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 Sathiya Sam. Welcome to Unleash the Man Within. Yo, yo, What's up, my man? Welcome to unleash the man with him. Thank you so much for listening. I'm so glad that you are here that you took a little bit of time out of your busy day to tune in to what we're up to here. So look, a little life update for me. My wife is 39 weeks pregnant at the time of recording this, and so I am in the middle of a podcast blitz. We are doing a pile of content so that when the baby comes, I can take some time off and you guys can still get great content in your podcast feed.
Speaker 1 (00:01:01) - And so if you think about it, you can throw a prayer up for myself and for my wife in particular. She's for those of you who have been through this before, she's just at that stage where she's very uncomfortable and she's not sleeping well and she just wants that kid out of her. Little does she know that she's going to sleep less and it's going to be even harder on the other side. But I don't know what it's like to be pregnant, so I'm not going to judge. I totally get it. And so if you if you can think of us, pray, pray for us, and I'll do my best to keep you guys updated. Obviously, some of the content for the next little bit is going to be made in advance, but you will get a life update once we're ready to to provide that on a more public platform. So what we're talking about today is the power of God made environments. And before I get into that, I do want to mention that we have some really good interviews coming up.
Speaker 1 (00:01:48) - So what actually inspired today's interview? Sorry, today's podcast was an interview I did with a friend of mine, Josh Johnson, and he does these really cool kind of nature retreats and we had a very robust conversation about getting into creation and the importance of cultivating intimacy with God through more natural means and not being so digital about everything. And so that's a great interview. It's coming up. But he he made this little statement in the middle of the interview. And I just I heard it and I said, you know what, that's worth talking about separately. And so that's that's what today's podcast is all about. Now, if you guys are listening to this podcast, that in of itself demonstrates that you are probably relatively digital people, you probably have a phone, you probably have a laptop or a desktop or maybe both, maybe even have a tablet in there, maybe got an Apple Watch, some kind of smartwatch. If you're like me, you know, you have like a smart thermostat at home and a bunch of other smart devices that help run your house.
Speaker 1 (00:02:53) - I kind of love that stuff. And they are all amazing. You know, the the and they're great just from a functional standpoint. But then you have even really, you know, overtly biblical or kind of Christian concepts around technology like the Bible app, which has been downloaded like, I don't know what it is. It's billions of times and has hundreds of millions of users on a weekly basis. And you can see how, like the digital world has made our lives so much better. And even from a spiritual standpoint, there's incredible value there. The the challenge that you and I face in our world today is this lack of real, meaningful connection. And those of you that have been listening to the podcast for a while, I've heard me talk about how pornography addiction in particular is actually an intimacy disorder. The reason that people struggle with any kind of sexual misbehavior is because they are actually lacking in true, meaningful connection in their lives. And that might be true in a couple of different aspects, the obvious one being connection to other people, whether that's friends, whether that's a significant other, whether that's colleagues or family or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1 (00:04:09) - But interestingly enough, we actually have a relationship with ourselves, know we relate to ourselves in a certain way. We view ourselves a certain way. We talk to ourselves and we talk about ourselves a certain way. And all of these play into our connection with ourselves. And I guess the third dimension to this would be the way we connect with God and when there's there's jointed ness in any of these dimensions, we naturally will seek ways to compensate for that deficiency. And so if I am if I'm at odds with my wife will I will find other ways to experience connection. And it may or may not be healthy, depending on how mature and how developed I am in my journey. That being said, no, no connection is more important than your connection with God. You and I are were made to connect with the living God. And here's the reality. If we needed a spouse to truly feel connected in this life, then that would mean that from the time you were born to the time that you get married, you would automatically be.
Speaker 1 (00:05:16) - You would be at a deficiency, Right? Odds would be stacked against you. It means that somebody who is single their entire life would have no chance of actually feeling experiencing true intimacy and fulfillment. And we know that that could not be true because even the apostle Paul chose to stay single. And he said that he found ways to be content in all things. So we know for a fact that we don't actually need a significant other. Now, do we need other people? Of course, the the apostle Paul, even you know, Paul had Barnabas and he had Timothy and he had all kinds of people that he mentored, plus he had tons of peers. Plus he reported back to the first 12 apostles. So there's, you know, there's lots of interconnectedness. But the point I'm making and where I'm going with all of this is that you and I, above all else, need a fluid, dynamic relationship with the living God. That is the solution to all the intimacy disorders that exist on this planet.
Speaker 1 (00:06:10) - Okay. And and and there's there's no ifs. There's no ands. There's no buts. There's no exceptions, period. Final answer. Lock it in. One of the things that I've been rediscovering in in this season, you know, I've been on this journey of sort of de-stressing, restructuring my life, trying to to live a life that is a little bit more relaxed and regulated and ultimately more focused. You know, I'm trying to just be a lot more diligent and a lot more effective in the work that I'm doing. And rather than trying to do 100 things decently, trying to do ten things with absolute undeniable excellence, and the one of the most valuable things for me in in sort of harnessing my focus and remaining undistracted has been getting into God made environments. What do I mean by that? Well, if you if you unwind by being in the sauna. All right. That's a great example of a man made environment. And saunas are incredibly relaxing. So nothing against them. But it's not the same as walking through a park that's got beautiful trees and lush grass all around.
Speaker 1 (00:07:27) - There are man made environments and there's a value for them. I'm not trying to knock those things. What I would like to suggest to you, though, is that life in the Western world in particular, I know not all of you are in the Western world, but but life, especially in the Western world in the 21st century at large, lends itself more to man made environments. And that's true in the central parts of the world and the eastern parts as well. We become very man made in, you know, how could you not become man made in the development of cities and all that kind of that kind of stuff. But the there's nothing like being in a God made environment. My wife and I are incredibly blessed. You know, I'm a I'm a three minute walk from a beach that oversees a great lake, which more or less looks like the ocean. Unless it's really clear, then you can see I can actually see the city of Toronto's skyline from where I live, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (00:08:18) - But we're near a great body of water. We're near a beach. We're near a conservation area that's all forests and trees and there's squirrels and chipmunks and, you know, things running around. And it's a lot of fun. You know, I like going to the pond and I like playing with the frogs. And by playing with the frogs, I mean, throwing rocks at the frogs. But, you know, that's how we play. That's kind of our thing. We got our arrangement and, you know, I like biking. I bike down the canal and there's there's, there's a lot of things nearby that that allow me to quickly get into God made environments. And not all of you may have that. But I want to just encourage you, there's two big reasons, and I sort of hit on the intimacy piece, but the other reason that getting to God made environments is so powerful is because if you and I can actually regulate our nervous systems better, if we can live at lower levels of stress or if we can come out of high moments of stress more quickly, we actually reduce our likelihood of relapse.
Speaker 1 (00:09:18) - Because if you were never stressed, you would. It is almost certain that you would never relapse or you would rarely relapse. Stress is the driving force behind most of our misbehavior in life at large and certainly in the context of sexuality. So if you are serious about recovery and if you're looking for some low hanging fruit, get into a God made environment and do it every single day. It doesn't have to be hours on end. Maybe you only have a ten minute break and you can just walk down to the park, you know, near your workplace or maybe, you know, maybe at the end of the day, you know, the kids are in bed and you and your wife typically just turn on Netflix for a little bit. Well, before you do that, just go for a 15 minute walk. Just get outside for a little bit, Get in God made environments, do things that are good for your heart. They're going to help you regulate your nervous system. I guarantee, number one, you're going to feel better.
Speaker 1 (00:10:14) - Number two, you're going to feel more connected to God, which we know If you feel more connected, you're less likely to look for other things. And number three, you're going to be more regulated and you're not going to feel the need to try to de-stress with toxic things like pornography. So, guys, I honestly can't think of a better tip I can give you today. That's pretty much as good as it gets. Thank you so much for listening and look as always, if you find value in what we're doing here, share this with somebody that you think needs to hear it. You just might change their life and you help us grow this podcast as well in the process. Thank you so much for listening. Have an amazing day, guys. We'll talk 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.
Speaker 1 (00:10:59) - 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 Waltman recovery guide.com that's W WW alternate 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. 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 (00:12:00) - The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast by Sathiya Sam and his guests are for general information only and should not be considered medical, clinical or any other form of professional advice.
Speaker 2 (00:12:10) - Any reliance on the information provided is done at your own risk.
