764 - Why Journaling Is The Most Powerful Recovery Tool
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[00:00:29] Sathiya Sam: [00:00:30] Hey, hey, what's up, my man? It's Cynthia Sam here. Welcome to Unleash The Man Within. [00:00:35] Thank you so much for listening. I hope you're having a fantastic day. And if you aren't, don't worry, [00:00:40] it's about to get a little bit better here. We're going to go to some really cool content today. Um, and I'm [00:00:45] excited to jump into, uh, especially I'll just say if you are.
[00:00:48] Sathiya Sam: Um, looking to get more, , [00:00:50] aware of your inner life. You want to build that, that self awareness, you want to deepen your recovery, or [00:00:55] maybe you've tried a bunch of things, you know, to improve your emotional health and to quit porn and [00:01:00] all that stuff. And it didn't work. Uh, I got something for you today that will, and I'm really excited to share it with [00:01:05] you before I jump into that, uh, very quickly again, it's mid [00:01:10] March.
[00:01:10] Sathiya Sam: I know I keep talking about, you know, it's trans transition month for us. We're making [00:01:15] a bunch of changes to the podcast. Uh, we're elevating the quality of our production level on the whole. [00:01:20] Uh, we are going on YouTube and we're also answering questions, from you guys, [00:01:25] the listeners. And so if you have questions about recovery, uh, that maybe we haven't answered here, or [00:01:30] maybe there's some specifics to your situation, you know, and you just want to get some clarity.[00:01:35]
[00:01:35] Sathiya Sam: We want to invite you to ask your question. You can literally ask it to me and my lead [00:01:40] coach, Sean. We're going to start doing segments, um, that are going to answer these questions and it's [00:01:45] going to be a lot of fun. In fact, some of these segments are already out and I hope you're enjoying them [00:01:50] and look, if you hate these episodes, just don't listen to them.
[00:01:53] Sathiya Sam: And then we'll know we'll be paying [00:01:55] attention to the analytics and we'll see, okay, these guys don't like the episodes, but if you do make sure you're listening, make sure you're [00:02:00] downloading them, make sure you're sharing them with people you love. And we'll do more of them, you know, just to be frank, we will do [00:02:05] more of them if you guys like them more.
[00:02:06] Sathiya Sam: So. The link is in the [00:02:10] show notes. Make sure you guys are submitting your questions. Okay. Uh, what we're talking about today is [00:02:15] why journaling is the most powerful recovery tool that a man can have. [00:02:20] And you know, um, there's a lot of powerful recovery tools out there. There's a lot of [00:02:25] modalities. There's a lot of concepts and frameworks and tools and [00:02:30] devices.
[00:02:30] Sathiya Sam: And most of them have their place. You know, they can play [00:02:35] some useful role in recovery. However, If there's one, if I [00:02:40] had to pick one and it was like, Sophia, you have five minutes to speak to a crowd of 20, 000 people. [00:02:45] You can only give them one thing to help them in their recovery. One [00:02:50] practical tactical tool.
[00:02:53] Sathiya Sam: What's it going to be [00:02:55] without a shadow of a doubt, without any question, I would say. Journaling. I am going to teach them [00:03:00] journaling. Now we've done lots of episodes about journaling over the years because [00:03:05] I am so adamant about this thing being part of your recovery [00:03:10] solution. However, uh, what I want to do today is I want to just, um, I'm going to zoom [00:03:15] out a little bit and give you some perspective.
[00:03:17] Sathiya Sam: On why journaling is so valuable. And then [00:03:20] I will give you the nuts and bolts, although I'll definitely encourage you to listen to the, one of the [00:03:25] first episodes that we ever did. I think it's man's secret weapon is what it's called. And I actually go [00:03:30] into a lot more detail and depth on sort of our journaling method and process.
[00:03:34] Sathiya Sam: So you can go [00:03:35] check that out afterwards if you want the issue that we observe in [00:03:40] clients that we work with. So people who are struggling with pornography. Some of them it says, you know, [00:03:45] short as maybe a few years and some of them it's as long as five six decades [00:03:50] Okay, like one guy one guy was in his 70s, and I think he had been struggling with [00:03:55] you know promiscuity and pornography from the age of 15 something like [00:04:00] that, so literally like six decades of struggling [00:04:05] The one thing that we've learned In, [00:04:10] you know, helping all these guys, hundreds of guys now is there's very few things [00:04:15] that are actually going to help them.
[00:04:17] Sathiya Sam: So, you know, recovery is [00:04:20] not like, uh, you know, there's, there's 30 solutions out there and you got to figure out what works for you. [00:04:25] There is truth to that. You do need to individualize a solution because no two people are [00:04:30] the same. So I do agree with that. The basic foundations of [00:04:35] recovery.
[00:04:36] Sathiya Sam: Actually should be the same for everybody. And [00:04:40] we first started helping people 2018, 2019. And when we did that, [00:04:45] our focus was actually a lot more on, um, you know, we [00:04:50] wanted people to recover from the trauma. We wanted people to shift their identity. Uh, we wanted people [00:04:55] to, you know, plug in a community and we, we were really hammering home these tenants [00:05:00] and there was nothing wrong with them.
[00:05:01] Sathiya Sam: They were, they were all very good. What I [00:05:05] observed is that people were not getting the kind of breakthroughs that they should have been when they were, [00:05:10] you know, doing some trauma work or processing some parts of their past that were [00:05:15] really wounding and impactful. Um, and when we started talking about the identity stuff, you know, [00:05:20] people loved it and they got excited about it and then the momentum kind of fizzled and you could tell that [00:05:25] that whole new identity concept just didn't take any root and I couldn't figure out like, I [00:05:30] was like, why are these guys not?
[00:05:31] Sathiya Sam: Getting the momentum, it's all there and it's biblical and it's [00:05:35] research based and everything looked to be right. And what [00:05:40] I discovered, it was a little bit by accident, but these guys were basically [00:05:45] completely numbed out from their inner life. And so finding trauma [00:05:50] work or finding traumas and, you know, parts of their past that maybe were contributing to their addiction.
[00:05:54] Sathiya Sam: Well, [00:05:55] that was really hard for them to do because they had very little awareness of their inner life to begin with. [00:06:00] And when they did, it was like, Oh, I'm angry. It's like, uh, okay. So, you know, [00:06:05] they, they knew anger. And they knew when they were overwhelmed, but there was [00:06:10] no real understanding of the inner life.
[00:06:12] Sathiya Sam: And when we start talking about identity stuff, it was [00:06:15] the same thing. It was like, yeah, I mean, this sounds great. And logically it was speaking to them, but there was no [00:06:20] impact at a heart level because they didn't have any access to it. [00:06:25] And so journaling has become really paramount for men in recovery because most men that are in [00:06:30] recovery don't have a clear enough understanding of their inner life to change it.[00:06:35]
[00:06:35] Sathiya Sam: Right. You, you can't change something that you don't understand. And [00:06:40] so journaling facilitates that knowledge of the [00:06:45] inner life. It gives us an awareness and an understanding of the thoughts, the [00:06:50] emotions, and the paradigms that are at place on a daily basis. And more [00:06:55] importantly, it helps us understand why they're there.
[00:06:58] Sathiya Sam: What stories are they [00:07:00] attached to? Which people were involved? And, and we start to get a [00:07:05] very full picture. Of the inner life, and now [00:07:10] we can start to say, Oh, well, there's a disconnect there, or this part here isn't [00:07:15] adding up, or, you know, everything looks pretty good, but this, this one thing seems to [00:07:20] come up again and again and again, we can start to actually recognize [00:07:25] where there's issues and where help is really needed, and that means that our solutions are [00:07:30] no longer blanketed.
[00:07:31] Sathiya Sam: Or, you know, just throwing paint at a wall [00:07:35] and hoping that, you know, something lands in the right spot and we get some outcome. [00:07:40] Instead, we can actually be very methodical in our approach and say, no, this, this is [00:07:45] where the problem is. Here's where the deficiency is or here's the disconnect or the dysfunction or [00:07:50] whatever it might be, the faulty belief system, the inability to process pain or manage stress [00:07:55] or whatever it is.
[00:07:56] Sathiya Sam: Once we get that clarity, the solutions become a lot more. [00:08:00] I've said this before, but if I had, you know, an hour to work with someone, [00:08:05] I would probably spend about 55 minutes diagnosing the problem and [00:08:10] five minutes coming up with a solution. , it's the Abraham Lincoln thing of, you know, [00:08:15] um, he has the same thing.
[00:08:16] Sathiya Sam: Like you spend most of your time sharpening the ax [00:08:20] so that every cut you make is worth your while. And in recovery, we want to make sure that we're [00:08:25] having a very similar. Approach. So this is why journaling is the [00:08:30] best way to get in touch with your inner life. Number one, journaling is not [00:08:35] invasive. Okay, you don't have to open up to anyone else.
[00:08:37] Sathiya Sam: And I find that when people are starting out in recovery, [00:08:40] um, you know, that whole leap to talk with somebody can feel pretty daunting. So [00:08:45] journaling gives you an opportunity to yes, open up and actually share rather [00:08:50] candidly, but you don't have to overcome that hurdle. Now, yeah. I want to be clear. You [00:08:55] can't do this forever.
[00:08:55] Sathiya Sam: Okay, I actually thought I could and it didn't work. So journaling has its [00:09:00] limitations, but to get the ball rolling and really to serve as a plumb line throughout your recovery, [00:09:05] journaling is the best way to go. Number two, something happens in our brains when we [00:09:10] write Things down. In fact, there's good research that shows if you want to [00:09:15] learn the best from a book, you not only read the book physically, but you [00:09:20] actually should be writing about it.
[00:09:21] Sathiya Sam: You reflect about it. And that's why I love it when books have, you know, little sections about [00:09:25] reflecting on it. You know, in my book, the last relapse, we purposely provided a free workbook so that people could [00:09:30] reflect on what they learned because when you write out the thoughts yourself. Something clicks.
[00:09:34] Sathiya Sam: Uh, we [00:09:35] learned this in university, you know, when people are doing video teaching and slideshows that you still take [00:09:40] notes because taking notes reinforces the information that you're learning. And I'll tell you, there's been a [00:09:45] couple of times where I, I process something internally without writing it. And I'm like, okay, I think I [00:09:50] got a pretty good handle on it.
[00:09:51] Sathiya Sam: And then, you know, I'm, I'm journaling and I'm talking to God or whatever. And, and it sort of [00:09:55] comes up and all of a sudden I see it written. And I'm like, Oh, that's what that [00:10:00] is. You know, the pattern emerges or, or the issue suddenly gets solved [00:10:05] because you just, you see things differently when it's written out.
[00:10:08] Sathiya Sam: So journaling accomplished [00:10:10] that accomplishes that. And then number three, what I really like about journaling, especially from a [00:10:15] starter's standpoint, it's cheap. You know, you can go to the dollar store for 1, [00:10:20] you get a journal for another dollar, you can get a pen and boom, you can actually have [00:10:25] some really good momentum in your recovery journey.
[00:10:28] Sathiya Sam: So that's why I think journaling is really [00:10:30] the best way to go. And I'll tell you throughout my recovery journey, I was always a journaler [00:10:35] and some seasons I did it every day. Some seasons I did it a couple times a week. Um, [00:10:40] you know, even now, eight years of freedom, I'm still journaling on a very regular basis.
[00:10:44] Sathiya Sam: I'm actually back to doing it [00:10:45] daily, if you can believe that, um, just the season I'm in. So it's been a lot of fun that way. Um, but I'm telling [00:10:50] you guys, if you can really master journaling, if you can integrate it into your regular rhythms of life. [00:10:55] recovery will be just around the corner and all the other efforts that you make in recovery [00:11:00] will be amplified as a result because you're going to build that awareness.
[00:11:03] Sathiya Sam: And then when you get into trauma [00:11:05] work or you start working on identity pieces or whatever, whatever the fabric of your recovery [00:11:10] process looks like, those things are going to be so much stronger because you have that self [00:11:15] awareness through journaling. So that's everything for today, guys. Thank you so much for listening.
[00:11:19] Sathiya Sam: Have an amazing [00:11:20] day. We'll talk soon. [00:11:25] [00:11:30] [00:11:35] [00:11:40] [00:11:45] [00:11:50] [00:11:55] [00:12:00] [00:12:05] [00:12:10] [00:12:15] [00:12:20] [00:12:25] [00:12:30] [00:12:35] [00:12:40] [00:12:45]