Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - So here's the million dollar question. How are men like us who work hard, have good motives and a God given purpose supposed to fulfill the calling on our lives and the dreams in our hearts, all while establishing sexual integrity, thriving relationships, and a meaningful connection with God. That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Cynthia Sam. Welcome to Unleash the Man Within. Yo, yo, yo. What's going on? My man, It's a Sam here. Welcome to Unleash the Man Within. Thank you guys so much for listening. I am so glad that you guys took let's call it ten minutes out of your day to tune in and hear what we're up to here. I'm going to teach you one of the most important, if not the most important concept in all of recovery today. It's called re conceptualization. And look, if you can grasp the essence of this term and actually practically lay it out in your life on a regular basis, things will change.
Speaker 1 (00:01:05) - It would be impossible for things to stay as they were. So I'm going to teach you all about that now really quick before I jump in. Thank you to all of you who have left ratings reviews. We actually just made a little bit of a shift to the host of our podcast because we want it to be able to upload transcripts and we couldn't do that on our previous hosting platform. That has made a huge difference and there's tons of new listeners that are coming in because we're just showing up a little bit more in the places that, quite frankly, we should have been all along. So welcome if you're new, I'm so glad you guys are here. And look, the only way that we actually can make this a free podcast, if you guys like the experience without any ads, without any sponsors, any hidden agendas or ulterior motives, well, that is because of your ratings and your reviews. And so if you haven't done so already, please be sure to leave one on your platform for this show.
Speaker 1 (00:01:55) - Leave a five star rating. Tell the people why you love it so that it'll signal to them they can get help here as well. The other thing you can do for us that really helps is share this with people that you think would benefit from it. Obviously, we're talking about more taboo subject matter, so I know that you guys can't share this stuff to the masses necessarily, but if there's even one person in your life that you think would benefit, send it over to them. They will thank you for it immensely. I'm sure of it. Okay. Let's get into today's content. We're talking about re conceptualization. So here's the idea. Okay. Imagine that you had something traumatic happening in your life, which FYI, everybody has had something traumatic happen in their life, so don't you dare tell me nothing traumatic has happened for me. I didn't have anything like Major growing up, but we all have traumas, whether they're major moments and events or maybe ongoing dynamics, or maybe they're relatively small events, but they impacted us.
Speaker 1 (00:02:48) - Okay, I'm going to give you a great example from my own life. So when I was 14 years old, I had two really close friends. One was called Brad V because we had two. Brad's in our class and one one's last name ended with L, one's ended with V, so Brad V and a guy named Chucky. Okay, those are my two closest friends. And so we used to hang out after school and we would go to the park and we'd ride our bikes together and play sports and play video games and do all that good stuff. And if you've been listening to the podcast for a bit, you know the story. But unfortunately, Chucky took his life when I was 14 years old and he was 15 at the time. That was up until that point. That was the worst thing I had ever gone through in my life. That was the most devastating. The most shocking, the most overwhelming in pain and grief and anger and just everything that you can imagine. The first year that Chucky had passed away, I.
Speaker 1 (00:03:44) - I lived in a certain state of numbness. I was doing fine. It's not that I was miserable and depressed, and it's not like I was, you know, overcompensating either trying to just pretend everything was fine and smile on my face and life is good. I just found myself in this kind of gray, dull, numb area of life. Now, probably the best thing that happened to me in this year was actually on day one. It was March 15th, sorry, it was March 10th, 2005, and were in the student lounge at our high school. The news is starting to spread about what happened. Obviously everybody's kind of taking the day off and us being the closer group of friends that Takaki were sort of the the primary focus of a lot of the caregivers that that had been called in. Pastors and the teachers were there and whatever else. And they were starting to give out some some literature and some pamphlets and stuff like that on how to cope and how to grieve. And one of the one of the bullets I don't there was like four things to do when you're grieving.
Speaker 1 (00:04:51) - Right? And and I don't remember all of them, truthfully. I just remember one of them and it said, pray that God would make something good come out of the bad situation. And I read that and I latched on to it. It was it was like it was the only lifesaver I kind of had in that season and the first year after Chucky's passing. It was there. But, you know, I mean, it was it was crappy, right? Like, let's just be real. It was not not easy. Year two, you start to kind of get the wind back in your sales. And I'm 16 years old at that time. And so I'm starting to drive a car and exciting changes. And obviously life had moved on at that point anyway. But I felt like I started to feel a bit more like myself. And by the time I was 17, I had reached a sort of cross section in my life where I'm trying to kind of guess what career I want to have.
Speaker 1 (00:05:45) - And I'm good at maths and sciences, and I cannot stop thinking about what led Chuckie to make that decision because I had never had those feelings before. I'd never had those thoughts before, and I didn't understand how somebody could reach that conclusion. And out of that came this sort of insatiable desire to better understand the human mind. And so I had some conversations with my friends and I, I was my my parents as well, actually. And I was trying to figure out, you know, what what do I do with all of this? And somewhere along the way, psychiatry had come up and out of that, I kind of made the decision, you know what, I'm going to become a psychiatrist. And what was happening in that process is I began to reconceptualize Chucky's passing because no longer was it a source of great pain and anguish and this sort of skid mark on my high school life. Now, it had it had actually become a catalyst for my career ambitions. That, my friends, is re conceptualization.
Speaker 1 (00:06:54) - It's where something in your life you once saw it a certain way. You had a certain concept, a certain perspective or framework, and to reconceptualize means you are changing your frame of reference. You're changing your perspective consciously. Now, sometimes this happens subconsciously. We have tools today like Emdr in the context of trauma therapy that actually really help us process things rather quickly and reconceptualize almost at a kind of subconscious biological level. But the good news for you and I, whether Emdr is relevant to your situation or something you want to explore, you and I have the ability to re conceptualize every single day. And one of the things I've been really confronted with of late is, is how I'm handling stress. And what I realize is when there's things on my calendar and things to do, aka every single freaking day of an adult life, you know, I feel stressed because I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's stuff to do and I'm going from one thing to the next. And what I've done recently is I've re conceptualized these things on my calendars as privileges.
Speaker 1 (00:08:05) - What a privilege it is to sit down for a two hours every week and record content for you guys. That's not stressful. That's not pressure to come up with something fresh and new. That's a privilege to speak to you and to be able to minister what God's done in my heart into your life. You see that? See that little shift because it's the same thing. But now my my re conceptualization has allowed me to actually capitalize on this opportunity that was always there, but at times can feel burdensome. Now that's actually not a great example because to be honest, I love podcasting all the time, but sometimes, you know, when it's sandwiched in the middle of other things in a busy day, it is stressful. So one of the things that you guys should be doing in your recovery is, you know, if if you feel tempted, for example, and it's like, oh man, this girl's always at the gym, why is she always here when I'm working out? You know, it's just it's the enemy.
Speaker 1 (00:08:57) - Da da da da. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's stop. Let's reconceptualize that. Maybe. Maybe God is actually allowing this to happen because he knows you're strong enough to handle it. And he's waiting for you to start wielding some of the weapons that you've been learning here on this podcast and elsewhere to actually overcome those temptations, overcome those lust of the flesh or the thoughts that the enemy might try to implant and throw you off. So let's see these things for what they really are. And I will end today's podcast with this statement is a statement that makes its way around the personal development circles. I heard it mostrillionecently in in a book, but I'll leave you with this. Nothing happens to you. Everything happens for you. And if you and I can allow that to anchor our thinking. Then every temptation, every trigger, every slip, every relapse, every binge, every streak, every victory, every breakthrough works for us, not against us. It doesn't matter the the nature of it, the essence of it, the emotions don't matter.
Speaker 1 (00:10:11) - The public perception doesn't matter. You and I get to reconceptualize by using all the things in our life for us rather than against us. This is not happening to me. It's happening for me. So that's everything for today. Guys, thanks for listening. Again, please share the word Leave a rating or review on your platform. That means the world to us and it helps us get this great content in front of more people. In the meantime. Hey, love you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. Hey, everybody, it's Thea again. Thanks for listening to Unleash the Man Within. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about a free e-book that I wrote for you called The Ultimate Guide to Porn Recovery. It provides a basic framework for the recovery process and a few of my top tips completely free of charge. You can get it now at WW Ultimate recovery guide.com. That's w w w waltman recovery guide. Com. Now if you've been impacted by the podcast and you want to show some support in less than 60s, there are three ways you can do that.
Speaker 1 (00:11:12) - First, you can leave a rating or review on your podcast platform. This lets people like you know that the content here is valuable. Secondly, you can share this episode with someone in your life that might benefit from the content. If you're passionate about helping other people experience freedom and success in their lives, this is one of the easiest ways to do that. And lastly, you can subscribe. I personally only listen to the podcast that I subscribe to. If you're seeking daily encouragement, guidance and insight in your recovery journey, I highly recommend subscribing to Unleash the Man Within. Thanks for listening. I look forward to connecting with you very, very soon.
Speaker 2 (00:11:50) - The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast by Sathya, Sam and his guests are for general information only and should not be considered medical, clinical or any other form of professional advice. Any reliance on the information provided is done at your own risk.
