113. Tony Robbins' Five Stages of Lasting Transformation

In this episode of 'Unhooked,' host Jeremy Lipkowitz emphasizes the critical importance of threshold or rock bottom moments for making lasting changes. Jeremy shares his personal journey with compulsive porn use and explores the stages of transformation inspired by Tony Robbins. He discusses how to recognize and use these moments to your advantage for recovery, guiding listeners through stages like satiation, dissatisfaction, threshold, moments of insight, and creating a new identity. The episode encourages proactive actions, introspection, and long-term transformation strategies to combat various forms of addiction.


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ABOUT JEREMY LIPKOWITZ

Jeremy overcame addiction, shame, self-judgement, and depression in his early twenties with the help of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness not only helped him let go of destructive behaviors, it also allowed him to connect with deeper meaning and purpose in his life.

For the past 10 years Jeremy has been teaching mindfulness and emotional intelligence practices at universities, recovery centers, and companies throughout Asia and the US. He holds a Bachelors and Master’s degree in Genetics and Genomics, and spent several years at Duke University working towards a PhD in Genetics & Systems Biology before he turned full-time to teaching mindfulness.

Jeremy is also an ICF certified Executive Coach. As a former scientist and academic, Jeremy has a great passion for bringing his EI based coaching skills into the corporate and professional world. He realizes how powerful & transformative these practices can be for skeptics and senior-level managers. He is known for his calm and grounded demeanor, his expertise in habits and high-performance, and his compassionate approach to transformation.


Shownotes:

00:00 Introduction: The Power of Threshold Moments

00:44 Welcome Back: New Beginnings

01:15 Understanding the Cycle of Addiction

02:32 Stages of Transformation: An Overview

03:18 Stage 1: Satiation and Complacency

05:29 Stage 2: Dissatisfaction and Pain

06:52 Stage 3: The Breaking Point

09:20 Stage 4: Moments of Insight

12:11 Stage 5: Creating a New Identity

14:14 Conclusion: Embrace the Journey

17:21 Join the Unhooked Academy

Transcript

 that threshold moment is so important. 

That breaking point moment. Is the most ripe opportunity for you to make real and lasting change when you hit a rock bottom. When you have these moments of saying, I am so fed up with living like this. I'm so sick and tired of my own. Shitty behaviors, my own unskillful actions.  That is the best time to take action. That gives you that boost. 

It's like a rocket fuel, you want to use that rocket fuel?

To help you go on the journey of recovery.



So be on the lookout for those moments. When you look in the mirror and he's just say, I'm so sick and tired of this. I'm tired of living in this amount of pain  

  📍  📍 ​

    So what's up guys. 

Welcome back to another episode of unhooked. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz. It feels like I've been on a bit of a hiatus the last month or so I've had a lot going on. And my personal life, a lot of logistics and paperwork and things just going on and. I've taken a little bit of a hiatus from really recording new content for the podcast. But I'm back at it now and just excited to dive in once again and create new content for you guys. And this is the first episode of that new content. So, If you're listening to this podcast, I know that you are here because you want something to change. Maybe you're tired of the endless cycle of acting out with porn. Feeling ashamed, promising yourself that you'll stop and then doing it all over again. Maybe it's something else entirely. There might be many different things that you are listening to this podcast for support with might be video game addiction, social media addiction, sex addiction.  Compulsive behaviors around any of these things.  

Personally, I started this podcast because of my own history with compulsive porn use and the effect that it was having on me. I remember the feeling of self-loathing and self judgment. The frustrations that I felt the feelings of hopelessness feelings, like it was never going to change. 

And it was just part of who I was. I also remember the ways that I would minimize it, the ways I would downplay it and tell myself that it wasn't that bad while at the same time, knowing that there was something wrong with what I was doing.  And. It wasn't until I reached my breaking point. Some kind of a rock bottom, some kind of threshold that I had some insights into my addiction and into my life. And that's when I finally started to make some real changes.  And so that's what today's episode is all about. 

It's the stages of transformation and how you can use those stages. Use the understanding of where you're at in your transformation. To really break free from your addiction. You can speed the process along. You can identify where you might be stuck, where you might be stagnating and help yourself. Fully transform and break free from your addiction.  So in this episode today, I'm going to cover these five different stages of transformation. Can this is inspired by the work of Tony Robbins. And I'll also be pointing out some things that you can look for in each stage help you identify where you're at. 

And some things you can do. To help yourself move along. And transform.  So stage one is what Tony Robbins calls satiation as in being satiated, being in a state of satiety. Some other words that we might use for this are complacency or stagnation. Being in the gray zone.  And really. This is about. Being in that place in your life when things feel empty, but not quite painful enough to make a change. 

Maybe things are starting to get a little bit restless. You're starting to realize that. Ah, something's not quite right. I'm not really feeling. Fulfilled with where I am. The things that brought you joy no longer give you that same feeling. It might feel stagnant or empty. And it's this stage of satiation. 

It's a tough word to say, being satiated.  You don't feel compelled to address the problem yet you might not even be fully cognizant that there is a problem. Other than just that subtle feeling in the back of your mind, that something isn't quite right. With pouring, this can look like rationalizing the behavior, not seeing the consequences. Telling yourself it's normal.  It's so easy to tell ourselves, Hey, it's not that bad, everyone does it. 

What's the harm. And watching it once in a while.  For me, what this looked like was just this feeling of emptiness, feeling disconnected from my life and the people around me. Being stuck in that routine, that autopilot. So if you're feeling stuck right now, if you're feeling like you're in this gray zone in this. Feeling of complacency or restlessness or, something's not quite right. I want you to know that this is where transformation begins. So just know that the awareness here is the first step.  So something that you can do in this stage. Is to take some time to journal, to write down the ways that porn is impacting your life. Write down some of the ways that it's affecting your relationships, your confidence, your energy levels. See, if you can be brutally honest with yourself here.



This step isn't about judging yourself. 

It's about getting clarity. Because once you see the cost of staying stuck, you'll start to feel the pull to change.  Now stage to the next stage of transformation is what we call dissatisfaction or pain. And this is where you become acutely aware of the pain of the situation that you're in. You start to actually realize what's missing in your life. 

You can see how porn is impacting your relationships, stealing your energy. You can feel the pain of shame, the pain of self-loathing. And this is where the battle begins. You start feeling like you need to quit, but you don't yet have the fuel to really break free. So in this stage two, where you're starting to feel the pain. You're starting to recognize that there's a problem here and that you actually need to change, but you haven't yet hit that point. Were you. Really have the fuel that, okay. 

I actually really need to do something here. So you're starting to recognize that's a problem. But you haven't yet had any. Any kind of major fuel in your life. That's going to push you to the point of taking the steps to really transform. And you might be in this stage.  You might realize, man there's something wrong with this. And. I want to change, but I'm not really sure how and. I'm not sure if I really need to, or maybe I can. I try to have a healthy relationship with this thing. 

So you might be in that dissatisfaction, that pain stage of transformation.  But that leads to then the third stage. And this is if you continue to not take action and you continue to. Go down that road. What happens is eventually you hit a breaking point. You hit what Tony Robbins calls the threshold. There's many other words for this. 

You might call it a rock bottom. You might call it that breaking point. You But it's when you get to this stage where. In some ways like this feeling of, I can't take it anymore. Something has to change. For many people change doesn't happen until they hit this point.  This is the moment when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of change.  For me, that moment came when I realized how much of my life I was wasting on porn and how it was actually impacting my life. 

And I realized. Where it was leading me. If I didn't make a change. I always using porn as an escape from stress, from loneliness, from boredom.  But the escape was really costing me something more valuable. My sense of integrity. My ability to connect deeply with others. My ability to. Establish long-term healthy relationships with women.  Maybe for you, it will be something else. 

Your breaking point. Might come in many different ways. It might look different for every one of us. But it's that point when you hit that threshold amount of pain and you just realize, I can't keep living like this. And that has to happen. This is where change happens, with Tony. 

Robin says his thresholds are what create change without the pain. We don't change.  So something you can do in this stage is to spend some time visualizing what your breaking point might look like.  You can ask yourself what will happen if I don't change, what's the worst case scenario. If I keep going down this path.  Where will I end up?  This is something that I do with every single one of the clients that I work with is this envisioning step of what I call the default future. 'cause the problem with porn addiction is a lot of the symptoms, the negative consequences of porn, or. They're very subtle and they're downstream and so sometimes you have to do this envisioning step where you say. Okay, where is this going to lead me if it continues for the next five years or 10 years? 

And that might be the only way you can really see the effect.  So that is something you can do at this stage of the threshold stage. 



 

The next stage of transformation is what Tony Robbins calls the moment of insight or experiencing a moment of insight.  And this is when something clicks. You get that aha moment. And when you realize something important.  And this again, can come in many different flavors. 

It can look different for everyone. And you might have many different moments of insight. You might have many different aha moments. I know that I. Have had many moments. In my life and I continue to have them. And there's something that really support transformation.  So some of the insights that I had, and you might recognize some of these.  One of them that I had was that, Hey, my current habits. Are not supporting me. And are not leading me in a positive direction.  Another insight I had is I'm responsible for making this change. 

No one is going to come save me.  And then a third one I had is that I was directly responsible for my own suffering. I had this deep insight that by watching porn, I was actually strengthening the neural pathways for lust. For craving for suffering.  And so part of transformation is having some kind of insight into your life. 

And this stage is really about hope. It's about understanding that  



change is possible. That your past is not your future.  That you can actually live in a different way that you can approach your life in a different way.  There's so many ways that this can come, but the more you surround yourself with wisdom, with knowledge, with. Mentors with inspiring people. 

The more probability you have of having an insightful moment, you can have them totally on your own. You can have just these insights out of the blue, but the more you read and learn and listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos, you're going to have more of these moments of insight. And that is going to be really supportive. For your transformation for your longterm transformation?  

So a real world example here. I was working with a client once who told me about his own moment of insight. He was walking his dog and just while he was walking, he had this insight, he realized he had been numbing himself with porn. Instead of dealing with his deeper emotions. That it was an escape for him. 

It was a way of not dealing with his emotions, not being with the discomfort of those emotions. And that realization sparked a shift in his mindset and gave him the motivation to start. That recovery.  And so again, just, I want to give you some of these examples because. These can come.  Out of the blue. They can come while you're in the shower. They can come while you're reading a book or you're listening to a podcast. So to just be open for these moments of insight.  

The fifth stage of transformation is called creating a new identity. And this is all about shifting how you see yourself. Taking action in line with your new identity. And this is. So fundamental to real transformation is that at some point you actually have to shift who you are and what you believe to be true about yourself. 

If you keep identifying as a porn addict, you'll keep acting like one. If you keep telling yourself I'm addicted. I'm addicted. Then it's going to be a battle for the rest of your life. But if you start believing that you are no longer an addict, if you start really adopting that identity of, oh, I don't watch porn. 

That's when real transformation can happen. If you don't do that, then might be able to change a behavior, but it's not genuine transformation because you might get to the place where you're just using willpower nonstop.  Fighting against your urges to do this thing, so for me, what this looked like was redefining myself as someone who prioritizes emotional intelligence and mindfulness over. Short-term pleasure.  I started to see myself as a conscious intentional man. Rather than someone who is a slave to his desires in a slave to lust.  So an action step that you can do here is to ask yourself, who do I want to be? Maybe write down a description of your ideal self. Are you a loving partner, a dedicated parent.  A leader in your community. And to keep that vision in front of you. Y, to keep it top of mind as you make your decisions each day. Find ways to remind yourself. Of that new identity of, okay. 

How do I want to show up in this world? So that when porn does pop up in your life, that decision becomes easier. Rather than going down the autopilot route and. And, going down the rabbit hole, you can actually make a different decision when you start to believe something different about yourself.







 

So one thing that I just want to say before we close here is that threshold moment is so important. 

That breaking point moment. Is the most ripe opportunity for you to make real and lasting change when you hit a rock bottom.  But when you get to that threshold amount of pain, where you say, I am so sick and tired of living like this. That is when you're going to have the most fuel for genuine transformation. 

  



So to use those moments.  To then take action. In alignment with your new identity. To use those moments because they're so valuable 

 



when you have these moments of saying, I am so fed up with living like this. I'm so sick and tired of my own. Shitty behaviors, my own unskillful actions.  That is the best time to take action because the problem is, if you don't take action, when you're at that threshold, what happens is you can actually slip back into the complacency. The stagnation, that first stage of just being in the gray zone, being empty. And you have to go again through the dissatisfaction, through the pain and then hit another threshold moment. That gives you that boost. 

It's like a rocket fuel, it's. You want to use that rocket fuel?  To help you go on the journey of recovery.  

 



So take that leap, be on the lookout for those moments. When you look in the mirror and he's just say, I'm so sick and tired of this. I'm tired of living in this amount of pain.  So use that threshold to your advantage.  A few other things to remember here. 

Just remember that transformation is a journey. It's not a destination. There's no way you're going to get to where you're going to say. Okay. I'm fully recovered. There is no more craving. There is no more. Desire to numb out or to escape. That's always going to be there, but you get more and more skillful. 

You build the muscles. Of recovery. And it does get easier. I will say that it gets to the point where you just face different battles. For me, it's like porn, isn't an issue anymore. I don't think about it. I don't have to fight against it. It's just, it's not an option. I don't go through a stressful moment and think, oh, maybe I should watch some porn. I have other things I deal with now, 

and so now it's oh, okay. I got to look at my relationship with sugar. And at some point I hit a threshold, and I got to say, okay, I'm sick and tired of the way that I'm using sugar to self-medicate. So remember that this is not about a destination, you get to, it's a journey of self discovery.  Of fine tuning yourself.  Improving your life and making sure that you're the best version of yourself and you're that you're moving in the direction of greater skillfulness. Of more self-mastery. Less compulsive behaviors, less running away where you can just be free within yourself. You can be authentically yourself as you are, where you are. Remember you are not your past, you are who you choose to be.  And that you can change who you are. If you're ready to take this work deeper, I'd love to invite you to join the unhooked academy. 

You can join the community today and get lifetime access to the supportive community where we help you break free from porn addiction. So if you're interested, look for the link to that in the show notes. Or reach out to me personally, and we'll see if we can get you on a discovery call.  So that's it for today, folks. 

I hope you found this useful. Thanks for tuning in and as always, I'll catch you on the next episode.