambers, a licensed marriage and family therapist with over ten years of experience. Taylor discusses his holistic approach to helping individuals and couples navigate unwanted pornography use, emphasizing the importance of living well and fostering healthy relationships. The conversation explores key concepts like fearless sexuality, the integration of mindfulness practices, and building intimacy in committed relationships. Taylor also introduces his upcoming Porn Resilient Marriage Summit and sheds light on how to rebuild trust and intimacy in the face of ongoing challenges. Join this insightful discussion on achieving a balanced, fulfilling life and overcoming the hurdles of addiction.


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Links to Taylor's Pages:
The Porn Resilient Marriage Summit: https://www.taylorchambers.com/a/2147923932/rcu58XUo 

All Access Implementation Bundle: https://www.taylorchambers.com/a/2147924064/rcu58XUo

Transcript

 I want you to have a healthy and peaceful relationship with sexuality. Sobriety will probably be a part of that to a certain extent, right? It doesn't even have to be perfect. We're probably going to get, more and more freed from unwanted behavior in that process, but I'm not trying to root it in.  Let's get you a 90 days sober. Cause then your brain can rewire that kind of idea. I've seen that just fail a lot of clients. And so I wanted something to be, how can we work toward that in a different way? 

  marriage is your meditation.  And I thought that was super profound and then I thought about it, I was like okay, if marriage is my meditation, then home is my monastery. And That daily work of how do I interact with this human being who will never fully understand me and who will never be utterly, endlessly happy. I'm always going to have to deal with something, their unwanted behavior their own opinions. And so intimacy is that. If I can be growing in that direction, I can become more and more fearless, like taking one thing at a time
All right. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Unhooked. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz. Very excited today to have a special guest, Taylor Chambers. Taylor, welcome to the show.

 Yeah. I'm so happy to be here. Really glad we could connect.

 For the listeners who aren't familiar with you and your work, I'm wondering if you could just give people a sense of what it is that you do and who do you help.

 Yeah. Great question. So I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and have been working in that arena for over 10 years. And so a lot of the work that I do is online. So I also work as an intimacy coach. And primarily I'm working with men or couples. That are dealing with unwanted pornography use as a primary presenting issue. But I weave a lot around that. A lot of our conversations aren't really talking about pornography. Much of the time we're talking about living well or relationship challenges or, even figuring out some basic fundamentals of daily routines and stuff like that. So i'm looking at wherever the gaps might be and then trying to help build those things up. And I can get more into kind of like my overall philosophy, but those are generally the people I work with and and try and make a difference for them. 

Yeah, I love that. It's much more of a holistic approach. It's not just about unwanted porn use or porn addiction recovery. It's about living a good life and filling in all the gaps.

Yeah, exactly. In fact, that was a kind of core piece that I built into my approach when I, there was a certain point at which I actually had to rebuild how I approached this work. And I knew that needed to be a central element to it. 

What was the turning point there? 

Yeah. So my story, as with many of us, not with all of us, but my story started with my own unwanted pornography use. And I entered into I guess I would say traditional sex addiction, porn addiction kinds of treatment.  And I actually really thrived and really found a lot of success there. And as my career training took off, I went into graduate school. Since I, I figured I had to have a real job I wanted to be a therapist. And so my schooling was taking me down that path as I got into some solid recovery. That was just naturally what I wanted to pay attention to. I wanted to find ways of supporting people and addressing that. But the whole reason I got interested in Therapy in general was just my own family and seeing my parents divorce basically, and looking at I want to figure, I want to figure out how to do marriage differently in particular. And then by extension that included, more broadly mental health and so forth.  And so I got my undergrad in family science, and then I went and got a marriage and family therapy degree.  And then right out of that schooling, I connected with some other professionals that were doing some pornography and sexual addiction work and got a lot of my initial training in the field, so to speak, on that particular  approach and way of working with people.  And And enjoyed it. It's, hard work. There's a lot that can go into it. There can be a lot of intensity. There can be really tragic elements and just a ton of joy and hope and all of that.  And so I did that for quite a long time. And I started to expand my training to different treatment models, to different populations that I would also work with. And so I became really interested in some other things.  And then the practice, the group practice that I was working out of for therapy ended up closing down. And that was where all my sexual addiction work took place. And I, took the leap into something else and I was actually working with a failure to launch population.  Young adult man, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety. Struggling to make it into the workforce or through, academics or something like that. And so did a lot of different work. And I was in that space of my career where I wasn't emphasizing my practice. I was emphasizing that as my day job. But there came a point when my wife and I were like, Hey let's try getting into the online space. And when I did that, I was like, I think I want to go back into the pornography stuff. But I want to bring a lot of these newer models and approaches that I've been reading about and learning and implementing with these other populations.  And so that was a point at which  I would take some of my dissatisfactions with how I had personally worked, my dissatisfactions with, The field in general and where things felt really sticky or unclear or where things I saw Could backfire for clients if they weren't on the treatment protocol or something like that and so yeah, I designed a lot.

I would say it's more holistic. I do lack certain elements like I wish I had more like Of the physiological training and stuff like that there are certainly elements where i'm like sleep super important You Not a particular expert in sleep though. I'm just going to say, go figure out sleep.

Cause you know, it's going to, it's going to make a difference. But generally much more in the mental health space in particular. Yeah, I'm trying to approach it from a wide variety of angles, behavioral for sure, but also relational.  I'm trying to take a look at, deep and meaningful self care, living the good life and flourishing. And I'm trying to pay attention to healthy sexuality, not just eliminating unwanted sexuality. So there was a lot that I blended from a few different approaches a lot of mindfulness based approaches, acceptance, commitment, therapy and internal family systems is in my book mindfulness it's adjacent And so there's some models that really started to mean a lot to me that I could tell at some fundamental layer  were contrasting with how I had been approaching some of the addiction work initially. 

So anyway, that was maybe a longer story than you were looking for, but yeah, there was a turning point for sure.

yeah, I think it's very helpful just to hear a little bit more about maybe what you thought was missing and

what you started to bring in, which it sounds like more of the mindfulness based approach is also an emphasis on healthy sexuality as opposed to just, pushing away the unwanted sexuality, which is a really important.

part of the stuff we talk about on this podcast. It's very it feels like in the porn addiction recovery space or the unwanted porn use recovery space, whatever you want to call it  there's almost like these two camps. There's one that's very sex positive. And then there's from my lens, it feels like a very sex negative, moralistic, sinful approach to sex.

And I think for people  who are similar to me and many of the listeners of the show, it just feels nice to have people like yourself and people like me who are more in this sex positive. Hey, let's embrace our sexuality and just be full, healthy, rounded human beings that know how to have a healthy balance with these things. 

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times I think of myself as an extreme moderate 

where I can when I interview other people, I'm trying to draw on various perspectives. And so even though there's a lot, I leave behind from the addiction approach. I still try to collaborate and incorporate some of those ideas.

I try not to throw the baby out with the bath water kind of idea.

And then yeah, a few years ago really started to emphasize more of the learning around sex therapy, not sex addiction therapy. So much more of the sex positive much more of the sexual health and wellness kinds of angles. And I feel like not everybody I talked to could talk to each other, but I try and occupy that space where I could like, I could be friends with any room in the cafeteria or any table at the cafeteria.

And so it's funny though, because I think sometimes my viewpoints are yeah, just not quite. What do I want to say?  Not quite liberating enough for some and not quite rigorous enough for others. So I don't know, 

yeah,

I'm hanging out in the middle and I think there's some cool people here. Yeah. Yeah,

because you can get these things on the extreme, which sound very tempting, just this, this is the way, this is the way it has to be, this is how you have to recover and that can draw a lot of people, but, I think often it's the middle path and the more balanced, nuanced approach that might not be as sexy from the outside. 

It really works because it's just Hey, let's understand all these different aspects of human nature and how we function.  I'm curious to know, like, when you look back at your past, you said there were some things that just weren't working for you or things about the recovery space that didn't feel right.

What were some of those things just so that people can maybe keep an eye out for some of those if they're noticing it in their own recovery? 

Yeah, great question. I think for me,  I found a lot of success. I had a significant I guess you would say sobriety streak. I had over five years of sobriety and then I just reached a point and there was a lot going on as you could imagine and reached a point where I had a relapse or a slip, I guess you would say in that terminology.  And it was like a very it was like a horrifying experience for me. And it was like this undesirable, like deconstruction of what I had built. And so  when I was like, okay, time to get back at it. I just found I couldn't quite pick up the same approach that I had used initially.  And so that's when what I had used initially was some of the classic stuff of yeah this behavior is wrong. I need to stay on guard. I'm going to use a lot of, um, I've got a client who I've picked up his terminology recently, but he calls it like self binding techniques or Self imposed restrictions and things like that.  And a lot of it was accidentally retaining a lot of the shame. A lot of my a lot of my self respect was rooted in My performance. And when all of a sudden that was gone, it was like,  Oh shoot. Like now I can't feel good about myself anymore. They go, Hey, I'm not going to sucks. And so there were some things that I had to shake loose.  And I don't know that it had to involve like a, breaking the streak a thing, but in many ways like that, that ended up working. I in high school, I was a dork and I had a 4. 0 and then I got my first B and at a certain point in high school and like the perfect record was gone.  And then all of a sudden I could chill out and relax with school.

My final year of school or whatever was a lot less like worried about grades up until then. I could put together the performance, but it was a lot of stress, a lot of self criticism to keep myself in line.

Yeah, by a similar token like this came about.  And then all of a sudden I was like I no longer want to go back to pushing my sexuality down. I feel like it came up for a reason. I think I need to pay attention to it. And so I went much more into a space, in the following years of learning to release a lot of the shame I had about sex and sexuality how to find. My way with sexuality, like enjoyable expressions of sexuality, reevaluate the boundaries I had and see if they've still really made sense for me. Some of the, some of that was like individual. And then some of that, of course, in the context of my marriage.

So quite a lot of evolution and I still go back and forth, like on the pendulum. Recently, like as of this recording.  I'm like in a big kind of self discipline phase where I'm really trying to use some of those self imposed restrictions again, trying to set up challenging routines that are hard to maintain. And so again, it's not like I,  I don't know, a lot of times it's easy to just like revolt against the old,

but I always I don't know.

What's 

It's like trying to  

yeah, 

yeah. I try to pull out the good.

It's like in some ways it gets messy because it's like trying to stay friends with your ex girlfriend or something

Huh.

We had a breakup, but we're still going to hang out. And I don't know if that always works, but for me, I think that's in this context been very valuable of Hey, addiction stuff had something to say.

It helped me to really take things seriously. It helped me step into a more proactive stance. And. It was also really important for me to be stepping into more of the observers role and like paying attention to what is accepting,

Integrating, 

stuff like that, that became really important for me.

it's such a balance. And I'm glad you bring just that in the nuance of understanding how to balance these sometimes opposing 

viewpoints, on, on the one side, you have the discipline, the holding yourself to a higher standard and saying, I know I can do better than this. And I need to push myself.

I need to put in effort. Obviously, in the extreme that can lead to shame and self criticism. And then on that other side, The self compassion, the acceptance, the hey, I'm okay as I am. And it really is a dance, throughout life going back and forth of okay, maybe I need a little bit more discipline right now.

Maybe I'm getting a little too slack, or maybe I need a little bit more self acceptance, compassion. I need to ease off the discipline and learn how to actually be okay with myself. And I think for all of us on this journey it's a constant dance. We never actually reach some equilibrium in the middle of perfect.

balance between discipline and self compassion.

Yeah, which drives me nuts still to this day, I, I'm still looking for that space. Haven't found it yet. I don't think it's really there. My wife she will sometimes remind me of we talk about balance and so she conjures up the image of a balancing a basketball on your fingertip or something like that. And in order to retain balance, some of the time you're moving your finger left, some of the time you're moving your finger right, forward, back, it's maintaining balance looks like going all the directions, right? It doesn't look like sticking the landing and staying there forever.

So

It's I go to the climbing gym a lot and there's this thing in the stretching area where it's like a log and then there's a flat platform and you have to cut, it's like a surfing thing, and you try to like balance on this thing. And again, it's, the perfect balance isn't someone who's just perfectly in the middle and doesn't move.

The perfect balance is someone who really knows how to just ride in that smooth way and stay on the board. It reminds me of this concept, few years ago, maybe a decade ago, the term work life balance was really popular. And I remember this one psychologist came out with a concept that, we shouldn't focus on work life balance.

We should focus on work life satisfaction.  That this idea that there's some balance you can get to 50 50. It's not really, a helpful concept. It's work life satisfaction. If you're satisfied with the amount you're putting into work, the amount you're putting into your family, that's a healthier outcome.

striving, rather than this just okay, I'm perfectly balanced. But yeah, it's an interesting concept for sure.  I'm curious to know a bit more, you have this term porn resilience and maybe you didn't come up with it, but it's something that I first heard from you. And I'm just curious why, what is this term and why is it important? 

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I can claim coining it. I think I came to it myself, but I've seen it a few other places and I, they surely didn't pick it up for me. Like I wasn't, out and about at that time. And I think that several people have come to this sense. And, um, at first it was like, as is the case for many of my ideas, sometimes  I get like the,  What I want to call it.

And then I'm like filling in the details. So I was like, okay, porn resilient, there's something there. A lot of it came when I collaborated with, um, with another therapist and we were trying to put together. It never took off, but we were trying to put together some material for parents to help protect their kids. And that idea of resilience really showed up there, but then it just stuck around because it felt relevant for everyone.  And so the, I guess the inherent invitation with this term is porn free is a lot sexier and maybe maybe not the best choice of words considering the subject matter, everyone wants porn free, but I think that there's something very important about being resilient to pornography. So with my clients, a lot of times we are aiming for, Preventing, unwanted pornography use.  But a lot of our work is bouncing back from pornography use that we, didn't consciously choose, we might've like compulsively chosen it, so to speak, or we're in a rough patch and we're trying to get back into, a good zone. And again, with parents and kids, it was this idea of Like exposure to pornography was this huge emphasis and we got to prevent exposure  and that just didn't feel like a realistic goal. And so I wanted to make sure that,  yeah, when your kids see pornography, we've got a way of helping them understand that process it, navigate it, talk about it that they've got characteristics that they can still be okay despite that occurrence. And again, it just applies for us as adults as well. It's this idea that, for me, pornography is a,  there's that definition of when you see it a colloquial definition out there. And yeah, yes, that's true. But also like for me, I started to really view sexual, like visual, sexual arousal on a continuum. And it's there's some very obvious pornography. And. And. then there's that girl like in the seventh grade that's sitting across the classroom from me who's wearing a sweater and something's going on there too, right? And so there's this whole continuum and at what point is it pornography?

At which point is it not pornography? And this is a bit philosophical and maybe an unhelpful way, but for me, where it gets helpful is that regardless of What kind of sexual input I receive, whether it's clearly pornography, whether it's something entirely appropriate, but still attractive, whether it's something repulsive or whatever it might be, I want to know that doesn't have to undo me.  And so I want to be able to encounter those things without  losing my sense of self worth like had happened to me, after a huge, push for sobriety and then, Oh, no, it didn't work out. And now my self worth. No, I just want to be able to encounter that, get back to baseline as quickly as possible, and that's the

focus.

So by, by doing that, I think it supports prevention. Like we get better and better at like avoiding things, unwanted things in the first place. It also works toward that end. It's not contradictory, but it's an important starting point for us.

Yeah. I love that so much.

It's 

you can 

something we talk about in my group and on this podcast is just that idea of inner freedom.

It's not about living in some vacuum where you'd never come into contact with anything

remotely pornographic. It's about having that kind of inner freedom where you can walk.

anywhere in the world without any fear that you're going to be hooked by this thing because you have that sense of

time, 

there's it's nothing for it to get hooked onto within you know it's almost being teflon like you could see it and it just slides right off there's no inner addiction because you're free from the inside and i think that's such an important distinction as opposed to a lot of maybe outdated or old school sex addiction or porn addiction programs, which are more abstinence based or just say no, and just this kind of push it away mentality.

And don't put yourself in that situation, which it's helpful to, Hey, okay, don't go into the cookie store if you're trying to, stop eating sugar. But at the same time, it's look at the addiction at the root source in the mind and learn how to be strong from within and maybe, be resilient from within.

I think it's a very helpful reframing.  Are there,

it exactly

yeah. Are there any components to porn resilience that are important for people to understand? Just like a high level overview of what porn resilience is. Yeah.

give a quick breakdown and then with some of these if you're interested we could dig in deeper but  So paired with that. I've also used the term fearless sexuality and So that's exactly what you were just describing that inner freedom And so I want to have a relationship with my sexuality that  doesn't leave me afraid of the next sexual trigger, so to speak, or the next time I feel sexually desirous, or I also don't want to feel afraid of, how long can I sustain this streak or something along those lines.  And so, and in part, it's also really pushing toward, I think there are Scary things to a deep and meaningful sexual relationship with one other person.  And so really taking on the task of pushing into intimacy and facing down those fears that way. And so that fearless sexuality represents a major aspect of porn resilience. And again, I could share more about that, but I also, use concepts like there are a lot of different dialectics that, that I refer to, and that's what we were talking about at the beginning where we take two polar opposites that are usually working against each other and find how they complement each other instead, right?

Bringing the, the discipline alongside the the open acceptance and surrender. And trying to find a way for those to compliment each other. And I'll do a little, a lot with what I call right. Wise restraint  right alongside of enjoyable expression. And we're trying to take a look at,  yeah, how do we have appropriate boundaries and limitations around our sexuality while also diving into making it pleasurable and enjoyable as it naturally is, and as I would want it to be.  And then, another element is again, I'm using all my terminology here. It might stick for some, and maybe it sounds goofy for others, but I talk a lot about the vital life. And again, it's these dialectics of the vital life is, pursuing passion living in a big way, dropping some of the inhibitions that we have and going for it, right?

I feel like. Life is a pretty precious commodity and we only get so much of it. And so I want to live in a authentic and passionate way. And the vital life also means really investing. And sometimes that means doing the hard work. And a lot of times that means  facing down our adversities and our trials and making meaning of that's going to contribute to the overall essence of life. So anyway, a lot of different concepts that go into this resiliency thing. And again, you can see that, yeah, there is this mental health, holistic aim that I'm trying to bring to the work here.  

Yeah. Very important.  You touched on the topic of fearless sexuality. And I'm wondering if you just go into that a little bit. What is that about?

Totally.  Yeah. So again, this is one of those things where, it first sounded cool and then I kept chewing on it and I was like what would that really mean? And what would  So for me, there are three elements to fearless sexuality in terms of like how I'm specifically conceptualizing it.  And element number one is intention which is just this idea of, can arrive at, or at least closer to fearless, fearless is a pretty ambitious, aspiration. I haven't landed in total fearlessness yet, but but intention is a major part of that.  And so if my sexual behavior is on purpose,  That's going to feel satisfying. It's going to be fulfilling. And so again, that's where we get into that wise restraint and that enjoyable expression. We want to be able to say no to the sexual experiences that we don't truly want that aren't actually net benefiting our lives,  but we also want to say yes to the sexual experiences that would be fulfilling and enjoyable that would add something to, to our lives. And that might be again, contributing to a committed relationship. It might even just be, Pam feeling desirous and I'm going to find a way to enjoy that tonight and, on, on my own with someone, whatever it might be. And so the point isn't so much, early career, there was a lot of discussion in the professional world and with my clients around.  Something like, is masturbation healthy or not an idea? And then we can debate about it. And, we make our case and really it's, it's I don't know, it just depends what you're trying to do, right? What are

you trying to do with your feelings? What are you trying to do with your sexuality?  What feels more relevant is the behavior on purpose or is it not on purpose? A lot of times sexual problematic sexual behavior is a compulsive or, approaching on the spectrum of, it's getting more and more compulsive and some of the most harrowing parts of it, like the biggest qualms that a lot of my clients have with pornography. There's the societal level. There's it hurts my wife. I don't like people being exploited. All of that kind of, sucks in a big way, but for a lot of people, it's that sense of it takes over and I do not like being hijacked. I want to be the one choosing here.  And so that's where intention comes in. What I'd also add to intention is this idea that.  However we approach healing, I want to have the right stance, right? I'm thinking of all those Kung Fu movies, like even Kung Fu Panda where they've got the different animals and they each have their own style and their own stance, right? One moves, a lot, one's more steady.  And whatever my goal is, whatever growth work I'm trying to do. I want to first get my feet set and I want to establish an intention for that because just like pornography could be non problematic and enjoyable for someone. It can also be very problematic and, very distressing for another. And  like my own like daily self care routine has been both really self satisfying and promoting productivity and self respect. It's also been really oppressive and like fuel for my self criticism.  And so I want to have intention, not just with the unwanted behavior, but also whatever healing modalities I'm trying to use in my life. I want to have good intention for that. And so that extends beyond sexuality, of course, fearless sexuality means we want to have clear intentions. We're going to look at what are your sexual behavioral ethics? What do you what's your relational agreement? What's okay.

What's not in the context of your preferences and your partner's preferences and so forth. So that's a major component of it. And I'll keep going unless you got questions, but I'll talk for quite a while on the sexuality stuff.

Yeah I'll just, I'll say I love this bringing in the intention part because,

Yeah.

Sex and masturbation and all of that can be so mindless and so autopilot. And I think that's where it causes a lot of harm when we don't actually realize why we're doing it. It's just this. thing we started doing when we're seven, eight, nine years old.

And it's almost this thing that takes over and we just numb out or zone out. And it's

so healthy, just as you say, just

the simple act of connecting with your intention okay, why do I want to do this? What is this going to bring me or how do I want to be in relationship with someone else?

What's my intention behind, wanting to be intimate with someone. I think that's such a powerful starting place.  . Yeah. Continue on 

Yeah. Yeah. And even for, depending on how the clients are presenting, sometimes they, I start my work with somebody who's got a pretty clear, solid intention. Other times it feels like they're starting to work with me because they should there's some religious

sensibilities that are like, yeah, pressuring them to like, Hey, it's not going to be good enough until this is gone.

So you might as well keep working at it. Maybe this guy could help.  And so I'm like don't want to do this cause we should like there, so I'll ask some of those hard questions of but really what is the problem with it?

Why is this distressing for you? And if we can come up with something really solid, then great, then that centers our work.

Yeah, that intention is pretty important for me

as you can tell. Yeah, integrity. So this is the second one and the second of three elements. So again,

 



integrity is much the same way. It's, are we aligned with our intentions or not? Are we aligned with our values or not? And so this is where we get into a lot of the values work and who is it that I want to be?

What are some of the character components that I want to build my life around? Particularly paying attention to the ones that are just inherently there. And really trying to align an integrity with our nature. With you know with some striving, I know I used to want to be all types of people at all time you know, just the best version of everything and so  It took me a while to pay attention to  I'm probably not going to be You know, I'm not the life of the party and you know what that's just gonna be okay Cuz I'm gonna play to my strengths here. So aligning with our nature aligning with our values. That's integrity You And integrity is a really common word. And I think most people are using it in a way that I'm perfectly fine with. But it can sometimes have kind of that sticky again, you should be doing better than you are connotation. And so for me, that's definitely not where, I want it to go. It's integrity with.  It implies that you've done some work already to establish an inner sense of authority, as opposed to trying to comply with some other, standard set that you haven't fully adopted for yourself. The other piece of,  yeah, exactly. Inner compass for sure. And and that's really hard to develop. I still feel like my conditioning, not everyone's this way, but my conditioning was. Very much who are the authorities, obey, that's how I could be a good boy is do what my mom says, follow the church leaders, that's how I felt.

Okay. And and I don't know, in some ways that served me, but it's also.  There's more maturing that I can do if I start to claim more responsibility and more authority. The other element to integrity is that,  the concept of like integration.  So this was really key because this is where I found some therapy models that focused less on problem solving and more on integration, meaning acknowledging the various aspects of ourselves. And helping them work together again, a dialectic type of idea or approach. And this was true for some family therapy and relational work. We're trying to get these two people to like these two very different parts of the system to function and integrate well so that they, they function as intended so to speak. So that's another part of it. So again, that's why I'm really trying to. I'm not trying to get rid of sexuality. I'm trying to reintegrate

it. I want it to be integral. I want it to be in integrity with who I am. And so for me, I take a look at that route and I'm making sure I not only talk about  aligning with values, but I'm talking about welcoming all parts of us and helping them have A role in which they can actually contribute rather than like rivalry or like inner conflict or something like that. 

I love that.

so that's a big part of this fearless sexuality. My pursuit is

 

I want you to have a healthy and peaceful relationship with sexuality. Sobriety will probably be a part of that to a certain extent, right? It doesn't even have to be perfect. We're probably going to get, more and more freed from unwanted behavior in that process, but I'm not trying to root it in.  Let's get you a 90 days sober. Cause then your brain can rewire that kind of idea. I've seen that just fail a lot of clients. And so I wanted something to be, how can we work toward that in a different way?

Yeah, I

love that this 

I 

that sobriety is almost like. The last thing on the to do list, as opposed to the first thing for many people, it's okay, I got to get 90 days. I got to get 30 days. That's the most important thing

And as you're talking about it, what's really important is, Hey, how can I start to live more from a place of integrity?

How can I, live with intention? How can I, have healthy intimacy and live a whole vital fulfilling life. And then sobriety comes as a result of that. as opposed to, okay, sobriety is going to then just naturally give you these things, which it doesn't. It's, you can grit your teeth, clench your fists and, get to 30 days or 90 days.

But if you haven't started living in integrity, finding out what fulfills you, connecting to your purpose, then at some point it just gives away and you go back to your old habits. So I love that almost flipping the priority list of saying, let's focus on living a good life first. And, sobriety will come, and it's important, but it's not where we start. 

I need to get sober so that I can heal. And then I just pitched that back to him. I'm like, yeah, I get it. There's something there. But you need to heal so that you can get sober

is, it feels more, more accurate here. And for him, he was advocating for some detox work.

And so we went into that and what was discovered is that we didn't have quite the right intention. And there was a lot of pushback from the sexual aspects of himself. And so it's just backfiring and it hasn't taken root. And, in some ways, if we're going to be successful with the detox, we need to make some pretty big sacrifices, make some cuts to lifestyle and other things to just, make that easier and more, more successful.

And even those were hard to set up. But we really have been coming back to dude it's about wellness right now. Let's let that, let's let that piece come. So yeah, absolutely. It's there's maybe corporate language, but I want to pay attention to the lead measures, not the lag

measures.

In other words, the lag measures being the outcomes that aren't directly under our control. But that we want that are worth aspiring to and paying attention for, but the lead measures is that's working the process that could possibly

and perhaps even likely result in some of those lag measures.

And also, it's got to be a balanced middle approach. The analogy I like to give is, if you want a plant to grow, but you keep pouring poison on it, like it's not going to grow also. And so there's this kind of, it's which one should I start with? Should I start with healing that can lead me to sobriety?

Or should I start with cutting out the toxic substance so I can have some, some Time and space to heal. And it's a yes. It's like you have to do both simultaneously. It's if just keep pouring poison on your brain, then it's very hard to have that time and space to heal.

And so doing both at the same time is really powerful. 

Yeah. Full agreement, which is why I don't want to discard. Requests for Hey, support my detox kind of thing.

Cause you know what? A lot of times that's a perfectly valid place to, to be spending our efforts.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like I recommend to my clients like, yeah, shoot for, aim for 30 days, have a milestone. Milestones are powerful, but not to focus on the streak as you said earlier, like where you place all yourself worth and importance. If you don't make it 30, 30 days, it's okay.

Great. What happened? Let's explore

what was the emotion there, what got in the way as opposed to

shaming the failure to get the 30 days. 

Yeah it's funny because any intervention, it feels like I've had clients that it's worked brilliant for and clients that it's really backfired for. And yeah, when we get the right intention, that 30 day mark can be really motivating. That can be really powerful for people. I've had people talk about how they're like, I'm finally giving this some real effort.

Yeah. And I've got some of the basic tools and I've got a game plan in place. I have somebody to report to, which feels like it matters.

Cause it does. And and they're like, I just feel so much more confident, having like even gone a week, if it's, if it's been harder to do that for someone.

Yeah,

That's a super valid place to, to begin.

I think having goals around it, it's just very motivating. If you've been, if you haven't hit seven days, since you've been a teenager and then you get that for, just as you say, I have clients who they get that for seven days and they're like, I can't believe I've made it this far.

And you feel that sense of

so good. 

and confidence and energy of Hey, maybe I, it brings hope. Maybe I can do this. So it is powerful to have those milestones, but  not to focus on it too much. Let's let's switch and explore intimacy. Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So this is the third element of fearless sexuality and  for  I don't know that this is truth, but it feels very useful. A useful. framing which is that  committed, a committed relationship, like a long term committed relationship is an excellent place to do your growth work. And we can get taken out by these relationships, right?

They can be pretty, pretty hard. We don't have to have a relationship like that in place before doing growth work, for sure. But there's something about, particularly sexuality. And the pursuit of a long term committed relationship that  it has the potential for intimacy and yet almost every couple is going to encounter some serious roadblocks to actually experiencing that deep and rich long term intimacy. I think that, in the infatuation phase, We get like the highlight reel or the preview of what that's going to involve. And legitimately  nephew's wedding's coming up and, they're just always together, it's the classic thing. And  I would actually say, yeah, okay. There's some intimacy there. There's absolutely a version of intimacy, but of course I'm talking about the version that is developed over decades and that kind of intimacy. The ability to see your partner, to be seen by your partner. And I'm thinking of some songs I've been listening to with, I going to mix them up, but anyway, they've got lyrics where it's just like highlighting, like  we all want this.

And yet it's so painful to be seen by someone. And it's so painful to see someone in their full complication, like their full beauty and their full darkness and, whatever's there. And yet  it demands and fosters this sense of fearless sexuality. If you can find the barriers to a good satisfying sexual relationship, and then of course, even beyond that into a deep emotional emotionally intimate relationship,  it's going to, Demand things of you that you probably don't have yet. And so it's a very solid platform for growth. My wife told me one time you and I have talked a little bit about this, off air, but I've got this deep fascination with the monk life with aesthetics with how do I go off and discover the truth of all things, that kind of thing. And And and we had a fight and and then heads, I think at this point had started to make up, but, just talking about how a lot of our conflict can be about this dialectic of how much do I belong and can I,  Participate with family and sacrifice for the sake of family and how much am I on my own person and how much am I?

Independent and I'm free to do what I want regardless of what other people feel about that. And so  You know, she had a certain point remind we were talking about Yeah, I Taylor. I know you would love to just go, live on a tower and just you know  Be be alone with the sunset, you're, the rest of your life or whatever. And, but she's like, 

 

marriage is your meditation.  And I thought that was super profound, probably a little unfair for her to throw something so deep my way right

then, but and then I thought about it, I was like okay, if marriage is my meditation, then home is my monastery. And

that,  That daily work of how do I interact with this human being who will never fully understand me and who will never do everything that I want them to do and who will never be utterly, endlessly happy. I'm always going to have to deal with something, their unwanted behavior their own sorrows, their, their own opinions. And so intimacy is that. If I can be growing in that direction, I can become more and more fearless, like taking one thing at a time and man, I'll tell you,  trying to bringing my shame, bringing my unwanted sexual behavior, bringing my silly, immature dreams, bringing all of that to another person who's going to see it  and is sometimes going to be super compassionate and sometimes not so much that takes guts. And yet I feel like that's helping me grow to have that that sparring partner to, where we can each kind of level up our work. 

Anyway, so as you can tell, yeah, intimacy is a major. Major element of this whole idea of fearless sexuality for me.

Yeah. There's so many points I want to touch on. One, just the idea that  marriage is your meditation and the home is your monastery. I love that. It's reminds me of this quote. I think it was Ram Dass who said, if you think you're enlightened, try go spending a week with your family. And it's, it's a reminder that our interpersonal relations and our relationships is the deepest training ground for living in integrity and being a good human and confronting our, our shadow.

And it's just, it's such a powerful place. There's almost no better place than in those  personal relationships that we have. The idea  of fearless sexuality, I love it. And I don't want to throw a wrench in your works. But as you're talking about it, it almost kind of, you're talking about how this intimacy and fearless sexuality there is inherent fear involved.

And that's actually part and parcel of the work of going into scary places, going into places that we'd rather avoid. And rather than like fearless sexuality, it almost. Brings to mind courageous sexuality, like courageous, having courage is despite the fear you do it anyway.  And it's like almost this idea that you're never going to get to a place where there is no fear and it's actually the fear is a sign that you're going somewhere important.

And rather than looking for, okay, where can I be fearless? It's like, where can I be courageous?  Where can I enter things with this, Oh, this is scary. I'm about to open up  something that's really sensitive and scary for me to share, but I'm going to do it anyway, because I know it's an integrity.

I know it will bring me closer to intimacy being seen. So it's semantics and I think fearless sexuality sounds sexy. It sounds great, but the idea of courage, I think is so powerful here. 

I'm totally with you. What you're describing is the heart of it. And if someone is to hear fearless sexuality and get excited about oh, I never just, I just don't have to worry about it anymore. Yeah they're missing the point. I remember at one point they even got the language, but with Brene Brown's shame resilience work, I got really eager. This was as part of my addiction recovery. And I was like, Oh, great. Porn never again, shame, same thing, never again. And I'm going

to master this shame resilience. And and yet it took a little while for me to realize oh, this isn't going away,

So yeah, you're totally right.

It's courageous sexuality because the fear isn't going anywhere. You're not going to get past it. it. perhaps represents a a mythological aspiration

that you can be. I'm going in that direction. But but yeah, ironically enough, you might spend more of your life feeling afraid if you're really. Entering into your limits and doing some solid work rather than Hey, I'm not afraid because I just don't challenge myself

here. 

There are two sides of the same coin. That state of courage where you do it anyway, despite the fear and the state of fearlessness, in some ways again, it's semantics, but it has that feeling of, Hey, I'm, I'm powerful and I can do this. And I have that trust in myself that  if I take this leap, if I take this courageous step, I know I can do this anyway.

And and if anything, like fearless sexuality, it's even if just the term itself gets you, gets your foot in the door and opens you up to new possibilities of, Hey, let me explore this in an intentional way.

Yeah. Because, and remember, integration is a major thing for me. And so fear, we're not getting rid of fear. We are learning to work well with fear. And so we're not going to be beholden to fear. Nor are we going to be, blithely ignoring fear. But it's going to clue us in as to, where our limits are and we don't want to go past those limits, but we want to do work at those limits.

And Yeah.

we're trying to integrate that.

Yeah. This has been such a fascinating conversation. I've had so many other questions planned. And so I think we'll just have to have you back on for part two down the line. I wanted to talk to you about relationships and building trust. But for today, I know you have a summit coming up and I'm wondering if you could just tell the listeners a little bit about what's coming up. 

Yeah, absolutely. I am running what's called the porn resilient marriage summit. This is where I connect with a ton of people Jeremy included. And we gather a bunch of experts and I just interview a big pile of people on a wide variety of subjects, all related to specifically how to rebuild trust and intimacy in your marriage, even if you've been struggling for years with, unwanted pornography use. And so this is a place to go if you are feeling. Stuck if you're feeling dissatisfied with how things are showing up again with pornography in the marriage. And so I just know that a lot of people are struggling with like, ongoing arguments or conversations or the politics around, who's managing the phone

And, what's going on and what information is owed and there's a lot that can get really messy and really painful. In a marriage when pornography is, third wheel, what I'm trying to do with events like these is that I just want to like. Kind of power wash things so that we can get blasted into, the next level a little bit. And yeah, I've got over 20 experts  all showing about things like protecting your family and marriage from pornography. We're taking a look at some people's stories of recovery. We're taking a look at the partner's experience of betrayal. We're talking directly about what works in terms of a great apology versus a poor apology. We're talking about, the process of rebuilding trust and kind of the nuance of that whole process.  And yeah, just a lot of really cool people talking about a lot of cool stuff. And if you're interested, you can check out taylorchambers. com. In the near future, I'm redirecting my homepage to the event. If down the road, if you're listening to this a little later, you'll just find my homepage and then you can sign up for my newsletter or something like that and get information for when I run an event like this in the future. But again, three day event. There's a a bunch of content released each day. So you can watch that all for free. If you're interested in recordings and bonus material, you've got an opportunity to get those as well. And yeah, we've got some really fun stuff. Your friend Jeremy here has talked about mindfulness and specifically how that supports the process of addressing addiction. We're going to do a meditation here soon, do a live meditation on the week of the event. So anyway, tons of fun

stuff. I've got a community space. There's just a lot going on, so it's I can't call it a porn party because that conjures up the wrong idea, but it's a big party with a lot of people talking about addressing porn.

So yeah it's a awesome thing. So definitely check it out if that's up your alley.

Yeah. And we'll link to all of that in the show notes. We'll drop some links for you where you guys can sign up and get more info on that. And we'll also link your website. Taylor, it really has been a pleasure to chat with you and I'm very excited for part two to explore more of the relationship side and building trust. 

So thank you once again for coming on the show. 

Yeah, absolutely. So happy to be here. Thanks, man.

All right, folks, that's it for today. Signing off from another episode of Unhooked, we will catch you guys on the next episode.