CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

Recovery Articles

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Recovery Works!

Treating Codependency is not something a doctor does to or for a ‘patient’. It is more like having diabetes. The patient has to learn how to take care of themselves every day for the rest of their lives. Recovery starts when a Codependent understands and has insight into their condition. …I almost always strongly encourage… Codependency Recovery groups. Group is like the gym. It is where a Codependent goes to lift weights and get stronger… Group therapy rocks – it is inexpensive, weekly, powerful, fun, insight building and affirming. Recovery from Codependency is not just about gaining a strong voice. It is also very much about learning how to take good care of one’s self. It is about learning how to take the time to have fun, to exercise, to have a huge hobby that enriches your life and to nurture one’s self well. It might involve getting regular massages, joining a book club, making new friends, scheduling travel with your newly romantic and sensitive husband, getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising often, getting enough help in raising the kids, getting help with the household chores and getting enough alone time. Doesn’t all of that sound great? You can make it happen. You are in charge of your own life. The Recovery process for Codependency is an adventure. It is not torture. Recovery works. You just have to work at it really hard over a period of time. Today is the best day for you to start… From “Codependency – A Serious Disease of Lost, Confused, Undeveloped and Other-Centered Selves” by Mark Smith http://www.familytreecounseling.com/fullarticle.php?aID=278

“Scars are not injuries… A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.” – China Mieville

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Calm Down

First, take a few deep breaths, relax the tension in your body (perhaps by stretching), and slowly count until you calm down, whether this takes 5 seconds, 20 seconds, or more. Imagine your parents and grandparents, a preacher or priest, a respected and well-loved teacher or boss, your counselor, or several policemen are watching how you respond. If you can’t use a calm tone of voice to respond tactfully and respectfully, start counting again and pretend the authority figures are watching. If this doesn’t help, take a time out. Leave and do something else until you calm down. Be sure to avoid angry thinking when you count or leave to calm down. Repeatedly thinking about the conflict only prolongs the upset feelings. If you tend to blame other people or circumstances for your anger, read or repeat every day, “Nobody makes me angry. I make myself angry over certain situations and only I can change this.” If a man’s anger is intense or explosive, don’t bother with counting: he should leave the situation immediately. If he has ever been violent, he should use time out often, at least several times a week for practice and to develop the habit, even if he feels only mildly irritated and doesn’t really need to leave. Avoid angry thinking during time out by getting things done or doing what you enjoy. You might work on a hobby, read a good book, or work on projects around the house. Practicing meditation or deep relaxation is an excellent way to calm down. Physical activities such as walking, jogging, exercising, or bicycling help by releasing tension. Don’t punish a loved one by leaving for much longer than an hour or two. Be very careful if you drive a car because angry people often drive dangerously. Don’t use alcohol or other drugs when you feel angry. If you return and can’t use a calm tone of voice to respond respectfully, despite pretending authority figures are watching, leave again and do something else. As you gradually improve in dealing with your anger, you should be able to reduce the time you need away from the situation to calm down.

“Anger hurts, it drives it burns; friends are lost enemies are gained; anger lies, and steals anger destroys and changes anger is blind…” Taken from “Anger” by Johnny Nathan Botelho

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Somebody Hurt Me – VIDEO

Great sermon from this past Sunday on forgiving those that have hurt us.  Coming from a man that was sexually abused as a child, I have come to understand quite a bit about forgiving those that hurt me.  Nevertheless, this can be applied to various aspects of life to anyone who has been hurt by someone else. If you have been hurt by someone (a loved one, a friend, a co-worker) I urge you to watch this sermon.

1. Forgiveness is the key to healing my hurts.

2. Forgiveness does not mean their actions were “OK” or that I forget what she did. 

3. Forgiveness is a process, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

4. Hating the person that hurt me keeps my hurt alive!

– Hate is a parasite that hurts us, not the person we hate.

5. Forgiving the person allows my life to move forward!

6. Not forgiving others keeps us locked away in a prison, where we hold the key.

7. Forgiveness is for me, not for the person who hurt me.

 

 

Click on this link to view more messages in the Transformed Series:

http://www.thefellowship.org/series/transformed/

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Enough Is Enough

There is a lot of good stuff over at Intentional Warriors.  I encourage y’all to take a look.

Originally posted at: http://intentionalwarriors.com/2014/11/17/enough-is-enough/
by james tarring cordrey

Just a few weeks ago, Enough Is Enough — a non-partisan, non-profit dedicated working toward a culture in which “all people are respected and valued; for a childhood with a protected period of innocence; for healthy sexuality; and for a society free from sexual exploitation” — released a revised version of its earlier report titled “The Internet Pornography Pandemic:  The Largest Unregulated Experiment in Human History.”

It’s extensive. It’s troubling.

Still, it’s important and should be read.

The report is authored by Donna Rice Hughes, the agency’s president, who served on the Child Online Protection Commission and the Attorney General Technology Task Force in 1990s when the Children’s Online Protection Act (COPA) was forged.

Some of the statistics (which are footnoted in the report, but not here on the site) quoted in the report include:

  • Porn Sites Get More Visitors Each Month Than Netflix, Amazon And Twitter Combined.
  • 30% of the Internet industry is pornography.
  • The online porn industry makes over $3,000 per second.
  • Mobile porn is expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2015.
  • The United States is the largest producer and exporter of hard core pornographic DVDs and web material.
  • A Google Trends analysis indicates that searches for “Teen Porn” have more than tripled between 2005–2013. Total searches for teen–related porn reached an estimated 500,000 daily in March 2013 — one–third of total daily searches for pornographic web sites.

In the report, Hughes says that pornographers are marketing themselves to kids using:

  • Free Teaser images:  Most pornography sites do not request age verification of their visitors and offer a multitude of free samples of pictures and/or streaming videos to entice users.
  • Innocent Word searches: Pornographers use popular terms or innocent words that may have little or nothing to do with the content they display they display to increase traffic to their sites through search engines.
  • Misspelled Words: Online pornographers purchase domain names with commonly–misspelled words, such as typing “boyz” instead of “boys,” which can direct an Internet surfer who misspells a word on his keyboard to sites containing extreme hard core material.”
  • Stealth Sites: Online pornographers often purchase “Stealth URLs.” These are sites with web addresses that are close in name to the “legitimate” site.
  • Cartoon Characters and Child Icons: Pornographers misuse popular cartoon characters such Disney characters.
  • Pop–ups and ad Banners: Pornographers often purchase available banner space advertisements on popular websites and social networking spaces hoping to draw young users to their sites.
  • free flash games: Many popular websites integrate interactive, easy–to–use games that are designed to be attractive to children, such as puzzle games, word games, card games, and uncomplicated animated games. However, pornographic games such as ‘****** ****’ are easily accessible to children.
  • e–mail spam: Otherwise known as “junk e–mail”
  • Mousetrapping: This crafty “tech–trick” prevents users from escaping a pornographic site once they have entered it.
  • Looping: A seemingly never–ending stream of pornographic pop–ups that appear on the computer screen that continues until the computer is shut down.
  • Porn–napping: Pornographers purchase expired domain names, so what was once a web address for a legitimate company takes users to a pornographic site.

The report has plenty of other things to say, and it makes a case for a public-private collaboration to reverse the trends in our culture, similar to the campaign used by William Wilberforce when he confronted the slave trade in 18th Century England.

Moreover, the report directly contradicts popular thinking that pornography is both normative and harmless.  While the New York Times ran a piece titled “Does Porn Hurt Children,” written by David A. Segal on March 28, 2014 in which the author concluded that “the jury is still our with respect to the hazardous mix of teenagers an pornography,” Hughes insists that research has determined that exposing minors to pornography is child sex abuse.

Furthermore, Hughes quotes Maryann Laden, PhD, Director of Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program Center for Cognitive Therapy, University of Pennsylvania who has said that “there is a growing body of peer–reviewed research supporting the unequivocal harm to youth from exposure to Internet pornography.

In short, science supports what those of us who have been trapped in pornography addiction found out through experience:  pornography is destructive, endlessly so. It’s cancerous in the way it operates and the way it attacks a person’s soul.  Porn, like cancer, uses a person’s body against itself, all while re-shaping a person’s brain.

 

 

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Men and Women

Male attachment needs are somewhat different from women’s. Men generally do not need verbal communication about feelings or “talks” about the relationship. Nor do they need direct, verbal validation of their feelings or needs. Men have a natural, biological proclivity toward interaction with the environment, more so than the verbally based interactions that women desire. They do need to know they are appreciated, respected and loved. And men are often quite satisfied by having these needs met with direct, physically nurturing behaviors by women. Many adult men feel a basic sense of security and even love simply by the very presence of the significant women in their lives. Men also experience sexual connection as a form of nurturance, acceptance, love, and even emotional security. Sex for men is a primary attachment need – compared to women, who need verbal communication and validation. Men also tend to have fewer friends than women, and when they do, they tend to focus on activities rather than verbal interactions (watching sports, hunting and fishing are examples). Recent findings from modern neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology show there are unique aspects of the male brain (also endocrine and other systems) – quite different from female brains. This includes analytical brain structures (not emotional) designed to solve problems. Men have an inborn, biologically based competitive instinct. They also have an area of the brain designed for sexual pursuit that is more than 2 times larger than females (Brizendine, 2010). The brain circuits for fear, aggression and defense are far more prominent in men than in women. In comparison, women have more prominent mirror neuron systems for emotional empathy. There are no male-specific diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The most common diagnoses for men are addictions, personality disorders such as narcissism, avoidant, and anti-social personality disorders, intermittent explosive disorder, conduct disorder, and ADHD. Depression, however, is very common in men. Men also experience complicating medical issues such as stress-related heart and digestive disorders, and they may also present with a variety of sexual disorders. Other medical concerns may result from drug and alcohol addiction.

“I would suggest that just as women who make it in the world of business need male business mentors, perhaps men who make it in the world of emotions will need female emotional mentors.” – Warren Farrell