By: Lexie LaVallee
Barren Passions
Most porn users struggle with deep-seated shame. Porn rewires your brain and your emotions and it severely messes with your creativity. When you’re giving so much of your passion to artificial sex then you don’t have nearly as much to give to other people or other passions. And that causes us to feel shame.
Once shame makes a home in our lives, it becomes the only thing we can see and feel. It colors all of our experiences and our relationships. Shame also takes the form of anger, anxiety, and numbness. At the end of the day, shame motivates a continuation of sin and a reluctance to truly come to the throne which is where we find love, healing, and help.
We are created to be creators but lust puts chains around our creativity and passion.
Shame: The Thief of your Imagination
Shame is not exclusive to those struggling with porn, it’s a common weapon the Enemy uses in all of our lives. There is a difference between guilt and shame.
Brene Brown put’s it perfectly in her Ted Talk on vulnerability: “Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is, “I am bad.” Guilt is, “I did something bad.” “
The solution for guilt is repentance. The solution for shame is forgiveness and acceptance of self by the renewing of our mind with the truth and love of Christ. What do I mean by that? Take a thought and weigh it against the truth, what God says about you and your identity.
Here are two example.
Thought: “I keep messing up. I’ll never be able to stop doing this.”
Truth: “We are more than conquerors in Christ…” Romans 8:31-39
Renewed thought: “Failure is just a part of the process and God isn’t finished with me yet.”
Thought: “I am so stupid…weak…I’ll never be enough.”
Truth: “You were fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:14-16
Renewed Thought: “God doesn’t make useless things. He doesn’t make trash. Lord, I thank you that as I learn about who I am YOU are my strength and wisdom.”
Whatever the negative is, google the opposite with ‘bible verse’ or the exact problem and you’ll have an arsenal of truth to memorize and walk in.
Boredom and Imagination
What does shame have to do with boredom and imagination? Everything.
Did you know that a majority of porn users watch pornography when they “feel” bored? That is the underlying key to opening up your creativity and breaking the boredom that keeps you in the cycle of returning to porn and other unhealthy habits. It keeps your heart and mind locked in a room of fog. It’s pervasive and until you reject shame it will keep you exactly where you’re at and likely drag you into an even darker place.
Becoming MOre
I lived under the oppression of shame for many years of my life. During that time I had no clue what my gifts and talents were. Shame was all I knew and could see. When I finally started walking away from shame and its prison maze there was an entire world to discover more — more of God, and myself. I discovered that I enjoyed painting and writing. I also started to enjoy and love people in entirely new ways.
It had never occurred to me that shame put my imagination to sleep and I had fewer hopes, aspirations, or sources of inspiration. My love for people was only a shadow of what it is now. Once I broke free from it, I had outlets beyond my addictions and bad habits. My brain started making new pathways, and soon enough I was completely free from my old way of living and thinking. You can be too, but you have to be willing to walk away from shame. It may not happen perfectly. You’ll likely mess up, but falling down isn’t grounds to quit the race. There is so much freedom for you at the finish line.
I’m writing this because lust turns us into a shadow of ourselves and we don’t even realize it. The shame creates anxiety and anger and numbness. These feelings bleed into every experience and every relationship. Let’s refuse to live out an empty version of ourselves. Let’s refuse to be slaves. Let’s let Jesus show us the way.
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Lexie LaVallee is a coffee connoisseur and avid dog lover living in Nashville, TN. She has a degree in Psychology from Lee University and attends The Belonging Co. Church. Lexie has been fighting sex-trafficking for 6 years, partnering with non-profit organizations, to help people find redemption and live undefined by their circumstances. Click here to learn more about Lexie.