I haven't even considered that I'd experienced a spiritual awakening as a result of doing the 12 steps. I've had things I'd consider 'mystical' a few times in my life. But nothing seemed even close here. But after about three years of slowly changing how I live my life, something clicked on Tuesday morning (January 2021). It was weird, it's hard to explain, it defies words (so a spiritual experience might be a good way to describe it--indescribable).
Best just to write about what I remember. I was sitting in that low-key moment in the morning. The part between meditating and getting on with my day. The part after I've done a guided or free-flow meditation. After I either focus on my breathing between distractions, listen to an inspiring talk-based guided meditation. While I'm sitting just being for a few minutes, before I jump up and get swept away by the usual distractions and thoughts and tasks. In that in-between space... something clicked. I'm not sure it was a thought or idea, but after this moment something was different. I was letting this thought turn over in my head, something I've thought maybe hundreds of times, and that's my Christian understanding of healthy sexuality. It goes like this:
Each spouse thinks of the other, gives to the other, and by putting the other person first, their needs are met through my selfless giving love. Since both spouses are focusing on giving, that means the other spouse is blessed and receives as a result.
I realised how much guilt I carry around that idea because I think I'm rubbish about being 'giving' in that aspect of life. I can be thoughtful in listening, sacrificial with my time, generous and loving in many ways. But I've always thought I'm a real failure in being giving in regard to sex.
In that moment many things all came together at once and made sense. The reason why I feel like this is because I'm so needy, especially in regard to sex. I've used sex (mostly porn) to soothe all my difficult emotions for several decades. Sexual stimulus and fantasy became my default way to (try to) cope with all my troubles. I see it now and am ready to keep working and keep practicing a new way to go through my pain, sadness, guilt and anger. I see now the more I do that the more I can be available to do sex the way I've always wanted to. Sex was maybe the one and only way for me to try to cope with all my emotions. Orgasms are pretty intense, like a 'reboot' and being wanted and desired is a huge buzz, but those pesky feelings become toxic without a better way to deal with them.
The way to stop pursuing my addiction and stop the 'black hole' of need from growing bigger and bigger and consuming everything, is to keep practicing something that seems to have nothing to do with sex at all: feeling my feelings. I've been practicing and experimenting with this for many months, and so I'm learning (not conceptually or cognitively but practically and through experience) how to feel my feelings and let my feelings happen. I let them happen, I let them be, and I watch and they fade like a fog on a cold morning. I'm practicing letting my feelings be, not pushing them away or punishing myself for them. As I stop rejecting them, they pass through me (sometimes slowly, sometimes faster). The way to be rid of this unwanted thing is to accept it and stop fighting it. Acceptance. Of course.
The other thing that arrived in this short time, part of this good news, hopeful and inspiring is about having needs versus being needy.
It dawned on me that the reason why I'm so needy when it comes to sex, and unable to be selfless, is because I've been trying to use sex to meet all my emotional needs. Angry, sad, confused or feeling down? PMO was my 'go to' (porn, masturbation, orgasm).
Self care, learning to love myself, noticing and gently challenging negative self talk and grappling with the lies that I've felt undergirded and reinforced my addiction. I was practicing saying to myself, saying out loud to others, and reflecting on that I'm not alone, I'm enough, I'm not a failure for not being perfect. Being imperfect means being human. Having needs is part of that. Meeting my needs and accepting that it's fine and normal to have needs was a big 'ah-ha' moment when held up alongside these other perspectives. There's an old macho value deep within me that I am supposed to be tough, I'm supposed to be self-sufficient, I'm supposed to say, 'yes' to everything and I'm not supposed to have needs. I'm replacing that value with something much healthier day by day and every time I am kind to myself.
This all happened after something really important that laid the foundation for this moment. It was an honest and sorta bleak conversation with my Bride. She needed to talk about the frustration about her menopause (again) and her weight gain (again). This time she said she doesn't feel sexual these days (not just today, this week, this month). The old addict driven and needy me would have been crushed.. I used to believe that I needed, PMO. I knew for many years in my head that I 'wouldn't die' (Mark Gungor) but in my heart, I was afraid and I needed. This time I was able to be thoughtful and supportive and say the right things in this conversation with her. She noticed that she didn't see my 'face fall' as sometimes when these kinds of realities were raised. That was a real big sign of progress too. Instead of being crushed, I came out of this conversation with a quiet excitement and odd confidence. I could do this. Something had changed. For a while I was proud of myself and I remember feeling oddly like a 'grownup' now and that I was going to be more of an adult going forward.
A day or so later I was feeling sad about this loss. I recognised I was grieving and mourning the loss of my familiar comfort of some forty years. I talked it out and talked it through with my 12-step fellows on phone calls. I moaned and I complained some. I was glad people didn't try to cheer me up and they didn't try to convince me to see it differently. All I could see was what was gone, and what was going sooner or later. I recognised but didn't indulge the voice/idea to stop being silly and stop feeling sorry for myself. I used my practice to allow myself this need. Needs are okay, needs are fine. They aren't weaknesses or signs of unacceptable flaws.
The next day or so I was talking about the same changes, but I found myself, automatically, without any conscious effort on my part, shifting the perspective to include optimism. I was noticing a hope and a bigger perspective that didn't deny the changes or loss. I was starting to feel and be grateful and thankful that some things have always gotten better in my life and of course that would continue (intimacy, though not just physical). So this is an example of a new pattern that I think I've stumbled on for processing my emotions, both in safe and supportive conversations and in mindful meditative times of prayer and contemplation.
After practicing this sort of self-care for several months, I've been able to face and accept changes that were too much to bear before. I'm meeting my needs (which required me to acknowledge and accept them first) and I'm putting time and effort into allowing my emotions to be in me, to exist and run their course in me, and ultimately to pass through me. For the first time I'm processing my emotions. And that's why I think I'm able to 'hand over' to 'let go' to not need an orgasm and not obsess about it or feel horrible sadness when it doesn't happen. I don't need to try to control my access to orgasms because I'm in control of getting my emotional needs met. Over time my emotional responses will heal and the further my addictive cycle fades into the distance, the easier it will be to not return to those enticing and powerful and originally enjoyable, but ultimately destructive, habits.
